I'm gonna go ahead and call the meeting to order.

And uh I'm gonna ask Councilmember Angela Mota to lead us in the pledge of allegiance.

And if you have any cover, please remove your cover and stand.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic, which stands one nation under God, invisible with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, thank you.

Ready for roll call.

I'm here.

Council member Davis.

Present.

Councilmember Phoebe.

Present.

Councilmember Mota.

Present.

Councilmember Thomas.

President.

Vice Chair Mulgrew.

Present.

Chair Moore.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

Um the next item on the agenda is our public comment.

So if there's anybody in the room that would like to speak or online on an item that is not on the agenda tonight, that is not on the agenda.

Um we got a polyfall evening tonight, so I'm going to ask you to keep it to two minutes.

TMC Productions and the Castle Light Chamber, and I just want to take an opportunity to update everybody on uh the parade that happened last week Saturday.

No, two weeks ago already.

It's already on the second uptime flow.

Hold on one second.

I don't want to erupt you, but what I'd like you to do is when we get to the uh sidewalk.

Yep.

And if you could give that update then, you want to do the update.

So let's do it then because uh Gary's gonna speak on that also at the same time.

We've been online.

Um thank you.

Anybody online?

Oh, yes, we have a speaker.

Okay, Colin.

You're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Melissa.

Hi there.

I'm sorry, I missed the beginning of the meeting.

Um I'm calling in for the public comment section.

Is this the correct time to speak?

This is public comment.

Okay, perfect.

Um, hi, I'm a resident on uh James Avenue at the lower end of James, right where it hits Redwood.

And I was just calling to express some concern about the work that was done at that intersection and how it has narrowed all of the lanes, all the the four, you know, exterior lanes on that area, making it incredibly congested and dangerous for turning.

Um, and just wanted to express concern about both car flow and and car safety, but also pedestrian safety there.

It's now even more impacted, and I think the point was to maybe increase um pedestrian safety, and I don't feel like uh that has been accomplished.

Um I'd also like to question or or raise the uh sort of elephant in the room.

If we're investing in infrastructure projects around pedestrian safety, um redoing curbs on the ends of the roads instead of investing in sidewalks on very, very busy walking roads like James Avenue seems perhaps like missing uh the low-hanging fruit.

Um, I'd really like to see more investment in sidewalks and less investment in doing these bump outs and and reimagining of curbs that already exist um to increase you know overall safety of our community, and that's it.

Speakers for public comment.

Do we have any speakers in the room for public comment on an item that's not on the agenda?

Okay, I want to go ahead and close the public comment and move on to the approval of the minutes from October the 20th, 2025.

I'll make the motion to approve the minutes for October 20th, 2025.

Second, first and a second, do we have any discussion or any changes to the minutes?

This notice.

Nope.

Okay, roll call, please.

Councilmember Devini.

Aye.

Council Member Davis.

Aye.

Council Member Feebig.

Council Member Mota, aye.

Councilmember Thomas.

Yes.

Vice Chair Mulgrew.

Aye.

Chair Moore.

Yes.

Minutes approved.

Thank you.

Okay.

The very next item on the agenda is our update from the Higher Patrol.

Um, Officer Jim Pabst.

Good evening.

It's nice to see you all here.

Big crowd.

I love it.

Means you guys are all active in your community, which is my favorite part of Castor Valley.

Um, just gonna give an update.

I apologize.

I wasn't here um the last time to give an update.

I had an emergency I had to attend to.

Um, so this will be kind of a combo update of the last couple of months out and what CHP has been doing.

Next slide.

So for our statistics, um, I realize that sometimes when I provide information, it's just quick and rapid, but here's some comparisons between uh October of 2025 and October of 2024 regarding uh the different things that we do to help out with traffic.

I know there's some new members or new people here at this meeting.

So I just want to explain that uh the California Highway Patrol and the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.

We work together.

Uh CHP, we focus on traffic, and the sheriff's department tends to focus on the penal code and things like that.

So sometimes people are confused, but that's kind of a real quick breakdown of how we work together.

So we this year in the month of October issued 286 traffic citations.

Uh last year we issued 460.

Um that kind of has an asterisk by it.

Uh one of the special enforcement unit officers whose primary focus was on the Castro Valley area, transferred out.

So that number is smaller as due to the fact that some of our officers on the special enforcement unit are also field training officers.

So they've been pulled away to teach new recruits.

So we haven't had as many SEU officers out on the beat, but we still have had uh routine beat officers out there.

So we are still making an impact as you can see.

Uh DOI arrests were uh average, that number did not change.

Injury crashes, we've actually improved a little bit, and non-injury crashes, I would say that kind of has remained the same as well, uh, just two different between last year and this year.

Abandoned stolen vehicles, I don't know what's going on, but there was three this year, nothing last year.

Um we do recover stolen cars, and the sheriff's department also recovers stolen vehicles as well.

So that's not an exact true number to the community, but a representation of the work that we're doing.

Uh I wanted to point out here on Halloween, we had one of our new maximum enforcement periods.

Uh, the commissioner's office at the California Highway Patrol, it's decided to kind of revamp how we do our maximum enforcement periods and holiday enforcement periods.

Um our maximum enforcement periods are kind of geared towards holidays that we know have uh potential for fatal traffic crashes or major injury crashes or having a lot of DUI drivers out on the road.

So this was our first one on Halloween.

It was on a Friday night.

So we knew that there was a potential for a lot of crashes to occur from DUIs.

So we went out and we arrested 24 DUI drivers in a 12-hour period, which uh great job on our part.

I'm so happy that we're able to prevent major incidents from occurring.

However, it's kind of alarming to see how many DUI drivers are still out there.

Uh CHP Hayward, we led the state in those arrests.

So uh we're working very hard in this community, and as well as we also led the state and enforcement contacts.

So not only were we out there arresting people, but we were also making contact with different people trying to slow them down so that they get to their destinations safely.

Through the MEP there, which was a 24-hour period, we only had one major injury crash, and that was where a pedestrian walked into the lanes of traffic.

Um, so it was his fault that he got hit, uh, unfortunately, but we did not have any fatal traffic crashes, which is great.

Next slide.

Um, some past events here.

I just like to show how active we have been in the Castor Valley community.

You guys are great.

You ask for our participation along with the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.

And I tell you, I have a lot of fun hanging out with all of you and getting to know you.

Um, but not only is it the community events that we go to, we also do focused enforcement, such as um the school district's first day of school.

Our goal was in view patrol.

Um we know it's a hectic day for everybody, but we just want to be a little friendly reminder out there on the first day of school to not drive like you're the only one out on the road, that there are many other people out there trying to get to the same locations as you.

Um, the other things that we've done, I put on here the Labor Day weekend, the maximum enforcement period, and then more kind of fun nights, national night out, that's always a great event.

And we have cruise night, which I thought was super fun.

Um I don't know how you all feel about it, but I really enjoyed it.

And then the light parade and fall fest and all the community events that bring everyone together.

Next, all right, uh ongoing enforcement.

Um, our regional side show enforcement task force.

That's where we partner with the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, San Leandro Police Department, and the Hayward Police Department.

And on specific nights of the week, we saturate an entire community to prevent the side shows from occurring within that community.

So we switch between Hayward, San Leandro, uh Unincorporated Alameda County, and we have all we team up with the other police agencies.

And since its inception, which has been almost two years now, we have not had a major side show occur within the communities that we patrol.

So it has been extremely successful, and I believe it's continuing on into the next year due to the fact that we've been able to reduce those large side shows within the smaller communities.

Some special operations that we've done.

This was way back in August.

We did uh school bus stop sign enforcement, which uh we get some traffic complaints on it, which I'm actually surprised because when we were out there, there was a lot of people running the stop sign.

So if you see that happening, give me a call because I want to know where they are so that we can go out and issue traffic citations.

But uh it was it's difficult to do an enforcement operation because it takes up so many resources, but I believe word of mouth knowing that we are out there doing these enforcement operations helps people to realize that you can get a ticket for running that stop sign and that you need to stop and allow those students, even if you're on the other side of the road to you need to stop because they may dart into traffic.

Um, and it's just never a good day when a child is injured, especially when it's something that could have been absolutely prevented.

Um, so if you know of any school bus stop signs or any school bus stops that needs some special attention, uh we have grants from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that will be coming out so we can do specific operations in different communities.

Another on August 19th, just the next day.

Uh, we did another pedestrian enforcement operation out on Lake Shabot Road, and we issued 27 citations in two hours and 15 minutes.

Um I was the decoy, so that means because I am a CHP officer that I'm allowed to be there.

Um, we I walk into the lane into the crosswalk, and I give ample amount of time for a vehicle to slow and yield to me being inside of that crosswalk.

And 27 people did not yield to the right of way of me.

I was almost hit several times.

It's pretty dangerous.

Um, but again, we like to bring this to everyone's attention so that you know no matter what roadway you're on, you should always yield to a pedestrian inside of a crosswalk.

They have the right-of-way there.

Uh, one, our cops team, which is what I'm a part of, our community-oriented police services team.

We have been working on trespassing on state property.

A lot of this trespassing has to do with the unhoused individuals who uh are setting up encampments and things like that.

So I heard your your complaint.

Um, one of the things that is occurring is that we, as the highway patrol or the state police, we're going out to the freeway right-aways and telling these people that they cannot go, they cannot be there on the freeway.

That's really, really dangerous.

So most of the time they'll go find another place where they think that they're not going to get caught.

Um, unfortunately, right now it sounds like it's San Lorenzo Creek.

So I work with uh the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, and usually we go out together.

Um, I know Deputy Burbank has been kind of busy right now, so we're we have a lot of things going on, but our goal is to work together, and we have been for the past couple years of contacting these individuals, and we're trying to get them into housing and utilizing the resources that are available to them.

We know that there is a lot of resources out there.

There's a lot of good hearts and a lot of people who want to help these individuals.

Unfortunately, some of them do not want your help, believe it or not.

So our goal is to tell them that they have to take the help or um unfortunately get a citation for misdemeanor trespassing, and that continues on, then they're gonna have to go to jail for trespassing.

So our goal is to help them, but we treat them all with respect and dignity and things like that.

It's just some of them don't want the assistance.

So we're working on it.

I hear your complaint.

Um, I'm gonna talk to Deputy Burbank about that and see what we can do to make contact with those individuals.

Next slide.

Um, pedestrian safety.

Oh, I guess I already talked about that.

I was so excited.

Uh I apologize.

My the first, the one in August was on Redwood in Modesto, that enforcement.

And then this second one that we did here in September was on Lake Shabot.

I was a decoy at bulls, so um still very dangerous.

And I'm still alive, just barely.

Yeah.

Thank goodness.

So again, it's an issue throughout the community.

I think people are just in a rush and in a hurry to try to get to their destinations and not slowing down and yielding to those who are doing the right thing.

Pedestrians are not protected.

They're not inside of a vehicle at all.

So our goal is to decrease pedestrian related crashes.

And pedestrian enforcement inside the crosswalk.

As you can tell, we're doing a great job.

One of our issues though with pedestrians, a lot of times that we have crashes involving them.

The unfortunate part is that they are outside of the crosswalk.

So they are not yielding to the right-of-vehicles.

And a lot of a lot of them get injured and it's pretty severe.

However, we are not allowed to, it's really hard to do some sort of enforcement operation on a pedestrian outside of a crosswalk because you can't encourage people to uh just cross the street or anything like that.

Um, and then by the time that we are able to contact them, they're long gone because they're on foot and they're able to get away.

So it's very few and far between that were able to stop somebody for not yielding to a vehicle.

But I just want to bring that to anyone's attention who is a pedestrian.

I'm I'm sure all of you here cross inside the crosswalks.

But if you know anybody who likes to cross outside the crowdwalk, crosswalks, let them know.

Um, we'd prefer them to take a couple extra feet and cross safely.

If you happen to be in a neighborhood and there's not a crosswalk nearby, make sure that you're waiting for that car to slow down, that they see you as you're about to cross the road, make eye contact with them.

And if they're driving fast towards your location, don't step out.

Just wait for the car to pass and then cross when it's safe to do so.

Um, just hold on, you're gonna have an opportunity to speak.

So we don't want the whole crowd to start.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Some upcoming events that we have going on for the CHP.

We have uh another holiday enforcement period.

So this is where we are going to have officers, a lot of us out on patrol throughout the holiday weekend.

Um, so it's kind of like my beware.

This is your fair warning.

Um, Wednesday, which is a huge travel day all the way Wednesday, November 26th to Sunday, November 30th.

We are going to have more officers out on patrol.

Uh our focus is in view patrol, meaning that you see us out there so that you are driving properly, you aren't speeding, you aren't road raging with each other, you're just calmly driving and safely getting to your destination.

Um, our goal is always in the evenings to try to get DUI drivers off the roadway and during the day.

It's cell phone violations and speeding and distracted driving is typically what we're focused on.

December is national impaired driving prevention month with the holidays.

Uh, we see an uptick in DUIs, so our goal is to reduce uh in traffic crashes involving DUIs.

Next.

Uh here's some traffic complaints.

I know that uh you I always say, I want to hear your traffic complaints.

I do.

I I enjoy getting them because and I'm able to send officers out there.

So Crow Canyon, we got a complaint, and we had an officer went out who's specifically documented.

They're still out there working, but I just wanted to show these documentations that I get and added that I receive, and then I update our traffic log on August 26th and 27th.

One officer in particular went out there, he issued nine citations over three hours.

The highest speed out there was 88 miles an hour.

Um that's alarming, but 88 miles an hour.

I feel like that's an outlier.

That's not a majority of the cars are going 88 miles an hour that just happened to be one.

Nine citations over three hours.

Um that's not like we're doing a whole bunch, but it does us our presence out there, I believe, gets people to slow down.

Um this California Street complaint.

I received that um for vehicle speeding on California.

I went out there and a couple of our special enforcement units went out there, and we did not observe any violations, but we were out there for three hours.

So sometimes you'll uh we'll receive a complaint and officers go out there and we just do not observe any violations.

I don't know if our patrol car all of a sudden gets people to drive correctly, or it's just we're not there at the correct time.

So if you're calling in these complaints, that's the one thing I ask is just be patient as um the watch officer is obtaining this information.

He's trying to make it so that when we are out there, we're being useful, that our time is well spent, um, that we're actually tackling the complaint at the right hour or the days of the week because traffic changes.

We all know that, right?

Your neighborhood looks a little bit different um from Monday through Friday compared to Saturday and Sunday and things like that.

So just answer the questions, even though they may seem mundane.

Um, and there's some others up there as well.

But if you do have a complaint, please, please, please call our office at 510 489 1500 or email us at the 345 reckless driving at chp.ca.gov.

And we will add it to our traffic complaint log and it'll that's not what our log looks like, but that's how I showed you guys that we document it.

But I yep, that's good.

All right.

Upcoming education, our start smart we have for our youth between the ages of 15 and 21.

Uh, our next class is on November 20th from 6 o'clock to 8 p.m.

at our CHP Hayward office on Whipple Road.

Just call ahead to our office to reserve a spot.

Uh, we only have so many seats there.

But if you know a young driver who could use some tips on how to be a little bit safer out on the road, please contact our office.

And the new office.

Well, I was hoping to say that we were moving in in December, but we're not.

Um, we're supposed to be moving in in March.

Uh at this point, I don't know if it's ever gonna happen.

It just hurts my heart every time I hear this.

So pretty bummed, but it's so our new office is going to be at the corner of Santa Clara in Jackson in Hayward, just east of 880 off in 92.

It looks great.

Look at that.

Yeah, it looks beautiful.

But um, there's some issues with the electrical, so it's not very bright inside right now, I guess.

Um, so we will be moving in at some point, and we're going to have a big celebration at some point.

So you're all invited.

We'll have a nice open house, and I can't wait to see you all there.

Probably Mel will be there too.

Um, but I want to talk about the consolidation of the two offices.

I know that uh having a CHP office in the Castor Valley community was very important to you all, and I want to emphasize the fact that we have not gone away with the consolidation.

We've actually been able to better serve the community due to the fact that we were able to eliminate some redundancy in the Castor Valley office with the Hayward office.

We now don't have to have two tow officers, we now don't have to have two evidence officers, those uh positions were eliminated from the one office, and those officers officers were sent back out on the road.

With that was the creation of our cops team, which I'm a part of, which allows me to go to a lot of community events and our special enforcement unit, which is the ones who are going out there tackling your traffic complaints and just driving around the community being extra officers out on patrol.

So we uh have seen an increase in people being happy with us.

Um, well, most people, um, when they get stopped, they aren't so happy.

But when um throughout the community at the events and things like that a couple years ago, people were pretty upset that the office was closing down.

And I I hear your concerns, I understand them.

Um, but I feel as though it's kind of shifted a little bit where you guys are understanding how we are better or how we are able to better serve you all, and we are going to continue to do that throughout the years to come.

Thank you.

I'm ready for questions, okay.

Um officer Paps, what I'd like to do is open it up for public comment, and we'll go to the council.

And uh, anybody would like to speak and or have a question or statement.

We'll give you two minutes, it has to be at the podium because everything's recorded, and uh, we'll go between online and the room, and um and we will ask Officer Paps to come back up and see if she could address any of the questions or anything that comes up.

So this is specifically for this item.

Specifically for this item.

Thank you for clarifying that.

Okay.

So we have any speaker cards anybody would like to speak on this particular item.

Mr.

Matt Turner Matt Turner.

Matt Turner, you're first I'll be just briefly, speak out of speaker, bring her down, please.

What's it say that?

Did you get a speaker card yet?

Yes it's already I put it up there.

Alright thank you very much.

Appreciate you every day.

So I I uh you know drop my my uh kids off at higher and at the high school uh at Canyon Crow Canyon and um and also at the high school and uh it's crazy out there.

Uh the most dangerous thing in our community is the school pickup drop-off time and uh uh so two things I want to point out one so I you know every day I drive past the Lana Carlos Memorial and think there but for the grace of God goes my daughter and um and so when I see people violating crosswalks and just going crazy it really I mean it hits me pretty hard because I know what the potential is um one intersection in particular is is uh Santa Maria and Wilson on the northwest corner of the high school um yeah I wait there to do a pickup and man the the violations of of the crosswalk and the kids just jumping out of the way at the last second is a daily occurrence and uh we sure would appreciate some eyeballs over there um and then uh I I noted the um uh dead car uh citations and and telling I thought that was purely the domain of the the sheriff's office and glad to hear that we have more parties involved in that um the area of Groveway between Cameron and Redwood Road half of the cars there have expired tags going back to 2020 and I've been calling about that for months and nothing's happened so any eyeballs on that would be greatly appreciated again appreciate what you do every day thank you anybody online no online speakers Jessica Jessica Barrett Jessica Barrett I just have a couple comments um for years when I first came to California I thought the rules about stop buses must be different here because nobody stopped especially people going in the opposite direction I think it would behoove you to put some kind of message out maybe in the forum to let people know they are required to stop in both directions and the other thing I can't believe how many people walk around at night wearing black do they know we can't see them and maybe while you're putting a message in the forum please remind people to wear something to make them visible at night I know my neighbors and their little kids they're now wearing Christmas lights anything so we can see them.

Thank you.

Thank you do we have any other speakers in the room we have any other speakers online we have no online speakers.

Okay I'm gonna close public comment on this item and go to the council for um for comments or any questions for Officer Paps let's uh start with um oh council member Davini.

Thanks, Officer.

Uh, perhaps always nice to see you in person rather than behind me with those annoying lights.

Um, Christmas lights.

Yes.

Uh we have a lot of people in the room tonight.

Uh, can you give us a quick up education on your sidewalk enforcement is to what the excuse me, crosswalk enforcement decoy program as to what the rules are.

If we have four lanes of traffic with a median uh uh island, if you will, uh, is a car required to wait till the pedestrian gets all the way to the opposite curb before they can proceed?

Um, or are they uh in violation if they proceed before they've uh reached the far curb?

So if there is a media in there, uh, which we have not done in operation where there is a median, the median you have to yield to the pedestrian on your side of the crosswalk, right?

Uh so whatever side you're driving on.

If it does not have a median, if it's a four-lane roadway like Lake Chabot or Redwood, you have to yield and wait for that pedestrian to completely cross the entire roadway.

Is that clarify it?

Yes, it sure does.

So Lake Chabot, the decoy operation out there does not have a median.

So somebody at the at the Lake Chabot Crosswalk would have to wait until I'm sorry.

What part of Lake Shiba?

Actually, because Lake Chabot's super long where we did our uh enforcement.

What was the cross street?

I'm assuming you do the enforcement where they have the big flashing lights.

It's a nice pedestrian uh, no, so no, no, that one there, you have to wait or where the you'd have to yield on your side of the islands.

Are you talking about the flashing light one down in front of the park?

Down.

No, further further up uh by the lake.

Further up by the lake.

The yeah, so the one that they revamped that whole uh crosswalk.

So you have to wait for the pedestrian when they're at the divided section and clear of the divided section, unless they're coming into your lane, right?

Like if you see them as they're crossing towards your car, yield to them and let them cross.

But as for if you're on the opposite side and they've safely crossed beyond the divided section, then you are clear to go.

Uh thank you for that.

So you mentioned uh an injury crash with a pedestrian in a car.

Where was that?

A pedestrian in a car, yeah.

When you gave your statistics.

Oh, at the beginning there.

Uh, I think it was on my captain went there, so he was he spoke on it last time.

I think it was on one, I don't want to say just yet, but I can get back to you on that.

I can't remember the location.

Off off the top of your head, have you noticed any increased uh collisions at James and uh Redwood Road?

It's a newly configured intersection that's uh giving some drivers some trouble.

I personally witnessed uh a pretty severe collision.

I don't think there was any uh uh injuries involved, but both of the cars, it was almost a T-bone situation, but it it developed into a side by side.

So both of the cars were just striped all the way from bumper to bumper.

Um and they were pulled over on the side of the road an hour later.

I don't think they ever called CHP.

Oh, really?

Uh yeah, uh uh so have you noticed any increased uh accident?

And I've also noticed a lot of debris in the intersection without actually witnessing uh an accident, but I've seen a lot of debris in the in the intersection suggesting that uh carports are out there.

So as for I personally don't know of any uptick in more crashes in that intersection.

Um I'd have to research it in our crash through our crash logs.

The unfortunate part also, like you said, if they don't call in to report it, we can't add it to our statistics.

So when uh public works is calling to get reports on intersections and things like that.

If people don't call in to report their crash, then it's not documented in our system.

Um but if you shoot me an email, I will I can get you that information.

Okay, and so for the public, can we get your uh email uh address?

Yes, it's Jennifer J E N N I F E R.

Pabst.

P is in Paul, A is in Apple, B boy, S is in Sam, T is in Tom at CHP.ca.gov.

Um on your enforcement on Crow Canyon, you mentioned that uh you you pulled over uh one motor is going to eighty eight miles an hour, and you said that that was an outlier.

It it might have been an outlier, but it's an outlier that happens every single day.

Every single day we have at least one uh car.

Uh I'm down right on the road, feeding my livestock for hours a day.

And so I get to witness all the uh all the stuff happening on Crow Canyon.

You also said that you wrote nine citations over three hours.

Yes.

I'm shocked that it wasn't 19 or 29.

Um because literally I think it could be all day.

I'm imagining uh the writing of a citation takes 10, 15 minutes by the time you've checked.

It just depends.

So I wasn't out there that day that uh that those citations were issued.

Um I know that our special our SEU team has gone out there and wrote more citations.

If there's only one officer out there, which that those statistics were just a solo officer out there patrolling, um, if there's more officers out there, generally more citations are issued.

Um, but it's on our list of places that we frequent so that we know because we have so many complaints on Crow Canyon.

So we're still out there patrolling.

I just wanted to show kind of what uh it looks like with our SEU team.

Excellent.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Councilman Ramoto.

Hi, thank you for your service.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Um, in regards to the pedestrian safety program, um, what are your next locations where you're gonna do this program?

And or can I suggest one as well?

So I'm not sure where our next one will be.

Uh, but if you want to suggest one.

Yeah, I think I think um uh Will Beam and Casha Valley Boulevard.

There is so much activity in that corner, pedestrians, cars, people that are trying to get their coffee very quickly, and they are moving fast and they're not stopping for people that are crossing the road.

Yes, that's all I got.

Thank you.

Gosh, we're reviewed.

Good to see you again.

Great job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I remember last time you were here, you said that you had a main enforcement day.

I think it was June something.

Was that in June?

The which enforcement day?

I think it was called a main enforcement day.

Oh maximum enforcement.

Maximum, yes.

Yes.

I was I was just wondering when when you have one of those, what's the difference between a regular day and a maximum enforcement day and maybe from the June experience?

So our maximum enforcement days are all hands on deck.

Although our captain is out there issuing citations, our lieutenants, our sergeants.

We're typically they're generally in the office running the operations of the entire office.

Uh it's the maximum enforcement days.

I put them, we kind of put a broadcast on our social media and things like that, which we encourage you all to follow.

Um, where we are going out there and we're saturating the community, and whatever the focus is, um, I think I can't.

Was June, June was speed.

So our goal is to slow everybody down that day.

So we're stopping every car.

Not every car, I'm sorry.

Don't quote me on that.

We're stopping as many cars as we can for speeding um to try to lower the mileage death rate and things like that and bring attention to these common occurrence that occurs every day, all day, right?

People are speeding.

But our goal is to make a huge impact and get the word out that we mean business and we want everybody to slow down.

Um, the other maximum enforcement periods, again, all hands on deck.

We're out there uh April's distracted driving month.

So we're out there focusing on distracted driving, whether it be cell phones a huge obvious one, I feel like, but eating, putting your makeup on, brushing your teeth, all sorts of stuff that people should not be doing while driving their car.

That is also the focus as well.

Just cell phones happen to be the one that most people break the law with.

But yeah.

You actually pull people over for eating or putting makeup on.

Well, yeah, if they're sort of like somebody's eaten a burrito even, or I don't know, they eat a lot of stuff, sushi with and a fork and a salad, and they're eating and like driving with their knee.

Yeah, I don't think that's safe.

So yeah, they're gonna get pulled over.

Okay, good.

Um, did you say there's money for the bus stops in those areas and in the Alameda County?

So we get grants, um, and we just had a meeting, and each area is allocated so much money for the grants, and we're gonna put out a big public announcement.

I maybe might have uh jumped the ball on saying that, but uh yes, the CHP will announce like how much uh money is going towards different programs, and one of those is um pedestrian safety at school buses.

Okay, thank you.

And then uh lastly, when you go out and spend like three hours on a complaint in an area where it's being complained about, you know, it seems like maybe you could miss things.

Um for my personal experience is I drive through the what's it called uh the hamburger island over that area getting on and off the freeways and stuff like that.

And I see all sorts of obstacles going, like people going down the wrong way where you're not supposed to, is that Norbridge, I think, where they go around the island, you're not supposed to go that one direction.

Oh yeah, you're supposed to go.

You know, I've seen people jump and actually end up on the cement island where you know you're supposed to go around it, but you know, then their cars are in there.

Yeah, this door, yeah.

And there's no obstacles that you know, like plants or where you could see that you know there's a curb this tall.

So and their cars wrecked when they end up there.

I see people running stop signs and driving down the wrong road, you know, but it's not all the time.

Like, you know, if I stood there for three hours, you know, I don't know if I'd see one, but since I drive over the weeks, I might see a couple.

So what's the odds of catching someone in a three hour period if even if it's a hot area?

And so the three hours that's a combined total of time spent, like California Street, for instance.

Um, I went out there, I'd go out there for 30 minutes at a time, different times of the day, different days of the week and things like that, because maybe I'm missing something, or so we don't just go out there for a big chunk of time and report it and call it oh, it's over and done with.

Okay.

We are our goal is to kind of fluctuate and go throughout sporadically so that we can hopefully find people who are violating the law or driving recklessly or just dangerously.

Um so the three hours is just a combined total in those traffic complaints.

And like I said, that's why I like specific details on times when like you were driving through and you saw that happen.

Well, let us know that time.

So then maybe hopefully it won't happen again, but it could uh just because of an increase of traffic during the afternoon commute or something that would cause someone to drive wrong way.

Right.

Okay, well, thank you, and thanks for being part of the community and coming out and uh um updating us.

My pleasure.

Councilmember Thomas.

Thank you for being here.

Always great to see you.

Thank you.

Uh, the my first question is electric bikes, right?

Electric bikes, you know, they come in and out of traffic.

Yes.

And I'm not talking about the regular bikes, the electric bikes that fly through.

But when they say traffic, what they do is get back on the bike lane, and then they fly through there and then come back in traffic.

So I've seen three or four times.

They almost cause accidents.

People are slamming on the brakes.

And I was dropping my daughter off one day.

If she didn't see him, I wouldn't have seen him because it's coming right through, you know, like high high pay.

I mean, speed is high, I mean like 40 miles an hour.

So which law is what laws do they follow?

Do they follow the traffic laws or do they go with, you know, if there's bike lanes?

No, so they are a part of the vehicle code, just like even on a regular bicycle that's not electric, you are required to obey the vehicle code.

So if you're on a bicycle or and or an e-bike, you have to stop at a stoplight.

You have to stop at a stop sign, you have to yield to pedestrians and things like that.

So they fall under the vehicle code.

Um e-bikes, I feel like have blown up in the past couple of years, even COVID and things like that.

Um there's new laws coming out for the e-bikes uh January 1st.

I'm not well versed, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not well versed on them.

E-bikes are not my specialty.

Um they there's so many different ones out there, but we are educating ourselves on them to hopefully bring awareness and education to uh these bicycle riders.

Um, but I know January 1st there's new legislation where we'll be able to tow some of these e-bikes um for not being registered and driving recklessly and not being over 16 if they're over a certain speed and things like that.

So there's more coming out to kind of try to help manage them.

And I know some of them they're riding wrong way on the roads and things like that.

It's very dangerous.

Um, I don't to me it's scary that they even think of doing things like that, but without helmets on, nonetheless.

So um if they're going to be using the traffic laws, they need to be licensed and they should have insurance and all that stuff, right?

Depending on the speeds of the uh bicycles and things like that.

And I don't want to quote anything just because there's different the i it was a couple pages long, so I'm I did not memorize any of it.

I just thought I would refer back to it when I was in a situation not being put on the spot in front of everybody.

So I don't want to quote anything, but um it is there and you can take a look at it.

If you want to email me, I can send you over the information that uh we do have available to us, and when we're out there, that's what we pull up, but I don't have it memorized.

And uh I just wanted to I didn't mean to put you on the spot on it.

It's okay.

But um, I just don't want anybody to lose their lives.

I mean, it's just in the electric bikes and it's dangerous.

And you know, I've seen myself three or four times.

I could have hit them.

Right.

But so I know I don't know how they go into schools, these kids are coming out with electric bikes coming all over, it's kind of very dangerous, actually.

And young kids driving these e-bikes out there who've never even driven a vehicle and don't understand the blind spots in a car when you're making a right turn and things like that.

So yes, they are very dangerous.

Um, but we're going to try to get some education out to the community so that young people who are out there on, as well as adults, I'm gonna be honest, um, they need to know rules of the road and being safe while on two wheels.

Thank you.

And there's my second question is um not a question, it's a comment tailgating, right?

You know, some of us are following the law on the Crow Canyon because you guys are out there, yeah.

So uh we go 40 miles an hour, 45.

Right, depending on the range.

But you know, you got people that like you said, 88 miles an hour coming behind you, they want to go.

And I want to pull over to the side, but there's no room to pull over in some spots of Crow Canyon or Redwood Road after the golf course.

Yeah.

Uh it's kind of dangerous to go to a side, but you might end up in a ditch.

So uh also please look at tailgating too because people are following 45 and 50 around around that area, but you know, they want to speed in past you, you have to wait.

So, it's just trying to get a whole community to calm down a little bit and realize that tailgating is not the way to get anyone to go faster.

Yes.

Yep.

And uh the third thing, as uh the speaker talked about nighttime.

Um, I think we've discussed the beacon lights or um, you know, when people are crossing when they're pressed that uh, you know, switch, you know, the lights come on.

Yeah.

And uh, you know, if we can put that on some of the crosswalks, especially on Crow Canyon where there's really dark and you can't see the crosswalk person, yeah.

When they're press on that thing, the light comes on, people know somebody's crossing.

So public works has been pretty responsive.

Um, one of our big the where we do a lot of our pedestrian enforcement out on Redwood and Modesto, they're actually they have it in the works to revamp that crosswalk to make it one of those um most or press activated crosswalks.

So if there is one that you know that needs attention, I would suggest reaching out to public works and mentioning it to them and asking if they can take a look at that crosswalk to perfect and uh my last thing the school bus stop.

Um she talked about uh on Redwood Row, right?

It's four lanes.

So when the school bus stops, or all four lanes need to stop, right?

If there's no divided section, if it's just like double yellow lines, yes.

Double yellow, all four lanes need to stop.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Yes, uh, thank you.

Just clarified one of my questions as to if there is a divided, is if it's a divided highway, you don't have to stop for a bus in the opposite direction.

Yes.

Um, when I first learned how to drive, they when it came to pedestrian laws, the pedestrian had the absolute right of way.

Yes.

And then they modified that such as that uh a pedestrian could not step out in front of a vehicle that could not safely stop for that pedestrian.

Now I mean that's like jaywalking.

Jaywalking is is only is defined as uh between two controlled intersections.

Yes, which is a traffic signal and a traffic signal.

So any other location, someone crossing, it's not considered jaywalking, but it's they uh it's the pedestrian's responsibility or risk at doing so.

Yes, so then also remind people that every intersection, there's a crosswalk, whether it's marked or unmarked.

Yes, so my traffic engineering uh lesson for the day.

Yes.

Um I have no other question.

Thank you so much for your work.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Mulberry.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you, Officer Pabst for being here and for your good work in the community.

Um, a couple of weeks ago, I was going eastbound on the boulevard and like two or three cars ahead of me.

I see this fast food bag come flying out of the window, and a couple of seconds after that, the rest of the milkshake comes out.

I couldn't get a license number, but is that highway patrol that should be called if there's a fence?

Either that's a vehicle code violation for littering, so yeah.

Is that prosecuted?

I mean, if if we catch them, yeah.

Okay.

We can issue them a citation and it's pretty hefty.

And I believe they have to do community service as well.

Do you have to catch them in the act, or can a citizen complaints uh serve as inspiration?

Typically, we catch we have to catch them in the act, but um if it becomes egregious or you know, like illegal dumping and things like that where you have a license plate number on the vehicle, then we can do an investigation into it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Officer Pabs, thank you for being here.

Um, I just have a couple quick comments.

Uh last thing you showed is a picture of a vehicle that was gray and it was kind of a new color for cop cars.

Oh, yeah.

That was the front.

Was this one gray?

Is this a purple one?

I think this is a is it kind of in disguise, and you're you're getting those are fantastic tools, the new specially marked um Dodge Durangos.

They've been great at apprehending reckless drivers um because we do blend in, but we they are still marked, so you can tell it's a police car when you're looking at it, but when you're driving recklessly over 100 miles an hour on the freeway, you may not necessarily notice it.

So we have some of our SEU team who takes them out.

Um those vehicles main areas that they patrol are on the freeways.

Um that's where we have an increase in highway violence and racing uh at much greater speeds.

So their main focus when the officers are driving that car is to be out on the freeway to prevent all of those crimes, but they've been doing great.

Um I I'm just sitting here wondering, um, I know Danville City often will park uh an abandoned uh officer's car in a bank parking lot.

I was wondering if we could get some of those old cars to park around.

I'd be willing to buy one to park on Crow Canyon Road.

Um, you know, I'm sure you would, Chuck.

Uh we I cannot tell you whether or not you can do that.

I would have to look into that.

Um, I I'm not sure whether or not you can.

We don't have any spare cars right now.

I'm gonna tell you that.

Um, we have a lot of officers, and our goal is to get all those cars out on patrol every day.

But right now we don't I don't know if you can or not, but you can call me later and we'll discuss that.

Yeah, I just remember a professor a long time ago said that um when people said they can't change and he said, Well, you ever were going 85 miles an hour on a freeway in a cop car pull up behind you?

What do you do?

Slow down, slow down so you change.

Yeah, so change is possible, yes, for everyone.

So um, if we could get find out a little bit about that, it would be great to park around in different places, and uh just a visual.

Oh shoot, I better slow down.

I'll make it one step better.

How about this?

So we have our senior volunteers who go out and they are not police officers, but they go around and you might call them a decoy, but really their job is to kind of observe what's going on.

So we have a lot of school zone complaints.

And if an officer, we don't have enough officers to go to every school and be at every school every day.

But the senior volunteers, their responsibility is to go out and drive these school zones and report the different violations that they see.

Sometimes Proctor has cars passing on the double yellows.

So they report that back to us.

So then we can see an increase of whether or not there's more um issues in a specific school zone, and we'll send an officer out there.

And it's not that our officers are being lazy or anything like that, it's just the fact that we don't we can't be everywhere all at once.

So there are some eyes for us and they report back to us.

So it's kind of like a decoy, but there's actually people inside.

Um, because uh the idea is to slow people down.

Yeah, um, they don't need a ticket.

Um, well, they maybe they do.

Um, the next thing is is here last week um during our parade.

Um I participated in it, and I remember getting off of the main route that we were traffic was held up, and there was um from what I understand some sort of a road rage incident that was down the road, it trickled into Castro Valley somehow.

Do you have any information on that and what happened?

And uh, because I've had a lot of people in the community asked me to what happened there.

Yeah, and it had nothing to do with the parade.

Had nothing to do with the parade.

It was outside of it, from what I understand.

Yeah, that was a very very tragic event.

Um, my partner and I were first on scene, um, and we did a preliminary investigation and turned it all over to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.

So they're the ones who can speak more about the investigation.

Um, but we just tried to secure the scene and redirect the parade.

I know it kind of got a little chaotic there at the end, but we were just trying to make sure that that flowed the parade route flowed smoothly and that the investigation was handled properly.

Thank you.

Um any other questions from the council?

No more the comments.

This is an informational item only.

Um we often ask Officer Paps to come in and give the community an update on what's going on and give them community an update an opportunity to um share with officer Paps some of the things that may be of concern.

So I do thank you.

It's uh, and we really appreciate it.

Thanks, Chuck.

I appreciate you inviting me here every couple months.

I enjoy it.

Are you ready for my email, ma'am?

Yeah.

Okay.

J E N I F E R dot Paps, P is in Paul, A is an Apple, B is in Boy, S is in Sam, T is in Tom.

At C H P.

Ca.gov G-O-V.

You're welcome.

If you guys do shoot me an email, please mention that you heard me speak at the Castor Valley Mac meeting because I get a lot of emails, and sometimes I'm like, I don't remember meeting you.

So if you send me an email, just say, hey, I spoke at the Mac meeting.

Okay, thank you, Officer Pabs.

And we look forward to seeing you in another month.

Thank you all.

Have a safe night.

Or on the road somewhere.

Hopefully not, Chuck.

Yeah.

Unless you want to flag me down and say hi.

Okay.

Okay, uh, we're gonna move on to the next item on the agenda, and that is a sidewalk vending update.

And this was really triggered by a lot of conversation we had um during our parade.

So um I want to ask um the organizer of the parade to kind of jump in there first and give us uh an update on the parade and some of the sidewalk vending issues that we had, and then uh after that, um we'll go to uh Gary, the Chamber of Commerce, who was very engaged in the um the process, and then um Holly from Code Enforcement is here along with the Sheriff's Department to um give us uh uh a background on what's going on.

So, Mel, if you don't mind jumping in there first, I'd appreciate it.

Mel name your Mel Street.

Um Mel Speed from TMC Productions, and I am the event organizer for the Castor Valley Chamber to do the light parade.

And uh this was our 13th year of organizing the parade, our 11th year of actually executing it.

We had to cancel it twice, once because of fires and once because of COVID.

Um if anybody attended two weeks ago Saturday, um, you saw probably the largest cloud you've probably ever seen in Castor Valley.

It was pretty phenomenal.

Um we had the most entries we've ever had.

We had 72 registered um entries.

Um we had every single school registered, brought their kids to the event.

Um Castor Valley High for the first time brought their uh their band as well as three other groups came and participated in the parade, which was amazing.

So um, and then we had 53 street vendors and 13 food vendors on site.

The event went from three o'clock to nine o'clock.

Parade kicked off at about 5 45 and ended about 6 45.

So it was a pretty long parade.

Um, as far as the uh food vendors, um, it was pretty remarkable.

Um I don't know exactly how many food vendors show illegal food vendors showed up, but we had was it 11 or 13 food vendors?

We had uh 13.

We had 13 food vendors, and I'm going to guess we were outnumbered five to one.

There was probably for every one food vendor we had, there was five illegals there.

Um selling food, product, balloons, you name it, they were selling it.

Um, and unfortunately, Alameda County did nothing to stop it.

Zero.

Um one of my vendors called me on Sunday morning, and he even mentioned that when the inspectors were actually inspecting his booth, that he said, I don't mind you inspecting my vote with what are you gonna do about the two guys standing behind you?

And the response was we'll do it if we get to it, and they did nothing.

Um this has gotten way out of control.

Um the food vendors that we had there paid anywhere between 189 to 211.

Sorry, am I not taking a lot of enough?

You you I'm not talking loud enough.

That's not like Mel Speed.

Um our food vendors that were there paid anywhere from 189 to 211 to be there on site.

And um, I don't know about you, but that takes a lot of hot dogs to make that money before you even start breaking even.

Um it's just uh it hurts us, it hurts our event organizer, it hurts our chamber, it hurts our community every time this happens because we're not these people that there are legally that are there legally are getting hurt financially and being fined basically by the county.

They have to pay 189.

Why doesn't everybody else have to?

So um that's about what?

Thanks.

Well, um, if we have any questions, we're gonna come back, okay?

Uh to the end, Gary, you want to give us an update from the chambers.

Uh sure.

Um, so uh a little bit about the parade, a little bit about things in general.

Uh my name's Gary Slate, president and CEO for the Castor Valley Eden Area Chamber of Commerce.

Uh I speak on behalf of both the chamber and many local businesses in the area, both pop-ups that uh were at a parade and brick and mortars that are here every day.

Um I'm here to today to express support for the proposed sidewalk vending ordinance.

I believe it is an important step toward creating a safer, fairer, and more orderly environment for both vendors and the community.

Um, we do have a few concerns.

I'll I'll abbreviate, but one is enforcement.

We want to make sure that this is an enforceable uh ordinance.

Um, you know, when it comes to identification of people, um, I personally interacted with many at the parade.

Most of them would say they don't speak English.

I'd bring up my Google translator, so that wasn't an excuse.

Uh, but we are worried about IDing um people uh when it comes to uh first warning and then a second fine, et cetera.

Um as uh Mel alluded to, uh we did have uh about 50 vendors at the event.

Uh we had several uh that did sell food, several others that did toys and items that uh did file an environmental health permit there, and also uh paid to uh have a space uh there to sell their wares, where we had lots and lots of um non-authorized vendors show up and sell everything from hot dogs.

We saw somebody smoking right over the hot dogs, they were trying to sell uh lots of safety violations.

Uh we saw lots of uh people selling balloons and things, even running uh through the parade while the parade was going on.

Uh, the authorized vendors were not allowed to go outside of their area while the parade was going on.

Obviously, these unauthorized vendors were doing that, creating a lot of safety issues.

Um, we did have um uh code enforcement was on site trying to keep the road clear.

Um, they are waiting on the sidewalk ordinance to pass.

Um, so we we are um uh very much looking forward to an ordinance.

Uh the one that has been proposed, maybe not perfect, but it can always be tweaked as time time goes on.

Uh, you will hear about it in just a little bit.

Uh, and we think it's it's 80% there.

We would be you know far enough to uh um get there.

The other thing that maybe uh uh answered later, but where does that warning come?

If somebody comes to the light parade and given a warning, uh, are they then asked to leave the premises?

Because a lot of times when we do that, they just circle around and come back to another spot in the event.

Um, so would that now be the second?

Um, even though it was the same night because they did specifically receive a warning.

So we'd like a little bit of attention paid to that.

Um, like I said, overall, we think sidewalk vending ordinance is a positive step, uh, but its success will depend on thoughtful implementation.

Uh, I urge the county to prioritize enforcement resources and provide clear guidelines on how officers can appropriately identify individuals, even in cases where formal ID is not available.

Um, I would also like to offer the chamber uh resources for any vendors that are interested that will need assistance, getting uh sidewalk vending licenses, learning how to do it the right way.

Uh, we are definitely here.

Uh, one last thing I didn't have here is we did have uh a number of instances where we went up to people, we asked them to leave the area because you know we we did an encroachment.

We have a permit here, and uh there was a lot of um aggression, foul language, stuff like that.

So when it does come time to enforcement, uh we might look at a task force doing this, say with the sheriff as well as uh code enforcement andor environmental help.

Thank you.

Thank you, Gary.

Yeah, okay.

No, so thank you.

Just hang in there, don't cut out because we may have some questions that you may be able to address at a later time.

Um Holly?

Thank you, Holly.

Good evening, everyone.

My name's Holly Felix.

I am the senior code enforcement Officer for Alameda County.

I would like to provide you with some ordinance status updates first.

Next slide, please.

For those who are not aware, the sidewalk vendor ordinance was adopted on September 11th, 2025.

The county adopted an ordinance regulating sidewalk vendors and unincorporated Alameda County.

The intention of the ordinance is to facilitate sidewalk vending activities in accordance with SB 946 and 972 while also promoting public health, safety, and welfare.

The ordinance regulates the time, place, and manner.

Code enforcement is responsible for the administration and enforcement of the sidewalk vending ordinance.

Code enforcement is also limited to administrative fines.

On October 9th, 2025, the first reading of the ordinance amendments was conducted.

At that time, we added subdivision 7C to section 3.36030 to establish an annual permit fee of 273.

We also added subdivision B to Section 3.36030 to enhance posting and notification requirements for potential regulation revisions.

On November 13th, the second reading of the ordinance amendments was conducted.

And then tomorrow, November 18th, we have scheduled a public hearing to solicit comments to adopt the sidewalk vendor regulations.

In January 2026, we will be in full force to support code enforcement sidewalk enforcement ordinance regulations by providing outreach, education, permitting, and enforcement.

Next slide, please.

The violations of this ordinance and regulations issued herein shall not be prosecuted as infractions or misdemeanors.

We are limited to administrative fines.

For the first violation, we'll be issuing a warning.

Second violation, 100, third violation, 200, and each violation thereafter will be 500.

If a sidewalk vendor violates any portion of the chapter and cannot present a sidewalk vendor permit, it will be a warning 250, 500, and 1,000.

A recap of our enforcement in 2025.

So we have been in support mode in 2025.

Our enforcement team consists of environmental health, code enforcement, and the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.

Environmental Health is responsible for the Food and Safety Code.

Code Enforcement is responsible for the sidewalk vendor permit and regulations, and Alameda County Sheriff's Office is to secure our safety and support.

In 2025, we've done 29 inspections.

That was from January 1st to November 4th, 2025.

We've also provided support at the fall festival, the Raoul Ranch Rodeo Parade, Cruise Night, and at the Light Parade.

At the Light Parade, unfortunately, I was not available.

Ed and John performed the inspections that night.

They found a taco vendor in front of Citibank.

They contacted environmental health and they shut down that taco vendor.

This is not the same taco vendor that's been on the corner of Redwood Road and Cash Valley Boulevard.

It was a separate vendor.

So we were successful in shutting that vendor down that night.

The rest of the night they focused on asking unpermitted vendors to leave the event area and to open up the pedestrian walkways.

During our inspection enforcement procedures, what we do is we first initially contact the vendor, we introduce our agency representatives, we clearly explain the purpose of the visit, and explain the food violations if there are any.

From the vendor, environmental health issues and notice of enforcement if operating without a valid health permit or in violation of the health and safety code.

We request the vendor's signature on the notice and provide a copy for their records.

Environmental health impounds food that is deemed unsafe for consumption per the health and safety code.

This is a copy of the handout that environmental health provides to the vendor with the citation.

This is another education outreach handout that environmental health provides.

Next slide, please.

So I know the big topic of discussion is the enforcement on Cash Valley Boulevard and Redwood Road.

This taco vendor with a red canopy.

We have been chasing him all around Castro Valley.

So we first found him in Castro Valley at Redwood Road on February 13th.

We confiscated his food, gave him education outreach.

He then went to the BART parking lot.

I saw him here when I came to a meeting on February and contacted BART there next day.

So I made contact with BART police.

So that's been a very easy movement.

Once they're on private property, we're able to get rid of them.

But on the county right of way, they have just been moving around our town.

So as you can see in Cash Valley Boulevard and Redwood Road, we've confiscated their food on February 13th, April 17th, June 5th, June 25th, October 1st.

We tried on October 2nd, but when we arrived, the first thing they did was grab that piece of meat and put it in the van.

So we were unsuccessful in confiscating the meat on that October 2nd date.

The Tamali vendor, who's there regularly in the mornings.

We have done an inspection there on February 20th, 6.5, and again on 9-6th.

We've taken her food and she continues to come back to the corner to sell.

Next page, please.

As you can see, we've made many enforcement attempts.

We were there on June 5th, we seized an assisted uh environment health issued a seasoned assist order, provided education outreach, and confiscated the food from the barbecued vendor and tamale vendor.

On August 14th, we did a seasoned assist issued by environmental health for the churro vendor, handouts provided, no confiscation was done.

On September 10th, Environment Health issued a seasoned assist issued to the barbecue vendor, handouts provided, no confiscation.

And then October 1st, again the same barbecue vendor provided handouts and confiscated the food.

And October 2nd, we handed out information.

Confiscated the tacos and papuses.

Oh, I'm sorry, no confiscation was done on October 2nd because all of the uh confiscation truck was full of material, and we had no more room to confiscate food on October 2nd.

You can fix the screen there, please.

Thank you.

So we currently have nine locations that I'm monitoring.

Cash Valley Boulevard or Redwood Road, Paseo Grande.

Well that Canyon Middle School, Creekside Middle School, Castro Valley High School at Santa Maria.

We found that there's a vacant lot on Santa Maria, that a food truck was housing there, and they had multiple vendors on the street and on the private property.

We also have a location at East Cash Valley Boulevard on Palo Verde, which is a fruit and tamale vendor, the food vendor in front of Lake Chabot, Hesperon and Llewelling Boulevard, and then Western Boulevard and Sunset.

So our next steps for enforcement for the sidewalk vendor ordinance implementation is to completely develop outreach and education materials, develop public awareness campaign, complete developing permit process forms or materials, provide adequate permit processing support, the permit coach through an ECD.

They volunteered to assist with the permitting process, develop a permit certificate and decal, develop enforcement notice citation forms, and the update the CD planning website to conclude to include the sidewalk vendor content.

Our county enforcement plan is to continue coordination with the county enforcement team, which is the sheriff's office and environmental health.

We will allocate adequate staff for site inspections.

We will provide education and outreach materials at first inspection.

Environmental health will evaluate conditions for food vendors to determine if confiscation will be necessary and/or issue citations.

We will issue citations for second and subsequent violations.

We will be following up tracking and monitoring vendor locations, and we are going to increase our proactive site investigations.

We are also going to monitor social media, coordinate with event organizers for future events.

We will continue networking with the Bay Area Air Bay Area Code Enforcement Network, also known as BASIN.

I also want to mention that I attended a code enforcement conference last month with over 1,300 code enforcement officers, and the biggest topic of discussion for the conference was sidewalk vending.

My main goal of the conference was to talk to other cities and counties to find out how they are enforcing this program.

And it's common throughout the state.

The best enforcement tool is confiscation.

Basically, environmental health is confiscating the food, and most jurisdictions have public works confiscating the equipment.

It's known that the red tents, it's not a mom pop shop.

This is a business.

We ran the license plates, the business owner lives in Sacramento.

Talking to people at the conference, they've confirmed they've issued citations to the same person in Sacramento.

These are people throughout the state, statewide.

And I intend to be at all the future events.

I need to enhance our safety protocols.

The importance of having the sheriff's office with us is that code enforcement dresses in plain clothing.

We do not have anything for our protection.

So we must have the sheriff with us in order to enforce.

Recording the entire investigation during the confiscation.

Some have made a protocol to limit their inspection time to 15-20 minutes to collect knives first.

So I'm looking into a lot of different safety protocols to make sure that we are safe during these inspections.

We need to ensure that we have adequate staff and to cover nights and weekends, and also to secure permanent funding.

How to file a complaint?

You can submit a complaint online.

You can file a complaint through our portal.

You can call our code enforcement general line.

You can call the code enforcement.

I'm sorry, email the general code enforcement, or you can contact me, Holly Felix.

There is my contact information, and the code enforcement managers, Equit LaBayog.

I do have members from my team here.

Deputy Ing and Environmental Health.

We can answer any questions that you have.

Is environmental health have anything to add to the presentation?

Mrs.

Valerie, I believe you're here right.

So at this time you have nothing to add to the presentation.

No, I don't have anything to add to the presentation, but I just wanted to say we're working in this end of endlessly together to try to resolve the issue.

I mean, it's challenging.

I mean, there's 14 cities in Alameda County, and we have to enforce the same thing that we're doing in Castro Valley in these other cities as well.

So it's been challenging about overtime.

I think we've blown our budget for overtime.

I think we had a budget of about 75,000 for the year.

I think we're probably over at 150,000 or a little more now because of this.

It seems to not be working at this point.

So every time we get a complaint, every time we see an unapproved vendor on the sidewalk, we have staff going out.

But like I said, I'm the I it's just a joint effort, it's all over all the counties.

You see that same red tent everywhere.

So we we've worked with Holly uh to run uh plates to track this individual down and try to send out notice of violations, but I mean they're still showing up, they're still coming.

So I think the effort right now is to try to collaborate with other agencies, probably like public works.

They have the infrastructure, they have the yard, they have the trucks and trailers to probably take the next step, which is to confiscate the larger pieces of equipment.

Uh we're able here, we're able at Alameda County to confiscate like chopping boards and knives and things like that, but we're not equipped to have a where we have a yard to store these things or have a trail a truck with a lift gate to roll these six foot or eight-foot walks or steam tables or griddles on and load them on a truck.

I mean, also again, one of the vital things that she talked about was safety.

Uh and this gentleman also spoke about it as well.

So uh it's tough when you see unapproved vendors on the sidewalk, and all you can do initially is educate if you don't have the support of the ship, uh, because they do get a rate.

They tend not to listen, you know.

Um, I think a couple times they're held up the night and showed it to us and try to scare it or tear us away.

So those are some of the challenges that we have.

But like I said, we're working over time to try to get this problem addressed.

And I know the same individual is popping up here, but every time he comes, we try to confiscate the food and discard it until we can get something in place to take that next step where we uh work with other agencies and collaborate to take the larger pieces of equipment.

Because uh, like she said, we in her presentation, we do have to authority to compensate some equipment or authority to confiscate equipment, but again, we're not set up to take those larger pieces of equipment, you know.

Okay, I wanted to say I'm gonna go ahead and jump into um public comment, and um well, anybody that would like to speak on this uh and we'll go back and forth between the room and the um online folks, and we're limited to two minutes because we're gonna be uh another item on the agenda after this.

And um, I have a couple of sp speaker card here too.

So Chuck, so uh Chuck, can we get this gentleman to uh uh identify himself, uh name and title, please?

Antonio Goe, chief of uh environmental health, Alameda County.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, um the first uh the the court I have here um is uh Ken Barcone.

Corboni.

Ken.

Uh any two minutes and good evening, commissioners.

Uh Mr.

Chair.

Uh my name's Ken Carboni.

Um I'm the organizer of the Castor Valley car show.

I wasn't gonna speak on this tonight, but this is um it's it's frustrating listening to this.

Um for more than three years, we've been making these same complaints.

We've had the same vendors, it's very well organized, and it has fell on deaf ears.

Staff, county, all these organizations, health department, nobody would even do anything for us at all.

The street vendors, we were overrun with hot dogs.

It it's it's not a one-off, it's not any of these things.

And it's just extremely frustrating to listen to this.

Um, I know you guys are working hard and I appreciate it.

You guys are finally got brought up to speed, but this has been brought up multiple times, and um, and it's just gone nowhere.

We've been able to not, you know, basically we have a uh road encroachment permit and to the sidewalks, and so they basically can step out the sidewalk and there's no enforcement.

And so it's very, very frustrating and I don't think it's right.

And hopefully this ordinance will be able to at least be a step in the right direction.

The light parade was amazing, but the light parade was overrun with just abusive vendors.

And I mean, they're probably all from the same group, but anyways, um hopefully we can get something done.

Anyway, that's it.

We have anybody online that would like to speak on this item.

We have no online speakers.

Do we have any other speakers in the room?

Matt Turner.

Matt Turner.

Good evening.

Uh yeah, I was out there on uh the light parade and and uh it it was it was mind-blowing.

Uh you know, you know, in a five-minute walk down the street, you can encounter a dozen folks with open flames under under tree canopies and uh you know, just gross violations.

And uh, you know, confiscation is the only real tool.

Um, you know, there's there's this misguided notion that this is an education and outreach problem, that if only we could bring these people on board, everything would be fine.

Uh that these are just people trying to bootstrap their way into the American dream.

The reality is, and this is from discussing uh with with deputies both from uh San Joaquin County and Alameda County, that uh there are large organized groups uh and and the folks who are actually doing the vending most of the time are uh you know they're they're not the ones responsible for this.

This is you know, an organized crime event uh that happens around the state.

And and confiscation is the only tool.

Because if you're finding that individual person, they're often just a patsy.

You know, they're there's somebody out there just trying to make a little bit of money and and they're not the ones supplying the equipment or the food.

And the whole m method that we've been going through here basically tells uh you know the the people who are trying to be legitimate that you're a sucker for trying to be legitimate and pay your your dues and and your permits and whatnot, and that you know why why even bother trying to to follow the rules if if you can just do whatever?

If you're brick and mortar or you have a licensed food truck, you know, Alameda County has sent the message that you are a fool and that uh and that's wrong.

We need to do something about it.

And this you know, at this uh thing on you know tomorrow, we really need to have a lot of voices come together and say, we've you know, we're tired to death of this.

Uh code enforcement and and environmental health and public works need to be untied to be able to go after this in a meaningful way.

These are people who work hard and need the tools.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Do we have any other speakers online?

Do we have any other speakers in the room on this item?

Um, okay.

Hey, um, I just wanted to to uh I don't know if it's stated or a questioned, but um, you know, at the light parade, we did have um uh code enforcement ed and John was there.

Um, they were out, they were really helpful.

Um I I'll never want to throw anybody in their bus, but code enforcement went and visited every single permitted person before they took any action on any of the completely illegal um unauthorized booths that were setting up.

They were, I mean, they were set up too close to buildings, they were set up under canopies, they were they were violating environmental health codes, fire codes, you name it.

Um, where I mean, for the most part, some of uh most of the vendors are doing this like every weekend.

So they're pulling permits every weekend, they're paying over and over again.

Most of them really kind of know what they they're doing.

I think the greater the greater health concern was the unauthorized and legal vendors.

Um, and at this particular thing, we had sheriff representation there, we had CHP there, we had code enforcement there.

There probably wasn't a better time to take action.

Also, uh code enforcement did tell me that environmental health didn't bring any um confiscation items to the event.

Uh so they were unable to confiscate anything.

I don't know if that's true.

This is what I heard, but thank you.

Okay, um, we have any other speakers in the room.

Um, why don't you hold on because we're gonna have some questions for that, okay?

If you don't mind, um so I'm gonna go ahead and close the public portion.

I'm gonna go to the council and uh for comments or questions.

Uh, this is an action item, so that if we decide that there's something here we'd like to take some action on or recommend, we can do that.

Um I am gonna uh start off with uh councilmember Davis and um and then uh Holly, if uh you environmental health could kind of hang tight to answer any questions that any of the council members have would be wonderful.

And um Mel also, since you were one of the presenters, if you could be available to answer something, okay.

Well, thank you, all of you for uh sharing with us the efforts that you've been putting forth to try to attack this problem.

And through your uh input, one of the conclusions I'm drawing is that yes, confiscation is probably the the one of the biggest keys to addressing this problem.

You say, okay, you don't have the equipment to do that, but for if we're having a special event, maybe we rent a large steak truck with a lift gate.

Uh and when you confiscate it, put it on the truck.

And then when the event's over, if you want to give it back to them, fine, or or take it away, whatever else.

But I there are inexpensive ways to addressing it.

The county doesn't have to go forth and buy new equipment to facilitate this for these special events.

That's that's one of my suggestions.

I think also um it's it's correct is that it's gonna take all three agencies working together to address this problem.

And uh those are my only comments or questions.

Okay, uh Council Member Thomas.

Thank you for being here, Holly.

Um my comment is the restaurant owners, as the speakers spoke about.

They're doing permits, they're doing everything right, right?

So they're calling us because we are one of the bodies in Cash Valley answering questions.

They're saying we're doing everything everything by the permits, but why are they getting away with it?

So they don't know, you know, they we're working on an ordinance, they don't care about all that.

We're you guys go in there and tell the restaurant owners this is wrong, this is wrong, and fine them.

And that is that's fine.

But when this happens and it's been happening for two, three years, and you're ignoring it, then that's a problem.

And what I'm hearing from the uh, Chamber of Commerce and also Mr.

Speed is that they're arrogant.

No, that they're not responding.

They're using abusive language.

What do we do?

And they know they can get away with it, right?

And it's a couple of years they've been getting away with it.

So I think like all three agencies need to be involved, and there should be, they're gonna be arrogant from now on.

Whatever ordinance comes come out, they don't care.

And some of them don't speak English, they don't have an address.

I don't know how we tackle the problem other than the sheriffs getting involved, taking their stuff, putting in the truck, yeah.

Get get out of here.

We don't need you.

Other than that, otherwise, restaurant owners are asking me specifically, can they put a street vendor out in front of the restaurant and use the food, which is like three days old and put it out there?

Because we don't know what kind of food these guys are serving, so can the restaurant owners do that and put it out there?

And we're gonna have a serious problem then, right?

And we I don't want to say they're gonna do that, but they're frustrated, right?

So uh we should we should have a solution to this as soon as possible.

Otherwise, you know, this is gonna happen again and again.

More people are gonna come out, they're gonna be arrogant and abusive.

I'm just gonna leave it there.

Thank you.

Council more fever.

Wow, this is uh really got out of hand.

It sounds like I mean, probably because um, well, first of all, thanks for coming out and being brave and presenting such a great great thing tonight.

I mean, that's very informative, more so than I've seen um any other previous times.

But um, you know, probably because we've ignored it so long, it just grew and grew and grew, and because I'm thinking, what's wrong with these people?

Why don't they just get legal?

You know, as uh you were saying, you know, it seemed like they were bootstrapping their way up, but obviously that's not it.

So if you got a hundred vendors not having to pay, you know, one guy got a hundred vendors, not paying $200, that's $20,000 extra profit a day.

Why would he want to be legal?

I mean, you gotta hurt them, gotta hurt them bad.

You know, and I don't think the food's enough.

I think you know, you need to roll up with a big old truck like Ray was talking and throw all their their equipment and you you take that $20,000 a day back.

They, you know, they're not paying it one way, you get them to pay it a different way.

You hurt them financially, you know, and get them um get them where where it hurts, and then maybe some of them will become legal, or maybe some of them will just go away.

So I don't know, that's my thought, you know.

Also, with like um the highway patrol maximum enforcement days, to me.

I'm thinking, you know, why can't the county or you know, your department or maybe a couple departments come together and say, on these weekends or on this day, all hands on deck, and we're just gonna go get everybody's stuff.

We're gonna hurt them, you know, secret, a secret date.

You know, we're just gonna go kill it that one day, take all their equipment, take all their food, take take it from all the vendors, you know, because you know, I'm looking at the list that you have, and those are probably the main offenders.

But I mean, there's many more.

You know, I'm thinking in my mind where I drive by and see them all over town.

I mean, you listed maybe a partial list.

I don't know if it's half or three quarters, but there's more.

So, and there will be more and more and more until you just do something drastic.

So, um, again, thanks for coming out.

That's my thoughts.

Um, I I hope that something can come of this and we can get real strong on it.

Council Ramoto.

Hi, Holly, thank you for your presentation.

Um great outline of what you're proposing.

Um, I think what I was expecting to hear is a little bit more on the task force, right?

If you're gonna collaborate um with the other enforcement team, I would like to hear from the team themselves as well, right?

What are what are they, what is their organization gonna actually do, the plan, and you know, kind of the dates and things like that.

Um, I think given that let me look at my notes, I have some more notes that I wanted to ask.

Um, given that the plan is gonna launch, I I based on your presentation in January.

I wanted to hear more specifics about this, the staffing plan for code enforcement.

I did hear what environmental health um is very strapped in their um workforce, and so we already heard that, but I wanted to know what was the plan?

Like, what are you what are you gonna bring to the table to change the narrative that we've already been experiencing?

Um so I think I was looking for more of that information, and um and also, you know, what are the actual collaborative efforts that each of the in enforcement team going to actually do?

Like you're gonna do this, and then it's gonna go to environmental health, gonna do that, and then the once the sheriff is gonna do that, like specifically, what is the workflow?

I guess you can say um the other thing is um staffing, yeah.

Staffing is is the big thing.

I think that's what we've we've heard, and um and so that brings me to um the strategy around the repeat offenders.

So we know who they are.

They've been you've you've illustrated that they've violated many many times the same vendor, the same thing.

So now what's the next step for that particular vendor that has multiple violations?

They've given all of these citations.

Is that vendor gonna now be enforced by the sheriff's department?

What is the next step for that particular vendor?

I need to know that, like I want to know because we're already at a point, they've already been given so many notices, and there has to be a next step, especially with the repeat ones that you've illustrated.

You've you've you've you um have them, you know, inspection confiscated, all of these things, and that's the plan that I'm talking about.

Since we have so many dates listed, where are we gonna change the next step?

Where are we gonna move forward with the next step?

So that's one thing that I wanted to understand.

And then, you know, I think with the sheriff's department, I wanted to know what would be their action, right?

Are they gonna go out after this?

You know, the the taco vendor, right?

Are they gonna pull up?

Are they gonna you know what is their plan to enforce as well?

Um, and then I see that you had um materials that you displayed the Alameda County Department of Um Environmental Health documents and handouts, um, are they in different languages?

Because a lot of folks don't read or write English, so that would be something I would like to see.

Is the different languages that could help someone get their permit?

And then will um will the county and the task force team provide a timeline on the dashboard that will allow Mac and the residents to track its progress and milestones.

Um we talk about the funding.

Um does the department um need to secure permanent funds for staffing, additional staffing.

I would like to understand that.

Um, and what was the funding proposal, especially from the health um agency?

Um the other question was um the 273 dollar annual permit um budget offset.

Um is it budgeted?

Is it to offset operational costs, or is it programmed still uh financially dependent on general funds?

Um, what are you done?

I think that's it for now.

Oh, one more thing.

I'm sorry, one more thing.

You mentioned the conference, and um, you mentioned that there was a lot of um folks that were experiencing the same, right?

But I I'm pretty sure there might have been some folks in the house that what worked for them, right?

Like what did actually work for the folks that, yes, we've been through this, we this is what we did, but this is how we changed it.

These are things that we implemented.

Um, I would definitely like to hear some more of that of what you learned and what your um what you're kind of considering based on your what you found out that worked for other agencies.

Thank you.

Before we move on to the next council member, um, would you like to uh answer any of those questions or concerns?

So I can answer some top of mine.

So, first of all, up until now we've been in support mode.

So our ordinance was just adopted last month, right?

So we're going into effect in January.

So up until now, we've been in support mode for environmental health.

Environmental health has the in uh enforcement for a confiscation.

Our ordinance is limited to administrated fines and fees.

The sheriff's office is there solely for our safety.

That has been the role so far.

Um, in regards to what their role can be, that would be something you can ask them directly.

In regards to the what's going to happen, we are going to ramp up a enforcement come January.

We are going to work with every event coordinator.

We are going to be prepared before the event.

I will make sure that we are staffed accordingly.

We will make sure that we have enough staff there.

We will have an enforcement plan for these events.

That's key.

We have to have a plan.

We also will have that.

We're looking at other languages.

So we're talking about max efforts.

We have done two days back to back.

I think that is something that we need to concentrate on.

Uh if we compensate uh two, three days in a row, they may think twice.

In regards to updates, we will be providing updates on our planning department website monthly.

The cost for the fee, that is uh to offset the cost, the 273 dollar permit fee.

Um, Mr.

Fabrik, you mentioned you have other locations that are not on my list.

Please, if you can contact me and let me know what locations, because I thought I had a full list of all locations.

So if you can please contact me, we're on a complaint, you know, basis, but I regularly patrol an incorporated Alameda County in the evenings for sidewalk vending.

I'm very much aware of what's out there.

I work very closely with Valerie and Deputy Yng.

Um, we have a very good team, and we are going to have to build from that.

We code enforcement cannot compensate.

We can only cite.

So I don't know if anyone else would like to speak in regards to our future efforts.

Or any.

We're gonna continue our efforts, everyone, to do the best that we can to resolve an issue.

Um, like I said, it hurts my heart to just to hear some of you guys say we're not doing anything.

I've been with the county for two decades.

I take I take pride in what I do, and I think my staff do, my colleagues do.

So this is not really new to us because we've been enforcing for years.

I mean, before you could do cottage food operations, before you could do Miko Enterprise operations, people were preparing food from their homes and we were going to their homes to try to educate them and let them know that their food wasn't from an approved source.

So it just hurts my heart to hear some of you guys say we don't, we don't, it's like we don't care.

We're not taking pride in what we do, and that's totally the opposite of why why we do what we do and we get up every morning and we come to work.

And while we're trying so much to work with uh Holly here, this is actually my first time meeting Holly, but Valerie has been working with her um for a while now, and I've been trying to give as much support as possible whenever they wanted to do a sting or go out and do an investigation, I made sure that staff was there, that they had staff to assist her with everything.

When we went to the light event, I think because one of you gentlemen said that there were tons of kids there, the sheriff department couldn't give us the direct attention that we needed.

They couldn't be there to support us, so it wasn't a time to confiscate food, it was a time to educate um because we didn't have support there to um step up for the staff if they needed them.

And like you said, you gentlemen said, I mean, it's not an easy job when you approach an individual.

Half the time they're gonna say, I don't speak English, and they're not gonna want to uh follow your direction or uh adhere to what you have to say at that time.

So that the event was solely about education, that's why it wasn't in confiscating the food, gentlemen.

So uh I'm sorry it was had to be that way, but we didn't have the support then.

If we would have had support, you would have had more individuals out there with food containers and trucks to take the food.

But that was the reason why we wasn't we're not confiscating the food and we were just educated.

But we did inspect some of the food booths.

So yeah, it just hurt my heart.

We're just know that environmental health is trying to do all that they can.

Uh, I wish I could snap my thing and this problem would go away.

I really do.

But I do think moving forward, if we can collaborate with other agencies and we can confiscate the larger pieces of equipment eventually, it'll it'll hurt their pockets.

I mean, this this equipment that they use is at every city.

It's the same setup, the same threat tent with uh extended cook line.

So if we can start taking this larger piece of equipment, uh hopefully it'll hurt their pockets and this stuff is not easy to forget fabricate.

So uh I think that's the effort that we can wrap up there and try to work together to see if we can get some resolution.

And maybe we don't see these guys every week or every other day, because what they're doing now, every time we take the food, you may not see them the next day, but two or three days later they come right back.

And in some case, some some occasions we've taken food and two or three hours they'll be right back just on another block.

So I think they're getting to the point where they're preparing for us to take their food and have a backup uh container with food in it so they can continue to do the event.

And again, this is it's this is it's just bigger than somebody pushing a tamale court.

This is uh individuals online, they have a following.

I actually come out.

I like that you said you actually go out as well.

I've been out and enforced and actually confiscated food right here on Cashew Valley myself.

And you know, I as I'm approaching the individuals and I'm actually um trying to educate them and tell them they need to shut down.

If not, I'm gonna have to take the food.

Uh, you know, I got more pushback from the followers, people standing in line to buy the food than I actually did with the individual preparing the food.

So their video and taping us, and I think at some point the officers didn't want to be a part of that, right?

I'm not mistaken.

So I it's it's it's challenging, guys.

It's a lot going on, but I just know we're doing everything we can to assist with this problem.

You have anything, Val?

Go ahead.

You have anything to add to the questions that she had?

Because we're we're gonna.

Yeah, do you have you have anything to add, answer any of their questions?

I'm Valerie Strother.

I'm with Alamina County Health Department, and I hope you guys did really look at the numbers and the things that Holly did put up because we have been out there doing what we can.

We have been organizing and we have been doing it.

And Gary and Mel, I hear the absolute, complete 100% frustration with the situation with us, with me, with Holly, with everybody.

We hear it, okay, and we understand it.

Councilmember Mota, you go out.

You made an excellent point.

What is working out there?

Believe me, I have been on the phone for months.

Napa County, San Francisco County, Santa Clara County, Contra Costa County, Marin County, every county.

We all have the same questions.

We just don't have the solutions yet.

Because if there were solutions, we'd be doing them.

Believe me, we would be doing them because that's what we're we're here to do.

So hopefully we can come up with another pathway, get some more agencies involved like public works, and maybe that could help out.

Or a council member down at the end had a great idea about confiscating the equipment.

Maybe there's some avenues there, but um we're not ignoring it, Mel, and we're not ignoring it, Gary.

I'm sorry that I'm sorry that you feel the way you feel, but um uh we're gonna keep trying.

I have a question, um, to confiscate the large equipment.

Have you um asked for the funding for those type of equipment to have you asked for and have you submitted to get that funding for that large equipment?

Uh well, I I wanna make sure I understand the question.

Have we um ando mentioned that there was um he didn't have any anything to confiscate large equipment, right?

And so I'm saying, have you went and asked for the funding to get what you need to accomplish that?

So that's that's what just want to understand.

Like, where are you at in that process, and or have you gone to ask for the funding?

That would be to support your.

That's something I haven't spoken to the director about.

We're trying to go down the avenue of confiscating the food, but at this point we see it's not working to the extent that we wanted to work to.

So now we need to take the next step.

And if you get the equipment that you need, what areas what cover for you to be able to take that equipment away from these vendors?

You it's it's the unincorporated cashier valley, and you said you go to other cities that you are involved in that I'm glad you brought that up.

So when it when we're working with other cities, Hayward Oakland Living Moore, we get all the agencies involved, especially public works.

Um, we use our authority to actually be able to legally confiscate it.

They use their manpower, I mean their their truck trailers and things like that to take the equipment away.

Uh a little different here in in in Castro Valley right now.

In Oakland, they have a special activity group.

All we do is show up, we write up the report, cease and assist, they have a whole task force that takes the equipment in Fremont.

They have an ordinance where they can actually go out and take food as well, along with the equipment.

So it's it's it's kind of different from from city to city, but most of the time public works is involved because they have the trailer, they have the um the yard and all these things to assist with the bigger pieces of equipment.

Environmental health doesn't have that.

We bring a uh if I go out right now and confiscate a piece of equipment, I wouldn't have a place to store it.

I mean, you go to my uh location in Alameda County, 1131 Harbor Bay Parkway.

I mean, we have vehicles where they're stealing Cal Act converters because they're not in a secure yard.

So um just things like that.

So that's the next step.

I mean, I would definitely have to sit with the director on a brother and see if that's avenue you want to go down with.

And I I like the gentleman's um suggestion with maybe written to you all some in some situations and going out and doing it in that manner.

Years ago, we used to have trailers.

I don't know what happened to them.

Uh, before you saw the individuals cooking the food on side, they used to have the fruit stands and things like that.

We used to have trailers where we would go and confiscate that stuff, take it to the transfer station right here off Davis.

Things are a little different now.

And then with the law passed, I think it was 970, 972 or 962 bell.

Legally, you you it's only so much you can do as well.

It's not like we can just go and take this equipment and throw it away.

These individuals have rights.

I mean, I think there's a new law that's been passed where you can't even ask them about to show you their ID.

So we have to be aware of that as well.

Okay.

So there's a few things you can say and ask.

So it's not just like I can just go and show up and take this equipment and this food.

I have to take in consideration the Senate bill that's in place as well.

Yeah, I I think um, given that where we're at, especially with the taco truck vendor, right?

There's like so many, it's like repeat, repeat, repeat.

And I think I would love to hear from the sheriff to see like what his collaborative effort would be once, you know, especially with the taco truck vendor, like what are we gonna do next, especially with this one vendor that obviously is not doesn't care?

Thank you.

So Shawnee, uh so I've gone out with Holly and the team several times to these enforcements.

Uh, because of the Senate bills, we have no authority to take any action.

Uh, we're there as support and as safety for them.

Um, we can't ask for IDs, we can't use our databases, we can't do any of that.

So we're there as a support for them.

So there are other aspects of are they trespassing, are they blocking sidewalks?

Those are some things that we could step into.

Um, but as far as the food uh sidewalk vending, we have no enforced action.

Thank you.

Uh let's go on to Councilmore Devini.

Uh thanks, Chair Moore.

Uh I am so encouraged uh by the promises I'm hearing and and the and the plans uh to finally adopt this ordinance and to have some teeth behind it.

And at the same time, I'm so discouraged and I'm so skeptical that anything is ever gonna happen.

Uh at the last meeting when you presented, I used an unfortunate word, and and I uh said the code enforcement was essentially impotent in enforcing the sidewalk vending, and I don't think that that's a strong enough word.

Um I I and I'm totally recognizing the activities that you've already done and the enforcement that you've already done, but that taco stand is out there right now as we speak.

It's out there every single night, every single night.

So while I appreciate that you've done some confiscations, uh you've had some violations, you've done a number of things.

None of that is working, and I and I don't see a plan with any kind of a uh teeth in it.

Uh that one is is particularly disturbing to us because as board members, we hear it all the time, and the community is asking us the writing us letters uh in our personal conversations.

They're saying, what are you guys doing about this?

This is pretty egregious.

It's competing with some restaurants that we love.

It is absolutely prime real estate.

It is the best spot in Castor Valley.

If you wanted to do any retail on that corner, if you wanted to sell clothes or uh do back massages or or sell food or anything, that corner would be the corner.

That corner, just the the what is it, uh 10 by 10 to two hundred, two to three hundred square feet that they occupy on a nightly basis, would probably rent for five thousand dollars a month to anybody else that wanted to run any kind of retail.

It's that prime, and it's also in the face, given the finger to everybody in the community that is concerned with this.

So uh that's why it's it's it's giving me personal angst because I just hear about it all the time, and and I'm I'm kind of bold and I just have to just kind of uh geez, I don't know.

We're we're working on it, we're working on it.

It's not my job.

Um, but I don't think we're making any progress.

Um I I heard a statement that every time they're out there we're confiscating food, they're out there every night.

I I love the idea that you have repeat nights, they're out there every night.

They're out there the same night you shut them down.

Okay, so like you said, they have backup.

And I'm fully recognizing what a what a difficult uh problem this is and how hard it is.

But until we make it a priority as a county, uh it's not gonna get enforced, and I'm gonna continue to be embarrassed as a Mac member when I deal with our constituents and say nothing we can do, nothing we can do, nothing we can do.

It just it just doesn't quite feel right.

Um, there confiscation is not the only thing.

The the the fines are pretty hefty.

Uh it gets up to by third offense, a thousand dollars uh an event for a fine for not having a sidewalk vending permit.

Well, guess what?

100% of them don't have a sidewalk vending permit.

None have been issued, not a single one.

Um, in addition to that, the the other fines for being on a all the variations are are violations of the sidewalk vending ordinance, being too close to a place of business to being too place to a uh too close to a corner, uh, not having proper setbacks, having inappropriate signage.

I believe that gets up to to $500 by the time you get to the third event.

So it's not an insignificant amount.

Um, I appreciate the fact that you uh Holly that you recognize that this is big business.

Uh it truly is.

I I've seen lines of 40, 50 people.

I think they can probably sell 100 to 200 meals a day at 20 to 30 bucks a pop.

Uh, I mean, they're 14 bucks for a burrito.

You know, uh you could be talking anywhere from two to four thousand dollars a day, which is well over a million dollars worth of gross revenue.

These are poor old employees that are sitting there on the on the street corner.

The Sacramento business is incredibly entrepreneurial, and that's what the state wants to encourage because they're entrepreneurial because they're doing millions of dollars worth of sales without paying any taxes, they don't have a resale license, they're not paying property taxes, they're not playing the paying the gross receipts taxes, they're not paying the business license tax, uh, they're not paying the permitting fees uh or anything.

So it's the state accomplished their goals of incurring and encouraging entrepreneurial ship.

Um, but that's not the kind of entrepreneurial ship that I think that we want to encourage at all.

Um we do have um, and again, I'm encouraged by the rhetoric that I'm hearing and the promises to do better and to and to get better, and I hope that there is eventually some teeth behind that.

Um uh Holly, you specifically said that you guys are putting together a game plan for uh the the public events.

Um we established a subcommittee uh of the Castor Valley Mac for the sidewalk vending ordinance.

Uh member Davis and myself sit on it.

Um, Valerie and Ed have been very open to meeting.

Uh I've had numerous correspondence with them.

We haven't done it because the ordinance isn't in place yet, but I I would recommend uh that we do that just as soon as we possibly can, that we that we have a meeting and we have some of our uh uh community event organizers present as well to talk about their real day problems, the competition that that they're paying vendors are are dealing with.

And I think that that meeting should clearly be between the sheriff's office, uh, code enforcement and environmental health.

Um, and I and I'd like to establish that.

I don't know if the other board members feel that we need any kind of a motion to do that.

Let's just get through some of the questions and answers before we get down to anything like that, okay?

We got a couple other.

Well, that was that's a question to my fellow board members.

If you'd like to comment on whether you think we need a motion at the appropriate time, then we can make one.

Um I I everything we've said tonight has been said ad nauseum over and over.

So I'm I'm hoping that the enthusiasm that I heard of the promise of of future enforcement uh comes to reality because uh because so far it's not working, they're out there every night.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Mulberry.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you, Holly, and thank you, deputy, and thank you folks from environmental health.

Appreciate it.

Um I'm not gonna disparage the efforts that have gone on to date, not at all, because you folks have been working.

Um I think the re and all the questions, great questions have been asked, but here's the reality.

We're getting outrun.

Um they're faster than we are, they being the the folks who are operating without permits, they're faster than we are.

Um, they're more daring than we are.

They seem to be a little bit further thinking than we are.

Um the people of Castro Valley and the businesses of Castro Valley are getting beat, basically, and that that really bothers me because, as has been said, we've got legitimate businesses that pay the permit fees, they join the chamber of commerce, they become citizens, active citizens in the community.

We're we're disposing of them because we're not fast enough, we're not far thinking enough, we're just not getting it done.

And I include us in this.

The Mac is the Mac has been involved in this for a couple of years.

What is so disturbing is to hear, well, we can do this, but we can't do that.

They can do this, but they can't do that.

And they can do this, but they can't do that.

Where is the organization, the individual, the director who wants to say the people of Castro Valley deserve better?

I'll be the one who says I'll coordinate these four, these four groups.

I'll be the one that takes responsibility to get it done because it needs to get done.

And I haven't seen that person step up.

If you can tell me who a good candidate is, we'll lobby them.

I mean, if you can tell me who, in terms of an individual or a body, can say, okay, um, I'll take on the role of coordinating these four organizations.

I will see to it that the budget is not an issue.

I mean, we've heard about budget tonight.

Well, we spent 75,000 and or we had 75,000 and now it's 150.

Well, does the person who has a restaurant in Castro Valley really care about a county budget issue?

No, they want their business secured, and that's the job of the county.

Honor what we've given them so far.

Um I'm sorry.

Um, it was said earlier that that you know we we came to um the light parade with a mission of education.

Um I think confiscation of food is a really good education, really good.

And if we don't collectively get in the mindset of doing it now, in six months, it's gonna be a shambles.

It's just and I God bless, I hope we make it, but I don't see all these things in the enforcement plan getting done by January.

I just don't.

I mean, tell me tell me um how you're going to increase proactive site inspections.

What's what's the target?

Um where where are the materials the forms, the decals, the educational materials.

I you know, that's a big job.

It's a huge job.

Um, ensure adequate staff are allocated.

Who's doing that?

Across four departments.

Um secure permanent funding for additional staffing.

Okay, so we start January and then in April we're out of funds.

Um who's who's doing the tracking of I mean, I would hope by this point we'd say we need six more people here, three more in environmental health.

We need deputies to do this, we've got to have additional folks in public works to manage all the the new site, the equipment, etc.

Um, and I'm maybe the detail exists, I just haven't seen it yet.

Um if it doesn't exist, January's a pipe dream.

And you know, when next year do the restaurants and the businesses start saying, Well, Chamber of Commerce, you you kind of didn't support me in this last year.

We'll we'll save our three or four hundred dollars and take our act down the road.

Or TMC, um, oh yeah, I'm gonna pay your $200 fee for the light parade next year, not because the county can't keep people out.

I mean, it it's going to mushroom if it doesn't stop now.

And and please tell us what we can do to help you.

Because I I feel it.

I feel that you want to get this done.

Um, tell us what we can do.

So, first of all, um, I'm not involved in the budgeting at my level, but um I can tell you that as the daily supervisor for code enforcement, I definitely can use more staff.

Two at minimum to cover nights, weekends, events, um, conditional use permits.

I have a lot of things that I would love to do proactive enforcement on that I do not have the staffing for.

We have five code enforcement officers for the entire county.

I also have a full caseload.

I inspect all of the alcohol inspections uh retailers, all of our uh cannabis compliance locations, independent living homes.

I I do I have a full caseload on top of the supervisory duties that I have.

For those of you who don't know me, I've worked for Alamity County for 25 years, 20 years in public works.

Um out of those 20 years, 17 were in building inspection department, three in maintenance and operations.

I joined the code enforcement team in January of 2020.

Five, 2020.

I've been a six years almost.

I'm dedicated to serve in this community.

You say you want someone coordinating, I have been the one coordinating, and I am the person who will be doing that.

I'm I'm the one.

I'm committed.

So um in regards to future events, that's why I want to be on the uh event organization teams.

I want to be a part of the planning.

We are at the planning department.

Um regarding you said four departments, there's only three departments.

There's code enforcement who does the citations, environmental health, who can confiscate the food and equipment, and the sheriffs that keeps us safe, and and pardon me, Holly, but um hypothetically, you cite a vendor three times uh fine them three times and they don't pay.

Next step.

We're only allowed to cite.

That's all we can do is administrative citations.

That's all code enforcement can do by law.

Okay.

State law is very restrictive on what we're allowed to do.

Understand.

I know I understand.

So we we will continue.

If we have to do, I would like to do enforcement several days in a row.

We've done that once two days in a row.

We're going to ramp that up.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

They said them all three days.

And I don't want to give you an enforcement plan of when we're going out there.

We do have inspection dates on the books that I don't want to tell the public when we're going to be out there.

We do have a plan.

Play play it out for me, though, if you would please.

So uh code enforcement, we will be introducing ourselves, environmental health.

We'll check for food uh health safety.

If the food is deemed unsafe, they will confiscate.

Okay.

Uh we will provide a citation to the vendor.

Hopefully they have a vehicle because then we can cite the vehicle owner.

Okay.

And the sheriffs are just going to be there to make sure that we're safe.

Okay.

We've been at several locations.

We've had things thrown at us, people yell at us, and like I said, it's it's generally the the people buying, it's not the vendor itself.

Understand.

Um so again, you know, forward a little bit um in the process.

A second fine is issued, a third fine is issued, and the offender does not choose to pay.

What what is the county's recourse at that point?

What is where does enforcement go from there?

I would have to look into that.

I'm not, I don't have an answer for you.

The R enforcement is going to be focused on confiscation.

It needs to be on confiscation.

That is the only enforcement tool.

Everyone I've talked to, I went to I talked to many people at the conference, and Valley's done lots of research.

We've talked to our locals.

The key is confiscation.

We need to take the food, we need to take the equipment.

And by we say we, I mean the county, not code enforcement.

Thank you very much.

You work for the building department?

For 17 years.

If somebody started a building without a permit, did you red tag it?

Did we red tag it?

Yeah.

Building department, you used to red tag, yes.

Yeah, so you pretty much shut it down, right?

They red tag it.

I don't want to speak on behalf of public works.

I mean you were there for 17 years on the annual sheriff.

So he can speak if you point is that if you started something you didn't have a permit, you got red tagged, it got shut down.

I've been in the construction business for a long time.

I know what it's about.

So there's a process.

Yes, I'm very, very familiar with the process.

I just didn't want to speak on behalf of public works.

Um and then uh, you know, I look at this whole thing and I say, the environmental health department's main responsibility is making sure that the food that is being served everywhere is healthy and safe, that we don't take a chance on someone becoming ill.

And I gotta tell you, for a long time, this has been going on.

Environmental health is really good at enforcing the rules with the people that have licenses and follow the rules, but they are not doing their job on the folks that don't have licenses and don't follow the rules.

Don't and I don't confuse effort with results.

I believe that you folks at the ground level here are doing a wonderful job, but I believe your senior leadership is lacking foresight.

When I look at Danville, Pleasanton, Dublin, San Ramon, I don't see these street vendors there, okay?

But I see them in Castro Valley, and I think our health department has a blind eye to it, and it's very frustrating because if a legitimate business, matter of fact, I will tell you that every vendor that comes on to the fairgrounds gets an inspection.

When we had the deal here, everybody was inspected.

Because they followed the rules, but if you don't follow the rules, you get away with it, and that is unacceptable to any business owner.

And I will tell you that I am hopeful that nobody becomes deathly ill from one of these food vendors that are not following the rules, and our health department didn't do their job.

Who's the lead agency in this process?

Our ordinance.

So when I look at this and I say, okay, code enforcement, and this has nothing to do with you, Holly.

You're wonderful for coming here, and I really appreciate your presentation.

But I look at this and I say, okay, health department reports the planning.

I mean, not health department, the um code enforcement reports to planning.

If it's not getting done, let's not confuse effort with results because the people on the ground are making the effort, they're not getting results because they don't have the support, and once again, this is government passing a rule without given the opportunity for funding and things that you need to get this job done.

And I say shame on the leadership in these departments for not getting it done because Castro Valley deserves better.

We deserve the same thing that Danville, Pleasanton, Dublin, and San Ramon also for the sheriff's department.

If they call you or call the sheriff's department, hey, we're going to investigate this, and this guy might have knives and things like that.

So we'd like you to be present for us.

And they come out and they say, ah, he doesn't have a permit, or she doesn't have a permit.

They're in violation, we're going to confiscate their food, and we're going to issue them a citation.

By the way, um, sir, what is your name?

Give me, can I see your ID?

If they don't have an ID and then don't issue the name, how do you handle it?

We don't handle it.

You don't handle it.

So if I get pulled over and I don't give you my ID, what happens to me?

That's a different situation.

Oh, I think we don't enforce so vending.

So if someone is getting a citation from in from code enforcement, and the guy or gal doesn't want to give their ID, they don't have to.

They don't have to answer us.

What are you there for then?

Safety.

Safety and safety.

So you walk around and you break a law and you don't have identification and you refuse to give your identification, and the sheriff's department doesn't take a position.

It's not a criminal matter.

So we're not gonna force them to get their ID.

We have nothing to do as far as making them comply.

We're there for their safety if they try to attack them.

Wow.

I hope the community heard that.

Because that is a real concern of mine.

Because if you're selling food and you don't have to show who you are or ID, that's a real concern.

There is so many holes in this program that it's just beyond me.

And that is the reason why I asked for Holly to come because I really felt that the community needs to hear what's going on here, because this is a real problem.

And I'm just I just can't believe that um that we're really good at enforcing the rules with people that comply and follow the law, but we're not very good at enforcing the rules that people that don't want to comply with the law.

It's just um it's very frustrating.

I don't know how you guys, Holly, deal with working in a situation like that.

I'm really sorry for you.

Um, because I know that you you have a you're trying.

So hopefully, hopefully, maybe a couple of people will play this back and listen to it and understand where the community feels about it, because I think it's uh disheartening.

And if I was a downtown business owner, I would have some real concerns about whether I was gonna pay my business license again or not, you know, because and I hate to say that, but that's what I hear from people, and I feel sorry for the folks that paid money to set up a booth at our light show, which we desperately need that income to pay for continuing the late show and all the services that we provide.

So without that income, we don't have a light show.

So it it it's heading down a very dangerous situation here if we don't get something done in this community, so um that's all I have to say about it.

Um does any of the board members have any other questions or anything?

And thank you very much.

Thank you to the sheriff's department for showing up, and um, Valerie, thank you for being here and gentlemen with you, thank you.

Um I would just say that I'm very disappointed in your department for not getting things done quicker.

It's really a huge lack of foresight, because this has been going on for a very long time in this community, and health department has not done their job.

I'm sorry.

This is an action, I don't know if anybody has anything that'd like to make a motion on anything.

Dan, you started on something earlier.

I well, I was uh I was speaking of a different motion, Chuck, and that was whether uh uh any of the members felt that we needed a motion for the subcommittee to try to establish a medium between event organizers.

I frankly don't think it's required.

If anybody does, then I can I can move that.

I I did scribble out a motion on the general issue.

Are there any other board members that have their own motion that they want to uh present?

Uh you know I would support to send a message loud and clear, a no confidence vote.

And um I would say in the um uh code enforcement department to get something done because I really don't have the confidence at this point in the game that it's gonna get done.

Um, Chuck, I have I have a motion that I literally just scribbled out.

Uh can I can I read that slowly?

It's probably not gonna be very good, and perhaps we can uh add uh uh a sentence of a vote of no confidence.

Okay, good.

Uh, I move that the uh Castor Rally Mac request that the Board of Supervisors uh instruct code enforcement environmental health and the sheriff's department to make the sidewalk vending ordinance a priority enforcement area within Castor Valley and level the maximum level of fines and other allowable punitive measures to ensure compliance.

I I made it rather generic that they level uh maximum fines and other allowable punitive measures to ensure compliance.

I'm happy for any uh uh amendments or uh to entertain a separate uh motion altogether.

No, I'll second that motion.

Any further discussion?

We have a first and a second.

We have a roll call, please.

Councilmember Devini.

Aye.

Councilmember Davis.

Aye.

Council member feebig.

Aye.

Councilmember Mota.

Aye.

Councilmember Thomas.

Yes.

Vice Chair Malgro.

Aye.

Chair Moore.

Yes.

Motion pass.

Uh, Chair, I'd like a further permission.

Tomorrow you're presenting.

Is that before unincorporated services?

Ed will be presenting tomorrow, yes.

Uh, before unincorporated services, a subcommittee of the board of supervisors.

No, no, no, no, no.

No, where's the meeting tomorrow?

Tomorrow Ed is per.

Uh where I was headed with this is that is that I'd like this motion to get to the board.

So I I uh chair, I think that's in your arena, or perhaps uh the chief of staff's arena.

Yes, okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um thank you, Holly and Sheriff's Dewarmer.

Thank you guys for showing up.

Valerie, thank you guys for showing up and appreciate it.

Um, let's get something done.

Let's not confuse our effort with results.

It's all about results for our community.

So thank you.

Okay, the next item on the agenda.

Um, and Mel and uh um Gary, thank you guys for coming.

I appreciate it.

Um, next time on the agenda is the uh Higher Avenue Sidewalk Improvement Project from Red Road Road to Center Road or Center Street.

So this is an action item, and um looking forward to the presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us on behalf of Alameda County Public Works.

We welcome you all to the Higher Avenue Sidewalk Improvement CV MAC meeting.

I am Carl, and I'm the project engineer on for the Higher Avenue Sidewalk Improvement Project.

So in today's presentation, we will cover the project overview, the project goals, design alternative reviews, project schedule, and a construction FAQs.

We'll be open to questions after the presentation.

So please hold on to your questions and would be happy to answer them at the end.

We have hosted several community engagement meetings previously with the BPAC meeting on September 28th, 2023, a community meeting on May 6, 2025, and most recently another BPAC meeting on September 25th, 2025.

Project location.

This project is located on Higher Avenue in Cash Valley between Redwood Road and Center Street.

As shown on the map, there are various schools, businesses, and point of interest within the vicinity.

Project goals.

Our project goal is to provide all users a safe and functional corridor that enhances walkability and accessibility, implements pedestrians and bicycle facilities, improves traffic safety, and amongst other things as shown on the PowerPoint.

The project is part of Alameda County's Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan, where it is listed as a prioritized sidewalk project.

The plan recommends a class two bike lane along Higher Avenue between Redwood Road and Center Street.

Today we want to talk to you guys about the design options that we have considered to ensure that we're making the best decisions for the neighborhood.

The design options considered will feature the following sidewalk installation, accessibility enhancement, safety improvements, bike facilities, aesthetic environmental enhancements, and pavement rehabilitation.

So now let's get on with the alternatives.

Alternative one, it's a class two bike lanes on both sides.

From Wedwood from Wedwood to Madison within the county right-of-way limit, this design provides a five-foot wide sidewalk on both sides of the street for pedestrian access with a three-foot wide utility and planted strip.

And it maintains a seven foot wide parking lane on both sides, includes a class two five-foot wide bike lane on both sides of the roadway, and a 10-foot wide travel lane.

From Madison to center within the county right-of-way limit, it accommodates public transit.

This design is similar to the above, except that it maintains a now four-foot wide sidewalk on both sides with a three-foot wide utility and planter strip, and it features an 11-foot wide travel lane for public transportation instead.

This alternative helps organize the space clearly for different types of road users, and it offers a more symmetrical layout when compared to other design alternatives.

It's also built to work with the existing corridor and condition of the site.

Alternative two is a buffer bike lane on both sides with parking removed on one side.

From Redwood Road to center with the county within the county right of way limit.

This design provides a five-foot wide sidewalk on both sides of the street for pedestrian access with a three-foot wide utility and planter strip.

It maintains a seven-foot wide parking lane on just one side of the street, includes a class two five-foot bike lane with a two and a half foot wide buffer and an 11-foot wide travel lane consistently across the whole corridor.

Alternative two removes parking on one side of the street in favor for a buffered bike lane, and it's built to work with the existing conditions of the corridor.

However, it's an important trade-off with this alternative is the removal of the on-site street of parking on one side.

With this alternative, we will need to keep in mind with the amount of parking we will be losing for community members, residents, and students, especially with California's new daylighting law.

Alternative three is a class four bike lane as a non-standard feature.

From Redwood Road to Madison within the county right-of-way limits, this design will also provide a five-foot-wide sidewalk on both sides, three-foot wide utility and planter strip, maintain a seven-foot wide parking lane on both sides, include a class four bike-foot wide bike lane on both sides of the roadway and a 10-foot wide travel lane.

From Madison and Center is the same as above, except that it includes a class four, four foot wide bike lane on both sides of the roadway, with one foot taken away to accommodate the public transit lane.

So the transit lane will now be widened from 10 foot wide to 11 foot wide.

Alternative three introduces a class four bike facility that physically separates from vehicle traffic and shared that's physically separated from vehicle traffic and shared with pedestrian on the sidewalk.

This design is a non-standard feature that aims to create a buffer between people, biking, and traveling vehicles.

Like previous alternatives, it provides a semi-symmetrical layout, but there are budget budgetary concerns related to widening the existing corridor for the whole site.

So while this alternative provides separation, it also introduces new challenges and budgetary concerns that we will need to consider.

Alternative four.

It is a uphill bike lane with a downhill share row from Redwood to Madison within the county right-of-way limits.

This design provides a five-foot wide sidewalk on both sides of the street for pedestrian access.

It also provides a three-foot-wide utility and planter strip, maintains a seven-foot-wide parking lane on both sides, includes a class two, five-foot wide bike lane with a two-foot-wide buffer next to a 10-foot wide travel lane on the uphill direction and a 13-foot wide sharew on the downhill direction.

From Madison to center within the county roadway limit to accommodate public transit.

This design is the same as above, except it includes a class two five-foot wide bike lane with a one-foot wide buffer next to 11-foot wide travel lane for transit in the uphill direction, and the same 13-foot wide chairrow will still be on the downhill direction.

Alternative four proposes a split approach, a downhill shareow and an uphill bike lane.

This alternative uses share lane markings or share rows on the downhill, and when presented to the BPAC meeting, a couple of BPAC members have supported this alternative as an option.

So we have looked at four design alternatives, and we have summarized the layouts and the fiscal impacts it may have to the table as you can see on the screen.

Next slide.

So after considering all four alternatives, we're recommending alternative one for the following reasons.

It meets multimodal design standards, provides dedicated bike facilities, it retains existing 88 compliant sidewalks, whereas an additional 1600 linear feet of existing sidewalk will need to be demolished to accommodate for a wider shared path when we are comparing to alternative three.

It also achieves significant cost savings, whereas alternative three will cost at least two million dollars or more when compared to other alternatives.

And it accommodates the site topography and the grading challenges presented on the site.

So now on the next slide, we'll take a look at the proposed improvements for alternative one as a whole on plan.

Starting from Redwood Road to Center, project limit starts at the curb return on Redwood Road.

At this intersection, high visibility yellow crosswalks will be installed.

Existing sidewalk, which is an acceptable existing sidewalk, which are in acceptable conditions will remain in place along the road.

So the next slide.

Street trees will be planted on the sidewalk where appropriate.

There will be safety improvements at the intersection of Forest Avenue.

Bullbouts will be installed to shorten crossing distance with 88 compliant pedestrian ramps.

The same will also be implemented at the intersection of Alana Road.

To the east of Madison, the travel lane becomes 11 foot wide to accommodate the bus.

The sidewalk width on both sides transitioned from eight feet to seven feet.

On to the next slide.

The curb lines on both sides remain consistent along the road.

Next slide.

So the following is a projected projected best case scenario for advertisement, contract award, and construction, and it's subject to change.

We're looking at advertisement advertised in January 2026, award the contract in April 2026, and construction will be begin uh in June 2026, and and around March 2027.

So some frequently asked questions that we may have are where are the typical, what are the typical construction hours?

Typically they are on Monday through Fridays from 8 30 a.m.

to 4 30 p.m.

Will residents and business be informed before construction starts?

Yes.

The information will be provided two weeks prior to start of construction.

Will two-way traffic be maintained during construction?

That is also yes.

Will construction required a traffic detour?

For safety reasons, uh they will require a traffic detour, but it will only be temporary.

Will pedestrian and bicycle access along hire be maintained during construction.

That is also a yes.

How will construction impact my access to my residence?

Access will be maintained.

However, expect occasional restrictions, such as parkings and detours that may occur.

And lastly, will I be able to park my car in front of my house?

Yes, except when work is actively taking place at the property.

Parking restriction restrictions may happen.

If any, they will be posted 72 hours in events.

This concludes our presentation for tonight.

For additional information or questions after tonight's meeting, you can reach us reach out to us at info at a cpwa.org or via our project website.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

Why don't we go ahead and go to the public comment?

We're going to go for two minutes on the public comment.

I'll start with the room and then we'll go from the room to folks that are online.

And the first speaker I have a card here is Ken Garboni.

Ken, uh two minutes, please.

Yes, sir.

All right.

Love commissioners again.

Um start my two minutes until I'm ready.

Okay.

All right, here we are.

Okay.

So I wrote down my notes here on this, but you know, over the past handful of years, we've had to deal with a lot of bike lane issues and stuff.

Higher road is a um a very sensitive collector street, and it's in running through the neighborhood, so it's not your typical street.

So basically, I submitted a letter to all of you and wanted to reinforce my position on this project.

I overwhelmingly agree the pedestrian improvements on higher road are long overdue and should be moved forward quickly.

I mean, we need these things immediately with no delay.

However, installing anything other than the class two bike lane that's proposed is a mistake.

The class four bike lane is absolutely an unsafe, problematic, and uh incompellable uh higher road.

Well, I gotta we need to be proactive to manage uh this project, and unlike what's happened on Castrale Boulevard and some of the other areas and loss of parking and businesses and stuff, we need to consider all of the property owners here, and especially the pedestrian corridor.

Um, hire is going to be a very challenging street.

It's very fast, it's very dangerous, and um adding bike lanes also increases a false sense of security for those people in those bike lanes, but making them into any of these other proposed projects still don't work.

So alternate routes um, you know, should be considered.

But if we're gonna do the bike lanes, the class two bike lanes that were proposed here, and it seems to be the uh project that um that's uh preferred seems to be the best possible.

There are um there is a couple of things there though, and um there are some bullbouts that are on uh proposed for forest and for um Alma.

They make no sense at all.

There's something really strange there, and it's gonna put car conflicts and other problems um in there.

So you guys need to really look at that closely.

Um, it looks very similar to what just happened on the end of James, which you heard a speaker that called in earlier.

It looks like it's the same thing, it's a disaster.

James is having nothing but problems with that um new proposal.

So just uh keep that in mind.

Um, in conclusion, you know, uh respectfully ask the council members to consider approving sidewalks, pedestrian and ADA uh improvements on a higher road.

Adopt alternative class two bike um the adopt alternative one, class two bike lanes, and with the modifications, um remove the bowl bouts and restrict.

That's your time.

Okay, all right.

Well, you've heard what I said.

Okay, thank you.

Douglas Furman.

Good evening.

Uh I live on Higher.

I've been there for many years.

I've worked in Castor Valley School District.

Uh I love the kids there, and we want to keep them safe.

We want them to be able to walk down the street and not be hit by the cars because people drive very fast on hire at night.

Sometimes I see people doing 60 and 70 miles an hour.

Uh it's quite extreme.

So we're happy to see things happen and make it safer for the children because we want kids to be safe.

We don't want to hear about children coming into some terrible situation because someone wasn't paying attention.

That being said, if you make the street more narrow, it's more likely that people are going to bump either bicycles or children, even with sidewalks, because the sidewalk isn't a guarantee.

I live right on higher 4316.

Uh, everybody from the county knows me because I've talked to them numerous times.

Uh the current grade that I have is 14% on my driveway, which is pretty steep.

And so it's important to me that we don't elevate that grade more than it is, because I'm older now.

I'm 75 years old, and uh, you know, taking the garbage down and things like that.

I want to make sure that I'll be safe.

My wife will be safe going there so that we have enough room to do that.

So I think any accommodations need to keep everybody together.

That is the community, the children, the bicyclists, and the residents that live on this street and live there like we've lived there for 30 years, and we just want to keep it safe.

So that's all I have, and any considerations for our properties, we'd be much appreciated.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

We have everybody online.

Okay, how many do we have online?

Okay, good, Bruce, and we'll go to three online in a row.

Okay.

Thanks, Bruce.

Hi, I'm Bruce King.

I'm a resident, a driver and a cyclist.

Alternative one is the recommended alternative in this case.

Um, but it's not the safest design for for cyclists.

It includes a bike lane between the park cars and the roadway with moving cars, and thus puts the cyclists closer to the cars.

Um I know from experience when I'm in those bike lanes, I've got a lookout for people opening doors.

I've been clipped by a door before, I've hobbled for several months.

I was lucky I wasn't more seriously injured.

It's a real hazard.

Uh alternative three is the safest design for cyclists, it's totally feasible.

Um the design includes a separated bike lane.

Everyone knows it's separated bike lanes, are better and safer for cyclists, um, because you're not out near the moving cars.

So, first principle in safety is management is responsible for safety.

Okay, and for a good design that's safe for everybody.

In this case, alternative three is the safest design for cyclists.

Management's responsible for that.

And as the reviewers tonight, you guys are partially responsible for the safety of the design here.

And I didn't hear any discussion about that which is the safest of the designs for for all uses here.

And uh that should be a factor in this.

Thank you.

I want to go online.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Rebecca.

Good evening.

Thank you, everyone.

Um, first, I'm glad to see uh the pedestrian improvements on higher Avenue, particularly the rectangular rapid flashing beacons.

I see a lot of pedestrians crossing Higher Avenue even in the evenings, and that's gonna hugely improve their safety as well as wall belt.

So thank you for that.

Regarding bike lanes, uh kind of like all of the designs.

I have different reasons for liking each of the different designs, but I want to echo what Bruce King said, which is that I would love to hear what public works says is the safest.

Because what you know, this is such an important corridor for our students, uh, for our high schoolers, our middle schoolers, our elementary school, all ages um are already using this to bike to school, and more of them will.

The safer we make it, the more of them, the the greater mode shift we'll see.

And every single car trip that gets replaced by a bicycle trip is an improvement for our climate and it's improvement for the um health and autonomy and independence of our students, and it's better for the traffic for the people who are still driving.

I mean, it is a win-win-win-win-win every time we convert um a car trip to a bike trip.

So I would ask the um public works to explore um ways to make that lane safer, the bike lane safer, whether it's putting in the buffer in a door zone in alternative two, um, whether it's modifying alternative three such that okay, I don't totally love that alternative three that the bike lane is at the same level of the sidewalk.

I think that could introduce a lot of conflict.

So, you know, if that could be on the street level instead, and there could be some kind of um, you know, really clear demarcation that's not just some paint, but some physical demarcation.

You know, another thing for alternative one, what you could do is have the bike lane between the sidewalk and the parked cars um on the road level, but you know, that would you increase the safety of the bike lane and um get more kids biking?

So thank you, and I look forward to this.

Garland, you're on the line, you have two minutes.

Yeah, can you hear me?

Yes, all right.

Um, so Garland Doogie here, long-time Castle Valley resident, uh, former automotive engineer.

Um, so car enthusiast, mother of kids who used to bicycle on this road every day.

I think the one thing we can agree on here is that cars drive way too fast on this road, except for two times during the day, and that's during the morning commute and the afternoon pickup.

You know, how many of us have been stuck in that long train of cars on this road?

I suspect I am not in the room, but I suspect most of you.

And it's mile-long stack up of cars every single day.

Well, Mac, you have the opportunity to future-proof this road, and if you decide to keep uh current situation, which is basically this alternative one, that would be a mistake.

You're not planning for the future.

Speakers earlier mentioned e-bikes, that is a game changer, and kids are riding them even up that horrible hill, all the way up to canyon where they wouldn't be on a normal bicycle, they're riding them.

There's no turning back this clock.

We can't say, oh, yeah, it's not safe to, you know, you can't ride these kids.

Um, they're doing this and and they need a safe place to do this.

As a result, I gotta say, um, we've got to do the safest thing.

Public works is trying to scare us, maybe with uh like threats of two million dollars.

That's nothing compared to the life of a child.

And I think the the safest option really is alternative three.

We need those bike lanes, and we need to keep the kids safe.

We need to keep traffic calming measures in this area.

Um, and I urge you guys to do the right thing and vote for alternative three.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line, you have two minutes.

Hi, good evening.

My name is Nerlip Cyan.

I live off of Hire, and I'm happy to see this project going forward because there are hundreds of children that walk this area every single day, twice a day.

I have children at the middle school, and I'd like to echo what a lot of the callers have said so far and a lot of the speakers.

One is alternative one is not the safest.

There are so many children who are riding e-bikes and who are on uh electric scooters going up and down the street, going to the high school, going to the um uh high school and going to canyon Middle school or going to creekside.

And I think alternative three is the safest to create that separation between cars that go way too fast and pedestrians and bike riders.

So I would urge the MAC to really seriously consider um alternative three.

And as the last speaker said, as something looking towards the future to make this safe going into the future.

Secondly, I was at the meeting in May and I spoke out against the bulbs.

I think they create a very awkward situation.

I don't think they make anything safer.

I have seen students at like bulb intersections, and no one stops for them.

They do see them, but no one stops for them.

There has to be something else uh that can be done there.

I'm not quite sure what it is, but I would urge that to be looked at.

And then third, the timeline for construction, the time of 8 30 to 4 30 completely misses what this area is.

And I feel like the county doesn't understand Castro Valley.

That is prime time for students and cars dropping their children off at, you know, one of the four schools in this area that are served off of higher and also being picked up off of higher.

So I would urge them to you know look at alternatives for when construction starts and stops.

Thank you very much.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Bruce.

Uh hello, I'm the Bruce Doogie.

Um, I think with, you know, cyclists need separation.

This is critical for safety.

Um, and I think this $2 million is uh is a bit of a scare.

We uh should ask uh public works what is the percentage of uh of the overall project because I have a feeling that's uh it's uh it's uh not uh it's not insignificant, but it's not that huge.

Um so that so I'm I'm all for alternative three, which I think is the safest thing.

The other argument they're going to tell you is that there's a lot of um driveways, but these driveways are residential driveways.

These are not commercial driveways, so they're very um the frequency of use is very small.

So um I think that that argument uh falls a little bit flat.

Um so I think uh the the key is we need to get more people out of their cars, um, just like uh one of the previous speakers said that's going to uh help for everything, it's gonna help for health.

Um, the climate crisis, which there was no mention of whatsoever.

Um, the public works has a uh um you know uh a responsibility to to work on uh climate crisis because 73% of our greenhouse gases in Alameda Unincorporated come from driving.

So we know we need to reduce driving.

That's the one of the highest priorities for the county.

And so you're not gonna do that with uh with alternative one.

Um, I think alternative two would also be acceptable.

Um I think if you uh put some curves in there to protect with alternative instead of the buffers for alternative one, and then you'd have to swap the um the car lane, the one the one parking lane, you'd have to swap it with the bike lane and then and then put in uh some curves.

So I think alt two could work, but all three is definitely the um the safest alternative, and that's what's going to get people out of the cars and promote.

It's gonna make people want to walk or to cycle, and that's what we need.

We want people to want to do it.

Thanks.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Roy.

Yeah, thank you.

Um I did miss the first couple of minutes for the presentation.

So my apologies if this was covered, but um, there's kind of a little bit of a you know misrepresentational kind of limited facts being presented.

Um this project was uh reviewed at the BPAC, and the BPAC is actually advisory committed to public works and the members of the BPAC are actually individually selected by the Director of Public Works to provide input into these kinds of projects.

So here we have a body that is hand selected for expertise for particularly this kind of project.

Um I did hear the presenter say that maybe uh on one of the options, it has uh limited support from the safety issues inherent in several designs, including option one, which the BPAC unanimous unanimously declared as completely unsafe.

So this is the group that is hand selected by the director of public works to give advice on these kinds of projects.

I'm not unanimously.

Stated that in their view, option one was inherently unsafe.

I think if you see a photograph of it, um there is just no space, uh, not enough space in between uh cars and cyclists to really make that a uh bicycle infrastructure that anybody is actually going to feel safe using.

Thank you.

Speakers, Matt Turner, Brian Foster, Jessica Barrett.

Good evening, once again, council members.

Um, for those who don't know me, um I I serve on the Alameda County Transportation Commission's bicycle pedestrian advisory committee where I've served um for over 10 years, most of that time as chair, and uh reviewed hundreds of plans uh all across Alameda County and into Contra Costa and Santa Clara.

Um, and we've reviewed budgets and designs and uh and seen them implemented over time.

And I can tell you that uh option three is the safest design that uh I drive this road every day with the whole pickup drop off uh circus that happens, and the less cars we have on this road the better.

I see kids with near misses every day.

It's dangerous.

And the idea that you're gonna put a kid in a door zone riding one of these e-scooters, no, like something is gonna happen, and those who recommended the dangerous routes bear some responsibility for implementing dangerous routes.

So, you know, option three is the safest option.

You want parked cars between our kids and the cars doing crazy stuff up and down this street.

That's a fact, and and to do less is is putting our kids at risk.

I do not want to see another Lana Carlos Memorial type situation, because we will get one.

That road is dangerous as it is, and if we don't put barriers between kids and cars, we're gonna have another one.

Talk quickly.

Talk quickly, you got two minutes.

Well, I just said what they're first said.

Okay.

Uh, first, I I just wanted, and I've been before this before the uh the council before.

Um, when you when you have a hammer when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

We have an institution here that is overly represented with all due respect, my good friend Matt, by pedestrians and and bicyclists.

Where on the on the where are the groups of people representing the drivers of parkers and the commuters?

They don't exist.

So if you look at the goals that public works uh selected, all of them are to promote safety or better enhancements for pedestrians and and bicyclists.

But what about drivers?

There's no throughput.

In fact, every single solution reduces throughput, makes it more difficult for drivers.

Most notably, not talked about, are these ball belts, specifically the one that they're taking away or stalling to take away the right intern onto Redwood.

If you think that the morning and afternoon traffic is bad now, wait until the bull belts prohibit right hand turns.

It'll be gridlocked all the way down higher.

The ball bouts are a major problem, whether it's a Hamburg Island, James Avenue and their island, and the islands there, Chester Raleigh Boulevard, Somerset, and now higher.

It's like Public Works has a jihad against drivers.

I encourage the committee.

I'm sorry, the council to do something about it.

30 seconds to go.

I'm on time.

Thank you.

After Jessica, Karen Falk, and Olivia Kim.

Um, I don't live on hire, but I made the mistake of trying to get onto hire today from one of the side streets.

Took me half an hour.

You need some lights on hire.

The traffic moves too fast.

I know my my ex-husband has to come out onto hire every day to get to work.

He leaves half an hour extra just to get on to hire.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm gonna just try talking into and holding it.

So my name is Karen Folkes.

I am a resident on Higher Avenue.

Um just a couple things.

I support option one, the recommended option.

Um, I do have some questions about that though.

Um one was mentioned that the um parking restrictions would have 72 hours notice.

I'm interested in finding out typically how long that restriction would last, so that we can make some plans on what to do with our vehicles um and getting in and out of our driveway.

Um the um I'm wondering when I can actually look at the design.

Um somebody already mentioned that there is they had a steep grade.

We also have a sweep grade or on the downhill side, um, from what I can tell from the the pictures.

Um part of our property, they're gonna have to have a three foot drop, so what kind of retaining role, etc.

is gonna be in there.

And then on the other, as you go further towards center, it's more like a five-foot drop.

So I'm really curious how that's going to be addressed and how the stormwater, I don't want my property flooded because things aren't taken into appropriate consideration.

Um, I am, however, looking forward to um sidewalks.

Um, my car has been scratched so many times it's not funny.

Um, I've been side swiped um a couple times.

We've had mirrors knocked off.

I think this is a nice improvement.

I'm really excited about it.

Um, but would like a little more information specific to our individual properties so we can know what to expect a little bit better.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Olivia Kim, and I'm a neighbor of Karen's.

We live on higher, and I want to say that we live on an expressway.

And there have been times uh I just to test, I would drive at the speed limit 30 miles per hour, and cars would be backed up.

Um I raced four sons that all went through the Castor Valley School District, uh, Castor Valley Schools, and my kitchen window faces higher, so I see what happens.

There is a car that's used our front yard to avoid rear-ending the car in front of them because traffic came to a full stop.

Um I saw uh a major accident.

Um I saw a child almost get hit by a car turning onto forest.

I someone said we're just waiting for something to happen.

Um, a child's life.

I just I love Castor Valley.

We've lived here over 20 years, and I given uh the school traffic, why something has not been done earlier?

Higher should have been the first street to be improved.

I'm sorry.

I know there's a lot of traffic on Somerset and but so many children, so many children.

We have two elementary schools, two middle uh middle schools, a high school.

Um, this is just some just the urgency.

My sons are gone, they're done.

I don't have any uh game in this, but uh I wasn't going to speak, but it's just something uh I mean, inside of me, does emotions or um so thank you for this forum and um I want to just uh the plan number three, that's what I would like to see.

Can you hold on for a minute?

We have no additional speakers for this item.

I was just gonna ask you, we had any more, and we have no more speakers here in the room, okay.

I'm gonna close public portion of this.

Um I made a commitment to be out of here at nine o'clock tonight.

Um I'm gonna ask the council if you want to continue this item, or would you like to um, uh Chuck, we have everybody here.

I think we should slog on.

Um, we got a lot of momentum going right now.

Perhaps we can wrap it up quickly.

Okay, I'm gonna ask.

I've been in concurrence.

I'm in concurrence.

Okay.

Does someone ask the council then to be direct and quick?

Okay, um, okay.

Um let's start with uh Councilmember Davis.

Thank you.

And uh thank you, Carl and Daniel and staff for bringing these alternatives forward for us to have the opportunity to review and comment on.

Um, there's I'm gonna preface my comments as I've been a traffic engineer for 45 years.

I've implemented hundreds of miles of bike lanes and bikes, um, especially uh class two bike lanes, and I think that um the plan alternative one is the better alternative for several reasons.

Uh one, this is um by installing a bike lane, people are concerned about speeds of vehicles are traveling, that sort of thing, by narrowing the lanes, you're gonna reduce those speeds.

Um my concern about alternative three and putting the bike lane right up against the sidewalk, it is becomes it's too close for vehicles egressing their driveways.

They're not expecting a fast moving vehicle.

Um class two bike lanes have shown they're a safe facility, hundreds of studies out there documenting that.

And um my major, I have a few concerns specifically at um, I question the the need for ball bouts.

You know, basically a ball out is uh to shorten the distance for pedestrian to cross, so they're exposed less to vehicle traffic.

But we have a parking lane and we have a bike lane that provides 12 feet of uh clearance off the sidewalk that a pedestrian can step out into the roadway and be able to see traffic and whether or not it's safe to cross or not.

You know, a suggestion of well, okay.

Well, let's just swap the bike lane and the parking, put the uh the bike lane against the uh the um the curb.

Uh then a pedestrian when they step out, they're not they don't have that benefit of the additional five feet of the bike lane to view oncoming traffic.

In fact, the parked car that is on the now on the inside of the uh the bike lane would create some sight distance problems for those pedestrians.

The other thing is when uh you're doing ADA ramps.

Need to remember, for example, at Forest, you have uh you're setting the ramps at a 45 degree angle.

Well, going across on the west side of that intersection, there's no crosswalk.

There's no uh ramp on the other side.

So someone who is visually impaired may think they could actually cross that.

So you need to make sure that your ADA ramps are in fact parallel with a street to provide clear definition as to where that individual should be.

I see a couple of the bulbs outside there.

I think that's primarily due to um because they're uh flood control channels and things going underneath the roadway, uh west of um, just looking west of forest, there's a couple areas that we have some some ball bats, but I think it's uh yeah, that is far superior.

You know, people sit there and say, well, if you don't put in a bike lane, that is less safe because a bike lane clearly defines where a bicyclist should be and a motor vehicle should be.

We've got some correspondence where an individual where people said, well, it wouldn't be in compliance with state law that requires a bicep uh a vehicle driver to uh a bicyclist by three feet.

Well, that's only in play if it's the bicyclist and the vehicle driver are in the same lane, so therefore, if you have a bike lane, the bicycle is in a separate lane and therefore is not a vehicle driver is not required to swerve out uh three feet uh around the uh bicycles.

Um, some people will say uh door openings and getting door jacked or whatever um uh with the bicycle lane on the inside.

We're in a residential area, we're not in a commercial area.

We have high turnover of vehicle traffic with people coming in and out of their their cars.

So I I challenge the issue that it is inherently less safe by doing it.

And I think all the options that you have provided are safe options, they meet the require uh minimum requirements of the the green book or Caltrans design manual.

So to argue that whether one is more safe or another, it's just an academic exercise.

Uh, because unless you have the data to back that up, I'm sorry, I'm I'm gonna go with my experience and uh knowledge of implementing bicycle facilities with that.

But um again, uh thank you very much for the opportunity to do to discuss all these, and I'm really pleased that you provided the different alternatives to clearly so that we wouldn't be trying to design it here at this uh council.

So those are basically um one question were the residents advised of this meeting on higher?

Oh, good.

Well, I'm glad to say.

That makes me feel much better about it because uh there isn't as many.

I expected this room to be full when uh when the the project is coming.

Uh so uh thank you and uh keep up the good work.

Great.

Councilmember Thomas.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um my first question is uh, what made the county come up?

Uh but the alternative one as the best option.

Um alternative one, uh, as we kind of looked at it, it fit with the existing topography that was out there.

Um, there are a lot of good sidewalk, about 1600 linear feet of sidewalk that is still in good condition.

So um, you know, one of the options like alternative three would be ripping out those uh existing sidewalk that were already ADA accessible and already had the correct 2% slope edge and things like that.

Um I think another strong argument for alternative one is just it provides everyone a clear idea of where they should go and where they should stay and how they should use the lane, right?

Um, I'm personally not a bicyclist, so when I see a downhill shareow and I have to share a bike path with a uh vehicle, that kind of scares me a little bit.

So, you know, if I'm looking at it in terms of like I know I have this lane that's for me to use, I know I have this path that I can walk on and I know there there's this 11 foot wide lane for the vehicles to drive on that to me kind of comes off as um you know uh from a safety perspective a a strong alternative uh backup questions a couple of callers called in about the two million dollars you guys are trying to scare us is that is that any comments on that uh no need to scare you so uh but when you have an investment already in place that is actually functioning why would you want to tear it up and replace it with the same in kind uh so it didn't make sense uh the other thing is you know alternative three combines pedestrian with the bikes without any separation and some of you mentioned uh you know electric bikes and stuff like that and so you can imagine an electric bike riding uh 35 miles an hour hitting a pedestrian so that was not a standard design in terms of meeting the standard alternative one meets the actual you know design standards uh it does pro you know alternative three kind of give you a better sense of safety but uh you know in terms of you know conflict it does create conflict between bikes and uh pedestrians and we did talk about electric bikes and how uncontrollable they are nowadays so uh we have to um yeah and my last question here is um you know the timing of construction um 8 30 a.m is the right of the time high school starts um and then the schools get out at 3 35 p.m usually because I pick my daughter 3 35 p.m is uh um and then they're also 3 20 p.m.

So if if if you can do something about that and I understand construction is tough you gotta do all that stuff block the roads but I just want to let you know 8 35 a.m is high school starts and that traffic is horrible on higher and uh the people who lived on higher said it's just um nightmare I mean you can't get out everybody's on there back in traffic so just think about it when you do the construction 8 35 a.m and 3 20 to 3 35 p.m.

because if you can open it up you know kids you know get picked up they're gone and my last comment is um we need to protect our children I mean there's there's about 100 kids crossing at that time around 340 and um around 830 going in um so pedestrian traffic and the bicycle traffic should be protected so whatever the best plan in plan is we need to go with that thank you um you're on okay council we're fever I was just looking up some statistics and um I apparently there's uh stuff out there that suggests that uh that the um the driveways are less safe than driving alongside parked cars and in the in the street because you have the um you just don't know when someone's gonna pull out of a driveway compared to they um driving down the the normal bike lane that we see so I've I've heard everyone's comments I've heard Ray talk about his uh experience as a traffic controller or advisor or um what was that traffic wet engineer so that's even better I I'm for item number one castle remote um I lived on forest um for 15 16 years and having to take my kid and drive down that speedway I agree it's I almost got hit several times um to slow things down that would be excellent um I don't let my child walk to school that's why there's more cars on that street is because we can't trust that someone won't hit our child.

So we are driving and it's gonna cause a lot of traffic, and that's not gonna change the behavior, right?

Putting in um a shared bike lane is not going to change the behavior of how people drive and the number of cars because still people don't have the confidence of putting their child walking to school, given that the traffic is people speed and you know, no, not absolutely not.

So um with that, there is, I have another question.

The ball ball outs, what what is the purpose of those things like I'm just can you just educate me because I don't it doesn't it doesn't really make sense, especially on redwood and and higher.

Is that a bulk?

I mean it's uh I know it's a very uh kind of tiny photo there.

So a bulb is nothing more than you take you know the curb that where you make a right turn there's a curb.

Yeah, you you you pull that curve up.

Yeah, so that you narrow down the distance people will cross the street.

So the curve actually comes from the carbon gutter all of a sudden it's getting into uh into the street, basically, and narrowing down the street at that intersection.

That's the and uh, it is not uh I'll be honest with you.

It's been a kind of the standard practice for a lot of folks, but uh I personally myself don't like them.

But the engineers, the engineers seems to kind of think that's uh uh it provide additional safety for uh pedestrians to cross these streets.

So uh I'm glad to hear that some of you are expressing your concerns about these ball bouts, yeah.

It's one of those standards that that I think uh hopefully my deputy director for engineering is listening and and I'll join you in opposing the bulbouts myself.

So, but they do have a certain value in reducing speed at certain intersections.

They do have a certain value in reducing the distance when you have multi-lane roadways to cross, but when you have a two-lane road and a very narrow road already, I think their value kind of diminishes a little bit.

So, we will reconsider the bull box.

I agree.

Thank you for reconsidering that.

Also, um, the other thing I was gonna add is the the um the crosswalk, is that gonna have the flashing lights on all of those crosswalks?

And what is your determining kind of factor on putting those in?

Because I know like on Castro Valley Boulevard, they have they have the lights, but other locations don't.

So, how do you determine when those lights are?

Generally speaking, it's based on volume.

Uh, you know, some of the mid blocks don't have enough volume to uh to create uh the bulb outs, so we apply those mostly so as a funding issue.

So we take them to the most where we most need them.

Uh so in this case, I don't know how many do we have.

Do we have any?

Uh I think there's an existing one either on Forest or Alana, and we're basically gonna be replacing kind of that same one.

Um, so there's only one that's existing out there as of right now.

Okay.

Yeah, I would consider maybe putting in another one just to kind of give the kids the lights.

It's very dark at night, and so people speed down there and to have something lit up, at least to give them an option to say, oh, there's someone crossing, there's something coming in the road would be, you know, beneficial for pedestrians, kids, isolate, you know, all of everyone.

Um just quick clarification.

You're asking for a rapid flashing beacon to be installed.

There is no rapid flashing beacons on higher right now, correct?

Or there's a beacon there or just a crosswalk?

Oh, okay, okay.

Yeah, there's one on Alana right now.

Councilman Ramoto, you finished?

Councilmember.

That's it.

Yep.

Councilmember Davini.

All right, we always thank our presenters, but truly, truly, truly, I'm thanking you tonight.

Uh great presentation, very professional.

I love the graph that gave us all the alternatives.

More importantly, you're coming to us is exactly what we want.

We love having input into the public work projects.

Uh it it uh it doesn't inflate our our egos, but in the community, we can see things that that perhaps the traffic engineers don't see.

Um I have a lot of experience on that road.

So truly, I know you don't have to before us, and I very, very much appreciate you coming here and giving us the courtesy to uh to actually have a vote on this.

Thank you also for the project.

It's needed, it's appreciated by the community.

Um I'm really excited about having sidewalks.

I'm really excited about having bike lanes.

I think it's wonderful that we have a road that is wide enough that's going to be able to accommodate all these things.

Because quite frankly, a lot of our roads in Castor Valley aren't going to accommodate sidewalks and and bike lanes.

Uh, and this one does.

Um, I actually like alternative one, despite uh a lot of testimony here about uh alternative three being the safest.

In my non-traffic engineer's mind, I made a determination before I came to this meeting that I thought alternative one was the safest.

And again, because of the interface of the driveways to the bicyclists of of three.

I might be wrong.

Um, but uh but but that's my uh that's my preference.

I I think um alternative one is actually safer.

Um I noticed uh uh two improvements or or changes I should say that I would personally like to see is I would like to see 11 foot uh traffic lanes uh the whole length, not just from Madison up to Center Street.

Uh and on alternative one, you have a section that has a four foot sidewalk, and then alternative three, you have a section that has a four foot uh bike lane, which suggests to me that reduction in width of sidewalks and bike lanes are acceptable.

I would like you guys, the experts, to pick one of the other that you can reduce that space and have an 11-foot lane going both directions.

I think that would enhance future public transportation.

I think it would help with ADA concerns, uh, school buses, other large vehicles, uh, RVs and some of the big party vans that go down there.

So if there's a way to fudge either a sidewalk or bike lane to make an 11 foot lane, I think that would be good planning for the future where school buses and perhaps AC transit or other public transportation uh can travel down there.

Uh Daniel, you just warmed my heart saying that you're not a fan of bull bouts.

I think they're disastrous.

Uh, I think they're truly um they really impede the flow of traffic.

I don't mean to be dramatic by saying disastrous, but they they they don't allow right-hand lanes.

Uh the lane that you're the street that you're turning into is now truncated.

So it's it's messed up traffic on that side.

People have to swerve to get into them and avoid a head on end of the road that they're they're turning.

Um I'm not a fan of them.

Um I will put together a work crew to remove all the existing bull bouts on a volunteer basis if uh if you guys would like that.

Uh and and then the last the last comment uh uh that I have is uh has there been a consideration of night work years ago.

I started a pipeline company and and our crew loved night work.

You had increased safety because of the reduced traffic.

You could even close roads except to residents, much easier at nighttime.

Um, and so there was a greater efficiency in in getting the pipeline, and of course, we had to do roads and sidewalks and all that stuff as well.

Um so if uh just you guys are the experts, maybe consider this a night project.

It might be safer for the workers and get accomplished in a shorter period of time without dealing with that school traffic because it's it's gonna wreak havoc for the workers out there trying to control traffic uh uh during the morning and evening commutes.

And that concludes my comments.

Thank you.

Really thank you for being here.

Thank you.

I can tell Dan doesn't live on that street.

Um, Vice Chair Wilbur.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, uh Daniel Alex, appreciate it.

Um really enjoyed the comments from the council tonight.

Uh, just being brief, I would support alternative one with the uh recommendations put forward by council member DeVinny on the lane size, and uh suggest the the permanent ban of all bull bouts in Castro Valley from this point forward.

Well, I think I heard loud and clear.

One thing that was for sure is ball ball valves need to go away.

So you know, uh I I happen to like number one also, and I happen to agree with um Councilmore Devini when he said if we can make that road 11-wide, so that um we would have the alternative for a school bus or a route that would go down that road.

And I I think that 11 wide also would give you a little bit more wiggle room for drivers and and bicyclists that are next to you.

Um, even though um you don't have to give that three foot clearance or whatever, because they're not in the same lane.

But I just think that um a little bit more room for the driver.

Um I think often we do forget about the vehicles on the road, as one of the uh folks said in the community.

Um, we do need to constantly look for ways to get traffic through our communities as quickly as possible.

Um we all have jobs, we like to get to work on time and or get home for dinner on time, so um, whatever we could do to eliminate that.

And I've heard over and over about these ball valves and accidents, and uh James, I'm scared to go down that road because I'm afraid that um somebody's gonna run into me from what I hear.

So um it if we could I I like number one.

If we could uh get 11 foot all the way through and we could get rid of the ball valves, you got my vote.

So um anyway, that's is there a possibility of getting rid of the ball valves?

I think the ball bouts are in this case since they are not built yet, so we don't have to build them.

So we will we will uh remove the ball bouts.

Uh the eleven-foot lane, uh, one of just uh off uh you know, just for educational purposes, one of the reasons we narrow down to 10 feet is to force cars to slow down.

The wider the lanes, you know, we used to build them at 12-foot lane, like freeways, uh and uh outside lanes up to 14 feet, and people drive a whole lot faster than they do now.

So the narrower we make it, the more at least a lot of drivers kind of are more careful when you make it a little bit more uncomfortable.

Uh I do like the 11 feet uh minimum standard uh because we should allow for but you know if we allow it for the AC transit buses, we should allow it for the school buses also.

So uh we will look into that option to see that.

Uh uh I wouldn't I even think uh uh you know, one of the considerations in the future that we should look at is on on streets like higher, which is highly residential, and you don't really go anywhere except to the schools.

Uh, you know, my preference is wider sidewalks.

Let's make the pedestrians a lot more safer uh and and maybe do shareholds on the roadways for the bikes that and if you if you can walk from forest to school, uh you'd be better off doing that than riding a bike.

My judgment now uh obviously the bike folks will disagree with me, but uh this this thing comes from Redwood Road and did ends at uh uh you know, center.

Uh it serves a very narrow community base.

So uh it as a other you know, in the only value add adding these bike lanes is in the future if we continue with these bike lanes, then you have connectivity that people from longer distances might ride in a safe manner.

But if you ask me, you know, in a neighborhood environment, the wider the sidewalk, the better the safer for the kids to walk, the better off we are.

But this is just another observation that we need to make.

Uh and and uh alternative one is the metrical, it provides the standard design approved by FHWA and the various uh design guidelines.

Uh yes, we do have people with a lot of different preferences.

Uh, we were not the ones scaring you.

I think Matt was trying to scare us uh was uh you know some kids gonna die and all that stuff.

No, no, we we invest a lot of energy and time and money and resources to ensure not only kids, no, no one is hurt.

Our whole objective of doing the thing we do is to make sure it's safe.

Uh but occasionally we need to be reasonable and compromise on some things.

So if you go on James Drive, by the way, James and uh Redwood Road, a lot of people have been talking about it.

The ball bouts, I agree with you.

Sometime down in the future, we probably need to need to remove those bulbs, but the pedestrian refuge area in the middle is not the problem.

That's a refuge area on a four-lane highway.

Somebody crossing the street at least has a respite, the place where they can actually stop and allow the other cars to go by with a flashing beacon.

That's the pedestrian safety.

That's where we have a couple of kids hit by you know bicyclists hit on the streets.

That's why we're putting the roadway.

The bulbot was in there, uh, unfortunately, while bulbouts were still the things to do.

So uh we will probably look into that also.

Other future project to remove them.

Do you have an idea what a ball out costs?

What's the what is the ball out cost?

I'm trying to figure out if we we save enough money where we can put that money somewhere else.

This project is about seven million dollars to do.

The two million dollars additional would have pumped it up to about you know uh nine million plus.

So uh, so we have two million dollars to spend somewhere else.

It could be uh well I'm just asking.

No, no, we didn't have the money, but that's why we actually said option three financially doesn't have two million plus how many ball outs.

The ball bouts are gonna be only four, I think.

Not two or four, I don't know.

But we will we will not put the ball box in.

Okay.

Yeah, um, Chuck, if I could just comment real quickly, uh there was some criticism as the two million being a scare tactic and a gas.

My experience is is that the guess is more likely to the reality is more likely to be four million than one million.

Um, if you make a mistake, it's it's only a lot more expensive than the original engineers' estimate.

One more uh one more comment.

Um, drive uh the beacon light, it really works.

Okay, I mean when kids press on it, we see the light, we stop.

So I think more you gotta put those lights in Cash Valley, just you know, Crow Canyon Road, um Redwood Road.

If you can put it up there, you know, use the two million and put the beacon lights all over Castle Valley.

So we can believe me, we are that's one of the reasons I'm saying look, we have other places where we can actually make safety improvements uh for some marginal benefit.

So that's one, but uh, I guess CHP is gone.

But I was out there at James.

There's a beacon, a flashing beacon.

Every other car was ignoring it and going through it.

So we do need enforcement uh next time you see uh Jan, you need to tell her she needs to be out there.

I will tell you that a car has three components and uh a steering wheel, a gas pedal, and a brake.

And you gotta use all three of them.

And the driver has to have a some common sense upstairs.

I saw a video that was sent to me.

Um, I think it was Alvin Jameson, and there was a ball out, and a guy stepped off the curb, and he was, I mean, six inches away from a car hitting him, and the flashing light was going.

So I said, I'm not quite sure that um we can blame everything on ball outs and flashing lights because they're really drivers.

But at the end of the day, um, we have um uh we've heard this, and by the way, uh Daniel is a director of the department.

It is awful nice when the director takes the time to come to a meeting in Castro Valley for the entire department.

I wish we had the same respect from our environmental health department.

So anyway, um, for showing up, and we do need um motion.

We're gonna get a motion.

We're we're we'll talk about that.

Okay.

Um, we need a motion, Mr.

Chair.

I move that we forward alternative one uh to be considered by the board of supervisors for the installation of bike lanes and sidewalk improvements and higher.

Second, uh was there a comment about ball valves?

Yes, per the recommendations that were outline uh specified by the council members, so ball belts and 11 foot lane, I'll second that provision as well.

So can you um reiterate that um motion so that I'm sure I understand it?

I move that we um endorse alternative one to be submitted to with the eleven foot lanes and removal of the ball outs uh to be forwarded to the board of supervisors for consideration for installation for the third time I'll second that.

That's a third let's have a roll call, please.

Councilmember Davis, aye council member Davini, aye, council member feebig, aye council member mota, aye council member Thomas, yes, Vice Chair Malker, aye chair more, yes, motion passed okay.

Um that item is done.

Um we um we have another item on the agenda, but I just don't see any way we're gonna get through it.

Um I'm gonna continue it if that's okay with you guys.

Um we also have the adoption of the schedule um for 2026.

Um chair, I move that we approve the uh land use meeting schedule for 2026, and we have a second, second, friendly amendment to include the general purpose meetings as well as the land use it they're in here.

Okay, it's called the land use calendar.

Oh, yes, correct.

The title of the thing says land use, but I it includes both land use and general purposes on the calendar.

I'm good.

I didn't I didn't look at the title.

I was like, oh, it's there.

Roll call quickly.

Davis, aye, Davini, aye, feebig, mota, aye, Thomas, Vice Chair Mulker.

Aye.

Vice Chair Moore.

I mean, Chair Moore.

Yes, approved.

Thank you.

Reading adjourned.

Thank you.