Good morning, everyone.

I'd like to call to order our transportation planning committee meeting of Monday, January 5th.

I'll ask the clerk to please call the role to establish our quorum.

Supervisor Miley.

Supervisor Howard.

Present.

Thank you very much.

I would like to make an announcement that in-person participation is welcome and appreciated.

The meeting is open to the public both in person here in the room and online.

If you'd like to make public comment on an item or during open public forum, please fill out a speaker slip if you're in the room.

If you're online, the clerk will now provide brief instructions on how to participate remotely.

Thank you.

For remote participation, follow the teleconferencing guidelines posted at www.acgo.org, teleconferencing guidelines slash transportation and planning.

And please use the raise your hand function after the presentation to be called on to speak after each item.

And then when this supervisor calls for a public comment, you can use the raise your hand function at that time.

Thank you very much.

I do note we had a few technical um delays today.

And um I do have, I do know that some people are online for public comment on non-agendized items.

I would like to move that item forward just in case there are any other public uh any other technical difficulties and to get that item out of the way.

Any objection to moving item four public comment to the beginning of the meeting?

Supervisor Miley, let's do that then.

If you're online wishing to make a comment on an item that is not on today's agenda, general open public comments on items within the purview of this body, but not agendized.

We're going to move that up to this point right now.

If you're online or in person, raise your hand.

I don't see any speakers slipped in person.

Do we have anyone with their hands raised online?

Yes.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Gerald B.

Miller.

Good morning, supervisors.

Thank you for uh having this meeting.

Uh I my question is uh to you, to all of you, to all of us.

What do we want to have happen with our open space in the county?

Do we want to just drive by and look at the area or do we actually want to go and have agricultural experiences through successful small family businesses?

Measure D stated purpose was to enhance agriculture.

It is not achieved that goal.

Agriculture in our county has deteriorated under Measure D.

We need to find ways to enhance agriculture, which was Measure D's stated purpose.

Thank you so much.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Griffin B.

Miller.

Hi, my name is Griffin, and I live in unincorporated Alameda County.

I wanted to share a personal example about how the minimum agricultural parcel sizes affecting how are affecting housing and the next generation.

My father, who who just spoke, was 35 years old when he bought our 100 acre agricultural parcel back in 1978.

He wasn't wealthy and but he was able to do it because the land was accessible to working families at that time.

Today I am the same age, and I honestly don't know if I could afford even a five-acre parcel.

And I do reasonably well.

And it's not a personal failure.

This is a structural housing and land access problem.

When minimum parcel sizes are extremely large, rural landownership becomes limited to the very wealthy or institutional buyers.

A 100-acre minimum parcel size is just simply unrealistic.

And it's frankly laughable for the next generation of farmers and land stewards.

This isn't just about agriculture.

It's about who gets to live here on the rural property.

Large minimum parcels prevent modest homes, multi-generational living, and housing tied to working the land.

They turn rural land into luxury assets instead of a place to live, work, and contribute.

Allowing smaller agricultural proper parcels does not mean urban sprawl.

With proper zoning and restrictions, land can remain agricultural while becoming accessible to real people again.

I respectfully ask the county to advance a 2026 ballot measure to reduce the minimum agricultural parcel sizes while keeping land in agricultural use.

This would expand housing opportunity, support new farmers, and keep communities alive.

If we want the next generation to steward the land, they need a real path to live on it.

Thank you for your time and your leadership.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Kelly.

Thank you.

The way this meeting is being run with uh you, and this is also happening in other meetings where uh this board will play around with the uh the public comments that are uh ordinarily, let's say scheduled right before adjournment, and then suddenly your friends, your your uh your your uh your constituents, your uh your contributors will have uh will be have advanced notice and they'll know when when to call in uh for their special specially scheduled uh public comments, which get shifted around uh by many hours.

So nobody knows when public comments are scheduled.

Um I just wanted to point to uh, you know, instead of uh trying to relitigate and redraft Measure D, why don't we just uh uh follow Measure D, which was passed by the voters uh over 20 years ago.

Um, and if we're going to be talking about uh what are we going to do when we run out of parcels?

Well, I would refer you to a story that just came out in the San Jose Mercury two days ago.

And they quoted Matt Regan, senior vice president of public policy at the Bay Area Council, which is a pro business group.

And he said that there's still somewhere left for the city of Dublin to go.

He said, quote, there's always up, you never run out of air space, end quote.

So that's a tremendous thing.

So maybe we can have multi-story event centers.

Maybe we can have multi-story theaters, maybe we can have multi-story wine tasting rooms.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh dear members of the transportation and planning committee.

Uh, I'm using this form to express how Measure D, whose headline in 2000 was Save Agriculture and Open Space Lands initiative.

And it has failed.

Measure D has done the exact opposite of Save Agriculture.

What Measure D has done is impose restrictive land use policies that are undermining the viability of agriculture in Alameda County, which is the opposite of saving agriculture.

Ag operations need adaptability.

Permitting existing operations to expand with ancillary uses directly related to agriculture, such as commercial kitchens for processing goods, agritourism activities, and event centers is crucial for protecting agricultural systems and the open spaces that define East County.

Agritourism diversifies farm income and revitalizes rural economies, educates the public about agriculture, and preserves agricultural heritage while helping to sustain farmland.

These activities create new opportunities to maintain farming operations and rural open spaces as they increase profits and allow farms to remain viable, which is huge in today's economy.

There's a lot of economic pressures out there.

We have to be able to adapt.

For instance, ventures like farm tours or event hosting and on-site processing build customer loyalty and they boost sales and foster greater understanding of food production, all while supporting the preservation of agricultural lands.

Zoning regulations that encourage such uses have been shown to balance economic benefits with rural character protection, enabling farmers to adapt without compromising open space goals.

Measure these current restrictions on building intensity and ancillary developments, however, limit these essential adaptations, threatening the very agricultural fabric.

Thank you for your time.

Caller, you're on the line, you have two minutes.

Bruce King.

Hi, this is Bruce King with Friends of San Lorenzo Creek.

Supervisors, you'll probably remember in June, the flood control proposed increase in flood control benefit assessment for property owners, failed by 80% 80% of the voters voting against it.

According to the flood control engineering reports, we've got higher intensity atmospheric river potentials.

We've got potential for the channels to overtop and flood the urban areas and increase the FEMA flood zones.

We've got uh potential for infrastructure failures.

Uh we can't keep up with maintenance according to flood control.

Uh this affects areas throughout the San Lorenzo Creek watershed, the Estadio Creek watershed in the San Diego parts of Hayward.

Um since that vote, uh, we haven't heard anything from flood control or the board of supervisors about what we're gonna do now.

Are we going to the public doesn't necessarily understand the risks?

Um, and we don't know what the plan moving forward is.

Are we gonna just leave the risks the way they are, in which case we should be informing the public?

Um, or are we going to uh go back and try a different approach or or redo a vote for for flood control?

Um these risks are on the um the shoulders of the board of supervisors because you're the oversight for flood control.

And I encourage that we um start informing the public and uh have a plan on how to move forward.

Thank you.

We have no other speakers for public comment.

Very good.

Thank you all who participated in public input, public comment.

We'll now proceed with our agendized items.

Action one, uh, action item one is an action item.

That's a draft ordinance establishing the unincorporated Alameda County Pedestrian Bicycle and Trails Advisory Commission.

I understand we have Valerie Arkin from Supervisor Miley's office to make a presentation.

Welcome, Valerie.

Good morning.

Nate, would you like to kick this item off?

Uh, yeah, before Valerie uh makes the presentation.

First of all, happy new year, everyone.

Um, this uh concept of a bike pit commission has been um something that I committed to more than five years ago when we establish the bike uh ped um committee.

Uh there's a bike pit committee that is convened by our public works agency uh to provide feedback and input to the public works committee uh agency on bike ped matters in the unincorporated area.

I when we establish the bike ped committee, I committed to the fact that at some point would we would evolve it into a commission.

Um, many jurisdictions in the county have bike ped commissions, um, even the Alameda County Transportation uh Commission is a bike pit um commission.

And the bike pit commission uh the difference between the committee and the commission, the committee is appointed by public works uh and is run basically by public works, a bike pit commission would be appointed by the Board of Supervisors.

It would be accountable directly to the Board of Supervisors relative to bike bed matters in the unincorporated area.

Um this is not a novel concept.

Um many jurisdictions throughout the county have bike bed commissions.

In fact, when I was on the Oakland City Council, I helped to create the one that we have in Oakland.

And I know Supervisor Um Albert, I know you served as mayor, and you're on the Dublin City Council.

Dublin might have one.

And I know Valerie, who's a former city council person for Pleasanton, I believe Pleasanton is a bike pit commission.

So it's taken us a while to get to this point because of the pandemic.

The pandemic slowed us down in putting this together, and my office has basically been taking on the responsibility to do all of the legwork to bring this commission to the board as a reality.

So Valerie from my office was charged with this and has been working closely with my chief of staff, Tona Hinninger, on this matter.

And Valerie's done a lot of work to get us to this point, and she'll probably reference that in terms of talking to the various MACs and getting feedback on that.

So today we're bringing it to this committee so the committee can hear it and decide whether or not to move forward to the Board of Supervisors or consider additional review before we implement it.

But I just wanted to once again apologize that it's taken us a while to get to this point due to the pandemic, but we are here now, and it was a commitment I made that we create a bike pit commission in the unincorporated area more than five years ago.

And I think the other enhancement to this is the fact that it won't only just look at a bike head, it'll look at trails as well.

So we'll be aligning ourselves with trails that hard and maybe Spirit Regional Parks have responsibility for in the unincorporated area.

And I know most people know, even though I ride my bike occasionally, I'm a big pedestrian uh advocate, and this is both for pedestrians and for cyclists, so we can ensure um quality and safety for pedestrians and cyclists in the unincorporated area.

So I just wanted to kind of frame it.

Now I'll pass the baton to Valerie.

So thanks, Valerie.

Of course, thank you.

And again, good morning.

My name's Valerie Yarkin.

I'm a supervisor's assistant for District 4 Supervisor Nate Miley.

I'm here today to present the draft ordinance for a pedestrian bicycle and trails advisory commission for the unincorporated areas of Alameda County.

After my presentation, I will seek your direction in order to move this forward to the entire Board of Supervisors for approval.

So the ordinance is included in your documents with the supervisorial maps and the staff reports also included, and hopefully you've had a chance to review both.

To give some background, the current bicycle pedestrian advisory committee was formed back in 2020 to provide engagement on issues related to bike and pedestrian safety, access, funding applications like grants, projects related to bike lanes, streets, and more, in addition to providing input on the bicycle pedestrian master plan.

This is all for the unincorporated areas of the county, which of course includes Castor Valley, Ashland, Cherryland, Fairview, San Lorenzo, Hayward Acres, Sunol, and the unincorporated areas of Pleasanton and Livermore.

Supervisor Miley has proposed establishing a formal commission, which will advise the Board of Supervisors directly.

And this commission will replace the current committee.

This will allow for more community member empowerment and will result in looking at all issues related to pedestrian bicycles and trails and not select issues as there will be more of a role with the commission helping to set the agendas.

There will also be definitive appointments to the commission by the board of supervisors with term limits.

An update to the bicycle pedestrian master plan will be coming soon, and this commission will have more of an active role with input on that update.

Multimodal transportation is a priority in the county, and the goal is to promote walking, biking, and trail usage in the unincorporated areas.

Hence the reason this is coming forward.

So the duties and structure of the proposed, excuse me, proposed commission are noted in the ordinance and staff report.

But the duties include providing input on the subjects that I just previously mentioned, you know, like grant applications, but also development plans, implementation efforts, and policy considerations related to bike pedestrian and trails.

Again, a key goal will be providing input on the bicycle pedestrian master plan.

That's something that's very important.

And acting as a liaison in the community regarding bike pedestrian trail subjects like education and safety will also be another duty.

So regarding the membership, the commission will consist of seven members, four members from district four, two members from district three, and one member from district one.

As this is a commission for the unincorporated areas, this is appropriate, and each of these districts with a population in each, as depicted in the population table included in your documents.

Terms will be for four years, with just the initial appointments being staggered of two, three, or four years, but then subsequently they will all be four years.

Each member must either reside in the unincorporated area of the respective district or work at or own operate a business in that unincorporated area for a minimum of five years, or work at a public agency that serves that unincorporated area for a minimum of five years, and that would be agencies like BART or AC Transit, for instance.

Meetings shall be held at least quarterly, but not more than twice per month, with a maximum of 12 meetings, 12 regular meetings, and two special meetings annually.

The location of the meetings will be the community development agencies public hearing room, the third Thursday of the month.

Regarding the budget, commission members shall receive a stipend on the amount of $50 per meeting, not to exceed two paid meetings per month.

And the board may provide funds for reasonable and necessary expenses, commission expenses as well.

Staff support will be provided by Alameda County Public Works Department with the Board of Supervisor District 4 staff providing administrative support as needed.

And again, a detailed budget is provided in your documents there.

I have presented this proposed ordinance to the Castor Valley Fairview and Eden Area MAX, as well as the Sunol Citizens Advisory Committee, and have received feedback from each of them.

I've also personally met with some public agency representatives as well as as members of the community, received that feedback as well.

Detailed feedback is included in your report, but I'm going to just kind of summarize what that feedback was.

The Edenary MAC, Fairview Mac, and CENOL Citizens Advisory Committee were mostly supportive of elevating this committee to a commission with some concerns noted.

Those concerns include with District 4 having four members.

They were kind of concerned that all four members could be from one particular area, like all four being from Castro Valley, for instance.

They had some issue with that.

They also want to ensure that users of the system are represented in the membership.

Another one mentioned that the number of members per district should be based on how much, like geographical area of bike lanes and trails are in that district, and not just based solely on population numbers.

The Castor Valley Mac, unlike the other groups, had this as an action item on their agenda, and they voted against this change with a 5-0 vote.

They felt there were already too many commissions.

They felt the current committee was sufficient, and they can had concerns with items going to the commission before the MACs, as the commission may not fully understand all land use issues.

So those were some of their concerns.

Public input was generally supportive, also with some concerns noted.

One concern had to do with, you know, only three board of supervisors appointing.

They felt every board of supervisors should have the chance to appoint at least one member, stating that users come from all over the county and not just those in the unincorporated areas.

Meetings should be more frequent, suggesting twice per month instead of quarterly, due to a huge infrastructure deficit, and like bike lanes and that sort of thing.

Again, the bike pedestrian master plan input priority.

They felt that that you know required more often meetings.

The abundance of safety issues related to pedestrians and bikes in our county, and also grant application deadlines.

They felt if meeting quarterly, perhaps that isn't enough, and they could miss a grant application deadline.

There were also concerns about agency members being able to be a member on the commission and suggested priority be residents and users of the system.

Business owners should be from independent businesses, that's what they felt, and not chains, and not allowing workers from businesses to be members, only business owners.

They also thought agendas should be set by the commission chair, and how a chair is elected should be spelled out in the ordinance.

One suggestion from AC Transit suggested it be named a mobility commission, similar to the commission in Fremont.

They gave a lot more uh input regarding verbiage, and that's included in the report.

Um but overall they felt it should be a little more inclusive and also take those into consideration that use public transportation.

So again, more detail related to input from all groups and constituents are included in the report.

So staff is requesting the committee take public comment and then provide direction and approve the ordinance moving forward to the full board of supervisors.

Very good.

Thank you for the presentation.

Before we go to public comment, we'll um deliberate briefly and ask clarifying questions and provide comments.

And I'll start with Supervisor Miley.

Thank you, Chair Albert.

Uh, first of all, um County Council, have you had a chance to review the ordinance?

I and this is Kathy Lee, I'm a deputy county counsel on the office of the county council.

I understand our office may have looked at earlier versions of this, but I do not know um whether our office has reviewed this, and this that review and approval as to form would need to occur prior to board approval.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So if county, whatever happens today, supervisor Halbert, we definitely need to get county council to review the ordinance and um bring it back to back to us uh either here or if it's advanced, but I would suggest bringing it bringing it back here, depending on what we decide in terms of what the ordinance should look like.

That's the first thing.

Uh the second thing is, you know, as I said, my staff is put in a lot of time on this.

Um we have a lot of ownership of it, uh, and we've done this because we think it's serves the public interest.

Um, the BZA, for example, represents uh urban unincorporated area and uh East County, and only the supervisors who represent those areas make the appointments.

So once again, I would strongly state that only the supervisors who represent the unincorporated area make the appointments.

Um, because as we all have said, and I've the one who pushed this to start it, uh the unincorporated area could be the fourth largest city in the county, and you don't have uh Fremont making appointments to Oakland.

You don't have um uh Pleasanton making appointments to Union City, and even if people use bike lanes and we all visit different parts of the county, and we this that and the other, once again it's that jurisdiction that sets the standards, the structure, etc.

So I would argue extremely uh passionately that only the supervisors who represent the unincorporated area, yourself or East County Supervisor Leena Tam and myself who represent the urban area, make the appointments because it affects only the unincorporated area in terms of the interest.

And I do think it should be based on population.

You know, that might change uh the population depending on when we do the census again.

So we're trying to align it with population, and that's something we've done in the past with other commissions.

It's taken us also a while to do this because as I said, my office had to do all the legwork on this, and as you and it's been pointed out, once again, if we enact this commission, my office will basically be uh providing a lot of the administrative uh support to public works as well as the clerk's office uh for this commission.

If the board creates an office of unincorporated services, I would hope that that office could take on that function uh as opposed to my office having to do it.

But for now, my office has to do that, and that's another reason why I think sometimes um because I have a greater uh portion of the population in the corporate area, uh, there might be additional um uh leniencies given to me in terms of uh staffing and resources, but that's another another matter.

Um, and then in terms of interfering with the MACs, as I pointed out, there are cities that have uh uh bike bed committees uh commissions, excuse me, and they don't interfere with the city councils.

Uh so ultimately I think um this bike bed commission can coexist with our MACs, just like uh we have a historical preservation.

Yes, historical preservation and recreation commission, uh, that also I mean works in concert with our MACs.

Uh so things that deal with historical preservation and recreation, for instance, might go to that commission before it comes to the MAC, but it doesn't mean that the MAC can't weigh in and take a look at it.

So I don't think there's any incompatibility uh by creating this.

And once again, I do think it's it's important that we have something like this, because all of us are pedestrians.

We're all pedestrians, even folks who are disabled or pedestrians.

We all go out and walk these streets and maneuver these streets.

All of us don't ride bicycles and all of us don't ride bicycles regularly, but all of us are pedestrians, so I do think it's important that we uh consider that.

So I just wanted to kind of uh react to some of the concerns uh my staff's brought up.

And once again, these are the concerns that we've honestly heard from other folks that we want to put on the record today, but I just want to say that some of these concerns can be um minimized.

Thank you, Supervisor Miley.

Could either you or or Valerie, could you describe more precisely the difference between a committee and a commission?

Like there's a there's already a body discussing these things.

What's the difference?

Yeah.

Well, the commit the committee uh was it's purely a function of public works.

Um the board of supervisors, we uh directed public works to establish a committee to advise it on bike ped matters.

Uh and that committee, we don't make the appointments of the committee.

So the committee is in the uh public works.

The public works agency makes the appointments to the committee, uh not the board of supervisors.

The committee is not accountable to the board of supervisors, it works in concert with public works, public works sets the agendas, public works runs the meetings, public works convenes the committee.

So it's a purely a public markets function that we've uh mandated that public works do.

There's been some consternation and feedback over the years from the committee that they want to have more, you know, more control, more input, this that and the other, and that's why I said to them, let's get the committee in place through public works, because before that we didn't have anything, and the committee also helps with reviewing the pedestrian master plan and the bike master plan.

So let's get that in place, and then as time evolves, let's then put in place a commission that the board of supervisors would appoint that would be accountable to the Board of Supervisors on these matters and give advice to the Board of Supervisors relative to these matters, just like the park recreation and historical commission does or any other commission that we have.

We hesitated, and that's the other thing I didn't say.

We hesitated to bring this forward, too, because as you know, Supervisor Halbert, we have a lot of boards and commissions.

Uh uh, and we've been trying to review those boards and commissions and either uh reduce the number of boards and commissions by consolidating some of them and eliminating some of them before creating new ones.

And I made a commitment to the former board when Supervisor Carson was here, Supervisor Wilma Chan, and Supervisor Richard Faye.

I made a commitment that I wouldn't bring forth any more commissions until we did that consolidation and reviewed of all of the commissions and bodies that we formally have.

Because I think we have about 200 of them, I believe.

I can't recall now.

In the county ministry's office has had a consultant look at this and she has a report, and we've reviewed it, but we haven't taken any action on it as a board.

But as I said, between the pandemic and um just holding off on this, I've kind of felt we need to advance this now.

So the difference is a commission would be an official body, subject to the Brown Act, that um provides advice, input on bike bedrail matters to the board of supervisors and uh the chair of that body would set the agenda, not the public works agency.

Okay.

Um thank you.

Let's go to public comment.

Um thank you again, Valerie.

Great presentation.

I was very comprehensive.

It answered all the questions.

I am impressed with the uh quality of work.

Supervisor Miley from your uh office.

Um anybody online, I don't see anybody in the room.

So anybody online is now would be the time to raise your hand and weigh in on this item.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Brian Foster.

Thank you, Supervisors Halbert and Miley.

Uh, let me state off the top that I am all for uh bike lanes and certainly sidewalks, uh, particularly here in Castro Valley, which is where I'm from.

Um, my concern is that you are raising um or elevating the level of authority and power of this group to a commission instead of a committee.

And already in the last few years, they have gone unchecked within public works to the point where their ideas have superseded all other ideas or interests, and they're not counterbalanced with the vast needs of the community.

An example came in in a meeting at the MAC, the Castor Valley Mac, uh, where it turns out that an uh your public works director disclosed that an average of 50 people a day use bike lanes uh on Castor Valley Boulevard as opposed to more than 20,000 vehicles.

But they the bike uh coalition seems to think that they have preeminence and priority uh of their 50 riders over 20,000 people.

So uh, you know, unchecked what you've done is created essentially uh a special interest group, which in some cases can be great, but they're not balanced with the broader needs of the community.

If you give them more power here, I think that that you might you might end up having some unintended consequences.

My preference would be to somehow fold all this in to report to the MACs, all of which are represented throughout the unincorporated area except for Synol, and have them become the center or the unofficial city council, if you will, of the unincorporated areas, which I think was part of the original design.

Um so again, just I I hope that you find balance and if you end up creating this commission that you also have offsetting needs where people who actually drive cars uh or trucks.

In fact, you should talk to the large truck drivers, buses, city buses, the drivers who are concerned that uh more extreme uh remediation or quote unquote safety measures on streets are being engineered and designed when they're not needed.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line, you have two minutes.

Bruce King.

Hi, this is Bruce King from Castor Valley.

Um I'm supportive of this commission.

Um I've been working on uh multi-use trails in the western unincorporated areas for 18 years as a board member and now and current president of friends of St.

Lorenzo San Lorenzo Creek.

Um I've seen it take years and years trying to get traction on development of, for example, the San Lorenzo Creekway, eight miles of multi-use trail, which is now funded.

Uh, we've got the Foothill trail going from Castor Valley to South Hayward, and parts of that are being built.

But it's taken many years to get traction.

Um, and part of that is because we don't have a didn't have a central point in the community in the community in the county to for the public to uh to build leadership and trust and and outreach.

Hayward Area Recreation and Park District has stepped in and set a great example and leadership to develop plans for these trails.

But in many cases, it's taken, you know, it takes a uh leadership at a community level to get things uh up and running and have have vision and foresight.

Um so I encourage this commission.

Um it's needed and it uh it will help us be keep pedestrians' bicycles safe and help us reduce climate change because our biggest producer of greenhouse gases is our automobiles.

So we need to get people out of automobiles, a greater proportion of those drivers, and out walking and cycling.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Ken Carboni.

Uh good morning.

Uh good morning, uh commissioners.

Um, I this is a it's a frustrating point.

Um, I first of all concur 100% with Brian Foster's statements.

Um, the goals may be well intentioned here, but the structure is really incomplete.

One size does not fit all in the unincorporated area.

Each of our each of our areas requires uh and has different needs.

I I to keep this short, I have a few core points here, and I'll leave it at that.

But the proposed commission moves decisions upstream without requiring local advisory safeguards.

And um second item is municipal advisory councils are not required to be participants before recommendations are issued.

This is this is a huge problem.

Commission alignment will uh will lock in funding paths and limit later course correction.

Uh next item is uh unincorporated uh communities are already experiencing impacts from prior advisory actions, and we're suffering them now, and you guys are gonna see some more coming in the very near future.

Um safety, emergency access, parking losses, business impacts, and all these other impacts that came from this head group.

Has just been um it's it's like a tail wagon the dog.

Um, this existing advisory structures are replaced without a performance or outcome review.

We need to figure out what we're really doing here.

I'm not saying that this is not the right choice.

It's just I don't think it's complete.

Um, I just was respectfully request that the board continues this item and allow the time to incorporate mandatory MAC consultation, conflict resolution procedures, safety and economic impact considerations.

A short pause now will prevent a longer time for any future harm here.

I I totally see that we need to do something, and I think you're a hundred percent on point, Nate.

Um, I just want to make sure that we have all of this thought through before we run into more problems.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Robert Friends.

Hi, this is Robert Prince Advocacy Director with Bike East Bay.

Um, just want to say thank you so much to Supervisor Miley and staff for their work on this item.

Uh Bikey Spay appreciates the supervised support for the new commission.

We're also very interested in helping with recruitment in order to identify and encourage a group with diverse experiences and backgrounds.

Um Bike East Bay participates in many bike walk committees and commissions throughout the East Bay.

Some are super functional, well attended and representative of the broader community, both with regards to the members as well as the participants, but others are not.

The differences are often reflection of how the meetings are structured, who has access, how the meeting info is shared both before and after each session.

Some of the good things I see in the recommendation, a monthly meeting schedule is great.

Uh the stipends for members are good.

Uh $50 per meeting is a good start, though it still doesn't really cover transportation meals and child care.

Um, the seven members with four-year terms, four-year terms are a little too long for many people to be able to uh commit to.

Uh so you could consider something similar to Oakland's uh commission with nine members with three-year terms.

Uh, that means there's three new members each year and six returning, which provides a lot of um smaller turnover and uh good through line.

Um you could, in addition to the seven members, add one dedicated youth member and perhaps one member with a qualifying disability in order to help increase uh some of the experience on the group.

Um other stuff that you would I would like to recommend uh is having the chair and vice chair set the agenda in collaboration with staff, similar to other uh bike commissions.

Uh the commission should uh definitely report to the board of supervisors, uh providing ideally an annual report with a summary of activities and recommendations, uh, some other things to increase participation access to information.

All the meeting materials should be posted to the county site in advance of the meeting as much as possible.

All other materials, including notes, presentation files, and video recordings of each meeting should ideally reposted as soon as possible afterward.

All the meetings should be video recorded, posted to the county website or another accessible site such as YouTube to give people access to the information, including those who cannot make the meeting in person.

Ideally virtual viewing will be made available to participants as well.

So thanks so much for your support.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Peter Rosen.

Hi, good morning uh supervisors.

I am speaking on my own behalf, and that's primarily because this um has not come before hard uh our board, um, which I am very concerned about because the addition of the trails element seems a bit redundant.

Um, particularly since Hard has been very successful with getting uh grant money for the MTC trails um through MTC for the St.

Lorenzo Creek Trail and for the Foothill Trail.

Um we have tried to be leadership uh be a leadership position for this, and um as Mr.

King has mentioned, we have been very successful with doing outreach and community um input, and we have an elected board, as does East Bay Regional Park District.

So I'm concerned about the trails element portion of this, and I would suggest that that maybe is unnecessary and should be considered to be removed.

And if not, it should be continued until you get feedback from Hart if that's what you're gonna do.

That's my own personal belief in a non-hard elected position because I don't have their approval for it because it hasn't come before us.

But my uh suggestion that I wanted to make is that um each MAC should possibly have a representative on the commission.

Uh, this may help address the representation concerns as well as um vetting of the potential commissioners.

And um, I think that that would be a that'd be a good way to do the uh outreach and the liaison, and this would help the MACs reporting back because you would have a member on the Mac that would that would tell the MAC uh what has been happening and tell the community what has been happening.

I think that'd be an additional way of doing community outreach and in additional um communication, I think is very helpful.

Um, and I'm not certain that there's the necessity for this, as Mr.

Foster has said, as well as Mr.

Ken Carboni has said, I'd be I would I have seen some past concerns about what's happened in the past, and um, I would hope that this could possibly be continued.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Kelly.

Thank you.

Um obviously uh if we listen to uh to uh uh supervisor Miley, I won't use I won't address him by his first name, as some people here do.

Um if you then the appointments to this commission, uh the bike pet commission would be made by the 78% of the of the residents of the unincorporated residents that district four represents.

So 78% of the appointees should come from district four, right?

Now they would then have control over 60% of the land area in Alameda County.

Now, on the other hand, on the planning commission, you know the planning commission?

How is it that people from Berkeley, people from Union City, people from Hayward, they get appointed to the planning commission to run all the unincorporated area of the county?

What is going on there?

Every supervisor has an appointee on the planning commission, and you want you want to have uh this to be just the little club of 78% district four.

Um, and then this committee commission is very much needed because the way it's being run now, you saw what happened in Castor Valley.

Where was uh Ms.

Haninger?

Where was the county council?

Where was Ms.

Orkin when on the agenda it said a report on average daily bike counts, bike lane evaluation, and bicycle utilization study.

That was on the what was on the agenda and uh for the Castor Valley Mac.

And what did they do?

They voted to remove a bike lane.

You went from receiving a report to uh to erasing some parking uh some uh bike lane and putting in uh uh free parking instead.

This is the kind of of uh uh agenda manipulation, agenda fraud, agenda lies that your staff uh uh sponsors and your Mac uh sponsors.

We need to get a commission that actually advocates for bikes and pedestrians.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Bruce.

Uh hello, I'm Bruce Dougie.

I am actually a member, present member of the BPAC.

Um, I'm absolutely uh for having the commission.

Um these uh um comments uh are totally overblown about uh bike lanes destroying the uh the economy and destroying Castor Valley.

Um the public works uh issued uh bike counts for Castor Valley Boulevard uh bikes, and nobody has asked, there has been no presentation from the other side in terms of how businesses are being um destroyed.

There are no receipts, there's no uh uh there are no numbers whatsoever.

So all of this is hearsay.

And uh and and and if you have the Mac involved at all in bike ped uh matters, then that's what you're gonna get every time.

They always start out like, oh, I have nothing against bike lanes, I have nothing against cyclists, and then they go on about this uh uh you know, two, you know, 20,000 uh drivers per day.

We know we need to get people out of their cars.

This is the you know, number one uh uh most effective uh tool in in reducing greenhouse gases since almost all of the greenhouse gases 73% come from driving.

So, you know, we've had these massive floods throughout the Bay Area with these king tides and these rains, and we know that they're coming more and more, and yet we're continuing down this road of drive, drive, drive, drive.

So we know that we can build communities.

Uh, we know communities are actually better by having more cyclists and more pedestrians out on the streets, and so we should be promoting that kind of thing.

And Castor Valley MAC in particular is totally out of step with all of the other MACs and and um many other governments, so um, they are definitely you know not helpful in implementing the bike pet plan, which is uh key to reducing greenhouse gases in Allen Canary.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Diane Castleberry.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, yes, great, thank you.

Um, I wanted to take a moment.

I my name is Diane Castleberry with AC Transit.

I'm staff external affairs representative, and I cover um much of the unincorporated um area as a liaison on behalf of AC Transit.

Um, I wanted to first of all um thank Valerie Arkin for taking time to um have a conversation about um this proposal, which I applaud.

I think um elevating um this this uh matter to a commission level that has um kind of advisory uh to the board of supervisors is a positive thing.

Um and I and I really appreciate Valerie's um kind of um capturing um our uh comments on a staff level in terms of how to um some things to consider, um, particularly with bus transit, because when we talk about mobility of people, particularly multimodal mobility, um uh you have to consider all aspects, um, you know, people walking, bicyclists, cars, uh public transit, e-bikes, scooters, everything.

And so um I can't speak to the composition.

Um you could tell there was a lot of really good work um put into this um this proposal um but i i did uh wanted to just comment on the fremont mobility commission the reason why i brought that one up is because i thought that when you look at multimodal mobility um the way that they are set up and the way that they uh address um mobility in their community is buying having representation from um people who who walk um so pedestrians um people who drive a car people who ride a bike um public transportation as well as well as someone um with mo um physical uh mobility um challenges so just wanted to add that and um thank you very much for your time caller you're on the line you have two minutes hi can you hear me yes uh longtime residents of castro valley here uh first of all I'd like to really thank supervisor Zermiley for promoting this idea of um a commission I am strongly in favor of making this um a commission um the Castro Valley Mac has shown itself to be particularly anti-safety in regards to pedestrian bicycle issues um they they seem to think it's a zero sum game where it has to be us versus them and and are unable and unwilling to work um with people they just want to steamroll through their agenda which seems to be let's give land away to um you know their their political cronies let's you know make people um let's keep castor valley the way it was um 60 years ago and they are not thinking about the future how do e-bikes and scooters um you know completely change the game of mobility in in the unincorporated area how are we going to work towards um making sure that you know they don't come you know continue to in uh you know um have good places to ride their their bikes to school um how are we going to make uh walkable communities improve property values and increase business in our community with bike lanes with more sidewalks um you know when we came to Castro Valley you know almost a decade and a half ago there were no sidewalks on on the streets around our our house um people actually took their lives into their hands by trying to walk in the streets um and the if you let the MAC continue to to go along this path they're gonna keep doing that so the needs of the community have changed and our MAC has not we need um we need the support of you know the implementation of the bicycle pedestrian master plan we need to support Alameda climate goals and the MAC is completely unin uh this commission would do that so please um support us we have no additional speakers for item one okay very good um any other comments any or you want me to weigh in it's up to you I can weigh in real quickly um president howard um I I find this very fascinating I apologize that you know I'm always the person bringing these difficult matters to the to the board but not exclusively I know you're dealing with stuff that um requires our attention but um I do think based on the speakers there's a little bit more homework that's necessary on this before uh uh we advance it if we if we do advance it I do think it's good um public policy you know uh Kelly you know our good friend Kelly uh pointed out the planning commission versus the bike bed uh potential commission who keep in mind the planning commission is a decision-making body.

And it's important if it's a decision-making body that it has representatives from all supervisorial districts as a decision-making body, even though most of the matters that come to the planning commission involve the unincorporate area, but not exclusively.

There's stuff that involves the entire county, like the housing element uh there's stuff that has countywide uh implications, like the Altamont, you know, wind wind farms, solar, etc.

So the Planning Commission, you know, although, you know, I constantly appreciate Kelly, you know, kind of keeping us on our on our toes.

I just want to point out that the Planning Commission is a little a different sort of body than the bike pet commission.

It would be once again advisory to the board.

Um, and I do think uh Peter Rosen's uh suggestion that maybe hard look at this uh is appropriate, or we can just strike trails out of it.

I didn't realize Hart hadn't uh had a chance to review this.

Uh the other thing is, as you can see, um a lot of the folks who wait in are from Castro Valley.

Um I think you recall the big um controversy on Somerset when we had to create bike lanes on Somerset and uh and how we had to try to address that, and took quite a while to get that resolved.

Um, but I I do I do think there needs to be some consideration given to you know uh pedestrians and bicyclists and um and others who are using our roadways and not just uh vehicles.

Um I have friends on both sides of this issue, and I hope um Chair Halbert, through your infinite wisdom, you'll come up with an approach that might help us.

Well, this indeed was very interesting, Nate.

You bring um supervisor Miley, you bring so many wonderful um interesting and complex dilemmas to us, and you make our lives interesting all the time.

Um, but you know, as I think about this, you've also been a strong advocate for why unincorporated Alameda County as the fourth would we would be the fourth largest city in the county, needs uh more uh mean I would call it municipal infrastructure.

Cities have a city council, they have a city manager, they have public works department leaders, parks and rec leaders, um, heritage and cultural arts commission, um, people, staff, and commissions.

Going back to my job as a mayor, I note that we also had a parks and rec commission, we had a heritage and cultural arts commission.

They all reported to the city council, uh, the city council, so that which would be the MAC.

And so this idea that the MACs are concerned about a commission that would supersede them, I can really understand.

Now, I say that because right now the MAC is a de facto council, but yet they don't have um all the other infrastructure that a city government would have, or if we do, we sort of split it between all Alameda County, and we know that we have services that we provide all countywide, but then we provide all the municipal services in the unincorporated areas, and I just agree with you that we need to do a better job of increasing the municipal infrastructure support.

And you've been fighting for that, and and I think we need to get there, but I do think that we need to work through the MAC as I see as more of the de facto city council.

What do you think about that?

Yeah.

Well, actually, Peter uh said something that I was thinking, maybe each of the MACs, because we have Sonol, Eden, Fairview, Cash Valley, and eventually East County, maybe each of the Macs could appoint a person to the to this body to the bike pet commission, and each supervisor who represents an incorporate area could also make uh an appointment based on population or something.

So I I also agree with that.

Uh indeed, that's more of a local control issue, and my point cities control what happens in their jurisdictions.

Fremont doesn't appoint somebody to the Oakland Commission, as you mentioned, and um, and so we should be taking care of the municipal needs of unincorporated from the unincorporated areas.

But that with this topic, uh, you know, it was mentioned we're all pedestrians.

You said that, Nate.

Indeed, we're all pedestrians, we're all drivers too.

And everybody's a driver.

I don't know how many bicyclists are out there.

We all bicycle if we have a bike.

I might do it more often or less often than somebody else.

Um, but if we talk about mobility, there are people that just ride the bus.

Maybe they should be on the commission.

There are people that only walk.

Maybe we should have one of them.

We have people that like to bike on the trails and hike on the trails.

We have people that exclusively drive a car.

If we're, I mean, instead of no matter, I think it's less important that we get somebody from each geographic area, Sonol, Fairview, Castor Valley, East County, um, uh as opposed to that we get somebody from each segment that would be affected by mobility.

Business owners are affected by mobility, bus riders are affected by mobility, people driving cars are affected by mobility.

It shouldn't be just bicyclists, and if we have it from each geography, then they would be perhaps all from one lifestyle.

Does that make sense?

Oh, yeah, it makes perfect sense uh because in fact, I didn't state this, nor did Valerie.

The present committee, bike pick committee that we have in place, that the board mandated public works to create, has representatives from different segments, it has a senior representative, it has a disabled representative, it is represented from AC Transit.

So it's just not all bike representatives, but it also has bike representatives.

So it is a compilation of all the of the mobility.

So we could once again build that into the ordinance to make sure that all sectors are represented on the body, but to ensure that you know the board could make the three of us could make appointments as well as each MAC could make an appointment, just as long as we fulfill each of the categories of representation.

So is that um is that a current committee configuration achieved by decree that the public works department will appoint somebody from each of those say lifestyles or life stages, or is it just happens that way?

I think it's it's more or less a suggestion, but I don't know if Tona's if Tona is Sona on because Tona might recall if we mandated it or Daniel might recall if Daniel from Public Works Publix Director.

Because I know we um we had the public works director consider categories, but I just don't know if we mandated it.

Okay, uh Tona, do you can you respond to that if you recall?

I just supervisor, can you hear me?

Hello?

Yes, we can hear you.

Yes, thank you, Tisa.

Um, supervisor, I think it was in coordination with the board, as I recall, several years ago about the appointments.

And I believe that the board um uh provided some recommendations along with the director.

So we could somehow incorporate that as our our desire.

It may not have to be an absolute mandate, but it could be a desire that the supervisors would find a way to find people in those different categories.

And I would just mention, you know, we this isn't novel for us to set up categories if we want to mandate it, because that's what we did with the reparations commission.

We we all make appointments to the reparations commission, but we have categories that people need to come from.

Yeah, and so that brings me to the reason why I don't support this moving forward at this time, is that we have too many commissions.

We just do.

You brought it up uh earlier, you you're right that we have uh made a uh uh look at it at the analysis of it, but we haven't actually taken action to streamline our commissions.

As I mentioned, as a as a mayor, we had just a few commit commissions planning commission, parks and Rec Commission, a heritage and cultural arts or a health commission, you know, four or five.

And um, and I recognize some cities have a standalone bike ped commission.

Some cities simply review their bike ped master plan every few years and get input at that time and don't have a standalone commission.

So I think it's a bit scattered, but they only have four or five commissions.

We have hundreds of commissions, and part of that is because we're spread so thin and provide so many services across the entire county separately from our municipal services.

That really what we're talking about here, this municipal services in unincorporated county.

So until we streamline our commissions, I would I would rather revisit this after that, number one.

Number two, I'd like to see if we could find a way to just make the committee format work better.

I don't know why it's not.

And um, I mean, I I I want to thank the people who did send emails in uh on this.

Um I think feeling underrepresented by the committee system.

I don't know that creating an additional commission when we have so many is the right answer, maybe find a way to fix the commission.

So if it's okay, Supervisor Miley, you mentioned that indeed we have a little bit more work to do.

Um I know that your staff is um working really hard and has been working really hard.

We also had the pandemic crisis uh during the time frame that you were working on this, and that slowed things down a bit.

But I'd like to see that more work be done, and this brought back after more work has been done, after commissions have been cut, and after we think more precisely about how this committee or commission works in conjunction with the MAC, the MACs.

So if I'd rather not bring it to the full board just yet.

Okay, so we can take you know, Valerie and I and Tona have been listening, so we can take the feedback we've gotten from you today and what we've heard from the speakers and see if we can put together something that might be more palpable to everyone, um, and then hopefully uh uh President Halbert, you'll get us on a path, the full board on the path to address the the bigger issue of all the the commissions.

Because quite frankly, I we have delayed this for quite a while because we have a lot of commissions and and I didn't want to burden the board with more commissions, but at some point, you know, folks have been kind of waiting in the queue for this, but we can do some more work on it because this is the first time this is surfaced here, so that we can maybe take all this um car uh concerns into uh an evaluation and then bring back something that's more palpable.

And I and I'm very um sensitive to the fact that um the county um our resources need to be directed at uh providing mandated safety net services, and the more the more discretionary things we create, the less resources we have to put towards things that are mandated in this climate with Prop 1 and HR1, etc., Medi-Cal reform.

I know there's a lot of pressure on us to uh have our resources being targeted in a direction that's going to be.

Yes, I just wanted to address one thing you said, Supervisor Havard, regarding the current committee.

And unfortunately, I don't have it in front of me, the membership of that committee, but I do believe there's at least one Castro Valley resident.

There's a Livermore resident, I believe.

There's several agency representatives on it, and that has yes, that has been um some you know, bonal contention with having a lot of agency representative and not enough users of the system residents of the unincorporated areas.

So I just wanted to mention that because that has been something that has come up, and I believe the committee hasn't had consistent um times that they've met, they haven't met very often, and um that has been not, you know, to the dismay of the committee members.

They haven't been meeting as much.

That I just wanted to let you know about that, and that was another reason to make this a more formal, as Supervisor Miley said, commission to elevate the priority of pedestrian bike.

I'd like to dig into that as well, because my guess is they don't meet as often as they would like because public works is overworked, just like we all are.

Um, does the committee feel empowered to just meet by itself?

It's not brown acted, they can go meet at Pete's Coffee every day of the week if they want, and they can come to public works once a month, quarter, year, whenever needed, but to them for them to feel that they need public works to staff a meeting, put together an agenda, it sounds really easy and simple, it isn't.

It takes a lot to run these meetings, and um uh so they not feel empowered to because once they are once they are a brown acted commission, it's gonna take a lot of resources, we're still gonna be overworked.

Half the meetings are gonna get canceled anyway, like our some of our committee meetings are always canceled, because it takes time to do these things.

I can see where it might just be more flexible to have it remain a committee and let them meet as often as they want.

But I mean, could we do that?

I you know it it's a good point.

I I feel that from what I have gathered from them, as they don't feel the current committee has been as effective as they should be, and they've been supportive of this um proposal as Supervisor Miley has been too, to make it a little more of a priority with the pedestrian bike trailers.

So that's another point that I I want to make um, you know, disagreement is one thing, not being effective is kind of another thing.

Um, my sense is that this committee wants to get things done that public works doesn't want to do, so there's a disagreement there.

A disagreement doesn't mean we need to elevate you to a committee that has all powers, it means we need to get through the bottom of our disagreement, as Nate Supervisor Miley says often, smart people can disagree, and so what I need to understand a little bit more is this a disagreement, or is it you don't listen to what we don't I don't know if I'm saying it right, but it feels like more of a disagreement than we can't be effective.

So I you know I know you had to step up.

Oh wait, when he steps out, we got to stop our meeting, don't we?

Oh, it's okay, it's okay.

Um, Supervisor Miley, we were just talking about how a committee, and Valerie mentioned the committee, um hasn't been able to meet as often as they would like.

They also haven't been as effective as they would like to be, and you know, once if we make this a commission, and it is brown acted, and it is going to require staff to put together agendas with the commission, staff to agendize and hold meetings and everybody come.

A lot of times those meetings end up getting canceled anyway because staff is overworked, and now this is just one more thing on their plate.

If the committee wants to meet, I don't understand why they can't just meet on their own.

Why we have to have, they can meet and talk and deliberate as a committee.

They don't, they're not brown acted, and so why if I'm on a committee like this, they've got to be meeting on their own anyway.

They just may not feel that public works has enough attention to them.

And then the point being, is this a lack of understanding, or is it a disagreement?

Because if the committee is saying that they are not effective, meaning they can't convince public works to get something done because public works disagrees with it.

That's I don't know that that requires a solution of elevating it to a commission as opposed to just having those bodies discuss with us.

I don't see why a committee can't get on a TMP meeting.

I don't see why a committee can't get on a planning meeting, a committee should be able to come to us with their disagreements with public works if that's what it is, versus elevating it to a commission.

So again, my concern being mostly staffing and the requirements of a commission versus a committee.

Well, I think maybe it might be appropriate, Chair Albert, if we could schedule just a report to this body, information report to this body on the bike ped committee, and public works could explain how the committee has functioned, how it's operated, because it is a committee advisory to public the public works agency, and they you know, they set the you know the framework for that.

And I you know, I'm sure the board could alter that, but it might be informative for uh that to be an informational item.

Um, and I know you suggested trying to see how we can make the committee function better, and maybe as a result of that informational item, we can provide input to the public works agency director on um ways to improve the functioning of the committee in the interim while we pursue a commission.

I think that's a good next step, Supervisor Miley.

All right.

With that, we have um concluded item one.

Now on to another unincorporated county fund initiative.

Supervisor My District 4 heavily represented here.

We have the formation of the Measure X Bond Oversight Committee for the Alameda County Fire Department.

Presenting is our fire chief Willie McDonald and our deputy chief Eric Moore.

Welcome, gentlemen.

Good morning, members of the Transportation and Planning Uh Committee, Supervisor Halbert, Supervisor Miley.

I'm Willie McDonald, the Alameda County Fire Chief.

Joining me today will be our deputy chief of communications and support services, Eric Moore.

We'll be presenting information uh about the formation regarding the formation of the Measure X Bond Oversight Committee.

And if I can get my presentation up, then we'll move forward.

Thank you.

Almost okay.

Uh during this presentation, we'll provide some background of the Alameda County Fire Department, an overview, if you will, talk about the Measure X history and the projects that we are currently working on, uh budget and finances, and then the formation of the Oversight Committee.

The unincorporated areas of Alameda County as well, uh five cities through contracts and two national laboratories.

District was formed on uh July 1st of 1993 as a dependent special district, the Board of Supervisors as our governing body.

We provide services in approximately 500 square miles of the county, and we serve a population of about 440,000.

We have uh over 435 very hardworking, very dedicated men and women uh who see it as an honor and a privilege to be able to serve our community.

We also have uh 50 reserve firefighters.

We are subject to the same fiscal and debt policies that's maintained by uh the county of Alameda and our department practices and culture reflect very high standards of government and governance and management.

So the Measure X, the fire safety bond.

Uh, the question was uh shall the measure authorizing Alameda County Fire Department to issue $90 million in the general obligation bonds to repair, replace outdated fire stations in our unincorporated communities.

Um that bond uh was uh we promised a tax levy of not more than sixteen dollars per 100,000, assessed evaluation, and the bond would be uh not mature for more than 30 years.

Uh Measure X was approved by 67% of the residents in unincorporated Alameda County, and we are very thankful to uh the Board of Supervisors for placing the ballot measure on the ballot, and very thankful to the residents for their support.

This is a service in the tax area that is provided by the Alameda County Fire Department.

We operate four battalions across 27 fire stations, 33 companies.

We also staff an alternative response unit and our fuel mitigation crew, crew eight.

We provide advanced life support services, fire suppression, hazardous materials response, urban search and rescue, water rescue, community outreach and education, fire prevention and code compliance, regional dispatch, and fleet maintenance and repair.

And as I say, this is our taxing in our service area.

The hatched area is really the taxing area that is related to Measure X, and the service area is all the cities that we provide services to.

So this slide indicates the district's taxing area.

It includes Ashland, Castro Valley, Cherry Land, San Lorenzo, Silinole, and the remainder East County, and the populations associated with those areas.

And the district contact service area, the five cities that we provide services to, including San Leandro, Dublin, Newark, Union City, and Emoryville, and our two national laboratories, Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs.

Our bond, excuse me, our rating agencies and our potential investors were very interested in our major revenue sources and our financial strength and stability.

And so the slide indicates that about 30% of our revenues on annual basis come from property taxes revenues, and the other 60% is primarily from contracts for services with our communities.

More firefighters assigned to your community, it's a higher percentage of the allocation that's charged to you, and fewer is a lower amount.

Okay, stuck.

Sorry, I'm having some technical difficulties of my own.

Okay.

So here's an indication of our contract and services agreement that we've had.

Um our first partner, San Leandro, became a partner of Alameda County Fire in 1995.

Um our service contracts are on average are about 19 years that that relationship has existed between Alameda County Fire and the respective cities.

We also have service agreements to provide uh dispatching services.

Those relationships or those contracts span about 15 years on average.

So you can see we've had very long-term relationships with all the communities that we provide services to more than 30 years in the case of San Leandro.

And we do have one service contract that we're currently submitting a uh bid for an RFP that has recently been uh published.

Uh, and we're hoping to uh be able to provide services to the Lawrence Berkeley Lab for the next 10 years into the future.

Okay, and so with that, I will turn it over to Chief Moore.

Good morning, supervisors.

Thank you for having me.

I just wanted to give a little background on how we got to Measure X with our fire station.

So as you can see here, when I got hired in 2001, I thought our fire stations were old.

And sure enough.

Now I'm in a position where I could help get some new fire stations for us.

So, due to inadequate funding and aging facilities, ACFD was forced to consolidate and close one of our fire stations at the fire stations in Livermore.

We moved services out to Lawrence Livermore Lab at that time.

And then currently we have two of our fire stations over 50 years old, and then two unprecedented over 70 years old.

So in 2003 to 2009, the district engaged in uh a cost estimator to develop construction costs for our at that time eight fire stations located in the unincorporated areas.

So we came back with a cost and we actually included that in the county's capital improvement plan.

And then in 2011, the former redevelopment agency was able to fund our Cherryland fire station, which began in 2014-2015, and it was finished in 2017 at about 12.2 million dollars at the time, and we're currently responding calls out of that fire station.

Sorry, we had two slides first.

And then I just want to maybe just take a quick step back.

I know the chief mentioned a little bit about Measure X and how we got here.

So on November 3rd, 2020, we the voters were uh gracious enough to pass a GO bond for 90 million dollars.

It was our district's first uh bond authorization, and so as the chief mentioned, this will allow us to build or um replace or update any of our existing unincorporated fire stations there, and then ultimately the register of voters uh validated and certified our bond measure in 2020.

So fast forward to phase one project and supervisor Miley, I'm aware of where we're at, and we're happy that to report a few updates.

So station seven, it's located up in Palomaris Hills.

It's approximately 7,900 square foot fire station, and this is going to be built directly across the street from our existing fire station.

Um, it lacks the modern upgrades of a current fire station, and we're pleased to announce that this week we will be starting moving dirt depending on how much rain we got up there this this last week.

Um, but we are full steam ahead at on our station seven up in Palomaris Hills, and this station is approximately gonna cost us about 19 million dollars in construction costs.

Our next uh concurrently, we're also working on our station 22 San Lorenzo Fire Station.

Um, interesting to note for everyone here, we actually don't own our fire station 22.

We lease it from the homeowners association.

That relationship has been great, and they've been a very great gracious partner with us, and we just want to acknowledge that long-term history that we have there.

But we bought a piece of property um on the other side of Hisfarian from the Bohannens.

It's about just just north of one acre, and so we're working through quite a bit of process to get ready for construction.

So we're working on environmental impacts, we're working with our PG<unk>E partners to get the telephone uh polls down, relocated, and then we just uh approved a uh contract with the DBE team to start um construction, and we plan on giving them the notice to proceed this coming month.

So, we're really excited about station 22.

Last but not least, in our phase one project is our um sort of our Hallmark station.

It's in uh the center of Cash Roy on San Miguel Boulevard.

This station houses uh two companies and a battalion chief, and it's gonna be a two-story fire station for us, and we're really excited about this.

Is this sort of what we consider our hub fire station?

We're starting um the demolition will probably start in March, but I'm pleased to announce that we are actually going to be relocating this company to the former CV Sanitary Building that's anticipated the middle of February, um, no later than March 1st to actually get that crew relocated.

So we've been working um diligently through the Christmas break to get that station, the CV sanitary building up and running, and we're on track to move that out.

This uh fire stations about 25 million dollars in construction costs.

And then uh Supervisor Miley, I know that the last time we spoke, you encouraged us to move a little bit quicker on our phase two.

So I'm pleased to be here today to talk about our phase two projects.

So we are currently working with in two fire stations.

So we're working on a fire station number 26.

It's on Lake Chabot Road.

It's gonna be a single uh company fire station for us with three personnel.

As you may recall, we purchased the former public market um directly across the street.

So we will be moving that fire station across the street.

So we're excited about that.

And then our station 24, it's in Ashland, it's a double house for us, it's on 164th.

We're gonna be um hopefully tearing that down in place and building right back at that existing spot for us so we can continue to serve that proud district of Ashland.

So we are under our way, Supervisor Miley, to make sure that we can meet those those goals of getting that move moved up for you.

With that, I'll turn it back over to Chief McDonald.

So we issued bonds on, excuse me, July 2nd.

We sold the first grouping of bonds, a 70 million dollars worth.

And those bonds were sold.

The sale actually closed on the 16th of July.

Something we had never done before.

But in going through that process and having the bond rating agencies look at the financial strength of the organization, our management practices and the practices of the county of Alameda, we received uh bond ratings from Pitch rating agency, triple A, SP was a double A plus, and Moody's was a double A one.

So very high rating ratings that we received.

Um that resulted in orders for our bonds of three and a half times what we had available to sell.

We had orders of over 259 million for the bonds.

The bond par amount that we sold was 70 million.

We received a premium uh of 3.5 million dollars that went into our debt service accounts, and that was a result of uh investors willing to pay more for our bonds than the face value.

Um let's see.

I wanted to identify what this chart is telling us here and the way that the bond was structured to be repaid.

Um we um anticipated um the sale of 70 million dollars worth of bonds, and we had promised the community that the tax levy uh rate would not exceed sixteen dollars per hundred thousand.

Uh and so uh based on the assessed valuation in the taxing area, and that's the unincorporated area is not including Fairview.

Um the uh assessed value there was sixty-five million, excuse me, sixty-five billion dollars uh in 20 fiscal year 24, 25.

Uh, and an estimate that um we would see conservatively, we would see AB growth of about three and a half, 3.5% per year uh going forward.

So uh issuing the 70 million dollars uh worth of bonds will allow for us to have some significant uh premium payments uh in those first two years.

Uh our first payment was made on December 1st of uh 2025.

Our next bond payment is due on uh June 1st of 2026, and then our third on December uh 1st of 2026.

But we were able to um structure it so that we'll be able to um maintain that sixteen dollars per hundred thousand uh taxing rate and then um have some space available in a couple of years for us to be able to issue future bonds and be still be able to maintain the A B rate of under $16 uh per uh $100,000 uh assessed valuation.

Um in terms of for the formation of the committee, uh the uh bond measure required that we or the ballot measure required that we establish a measure X bond oversight committee.

The responsibility is that is to uh for the committee to evaluate the proceeds that should be subject to uh oversight by an independent committee composed of individuals appointed by the district board of directors to confirm that the bond expenditures are consistent with the intent of Measure X.

So to make sure that we're using the funds as they were intended.

Uh, the responsibilities, annual review of the expenditures from the prior year, report to the board uh to ensure that the proceeds were spent in accordance with Measure X and that we will follow the county's policies and procedures relating to committees, including uh any appointments, overall term limits, and their conduct, how they run those meetings.

Uh I might just mention uh there was uh quite a bit of conversation about uh the number of committees that the county has.

Um, and this committee uh would be in my mind uh a pretty limited term committee.

Um we are uh in 2026, uh we've issued that first 70 million dollars worth of bonds.

Uh the bonds are tax exempt, which means they have a requirement for us to expend the funds, uh, 85% of the funds within three years of them being issued.

So there's a kind of a compressed time frame for which the bonds funds can be spent.

Um we have uh, as I say, we saw we issued those bonds in July of 2025, um, so we'll have to have expended 85% of the funds by July of 2028.

Um, so we that's why we packaged together uh a number of stations so that we could have the funds expended uh and the projects would be moving forward uh as quickly as we possibly could.

Um the second phase has already started, so we mentioned uh station 26 and 24.

Um we expect uh we do have a project manager already secured, uh we have an RFP out right now for an architect and uh a um CEQA consultant.

Um we expect to start a design and the programming work right after the beginning of the year, probably in February, to get on track to be able to start construction of the next two stations uh potentially in 2027, and hopefully uh they would be uh the construction will be completed sometime in 2028.

So I give you all that information to say that the bond oversight committee will be reviewing the bond expenditures from the previous year, and so uh when we get the bond form the bond oversight committee formatted formed this year.

Um they'll be looking at the expenses that we had from this fiscal year.

Um if we are able to keep on schedule, as I had mentioned, uh, then we would probably have all the construction done by the end of 2028 of all of the stations.

Uh and um we will be uh maybe reviewing expenses in uh early 2029, uh but at that time the committee would be uh just four years old, and so um I just wanted to mention that uh the term of this committee is pretty limited uh in terms of how long it will be in existence.

Uh it's proposed that uh the board uh appoint uh seven member uh bond oversight committee, uh board appointed members that districts uh one, two, three, and five appoint one member each, uh, and the district four supervisor Miley would appoint uh would have two appointments to the committee, and then the board president would appoint the seventh member, and we would ask the board members to consider relevant experience, such as being members of civic organizations, uh like with League of Women Voters, or taxpayer associations, community organizations, labor organizations, uh some folks with backgrounds in finance, accounting, uh auditing, and good governance.

We would expect that uh the committee would have uh one to two meetings per fiscal year and not more than four meetings in any given year, so what we're asking of uh committee members today is to provide direction regarding the formation of the Measure X Oversight Committee, if it's something that you'd like to see that's different than what we recommended, and we can provide us direction in uh the development of that formation and then authorize us to move forward with a recommendation to the full board of supervisors.

Chief, yes, and deputy chief, great presentation.

Thank you.

Comprehensive, thorough, and informative.

I appreciate you.

Before we deliberate, let's go to public comment and see if uh any members of the public would like to weigh in.

If you're online and wish to comment on this item, please raise your hand.

You have two minutes, Kelly.

Thank you.

And thank you, Supervisor Miley, for sticking around to listen to uh my uh call.

All right.

I hope I hope it's unmuted.

Um thank you, Supervisor Miley, for sticking around to listen to my comment.

Um I hope that you appreciate the exquisite irony.

The money layers and layers of irony here with this item today.

This is an action item that is asking the uh transportation planning commission committee, which is more or less having to do with land use and transportation issues to talk about uh budget oversight committee.

Um how can you take action on this item?

Why is this even in front of this committee?

Shouldn't it be at, for example, the unincorporated services committee?

Maybe it should be at the procurement and contracting committee.

Maybe it should be even better at the board of directors of the Alameda County fire department.

That would be a really good place to be considering this item, which is a irony.

This item is to form to create, to form, to give birth to yet another committee.

And we just had all the members of this committee talk about how awful it is, how terrible it is that we have so many, too many committees already, too many commissions.

Uh, I don't think the fire chief appreciate appreciates that level of irony, but um, you know, this this commission, and then you're gonna have every member of the board of supervisors being uh appointing members here.

Shouldn't it only be the the members of the of the board that actually have uh some uh some county fire department coverage?

Um, just the irony, the level of irony here, it's incredible.

Why don't you go find a better commission to approve this?

We have no additional speakers for item two.

Very good.

Thank you.

We'll bring it back for deliberations.

I'll recognize Supervisor Miley.

Uh yes, thank you, Chair Albert.

Yeah, well, first of all, the bond measure measure X was voted in by the folks who live in the unincorporated area.

Uh that was the electorate, and so uh uh the folks who are primarily responsible for this is the unincorporated area.

And you know, even though the deputy chief uh pointed out the success of this bond measure, the uh initially it did fail.

We had to go out a second time to get the uh votes.

And I know Alameda County Fire, um uh local 55 did a lot of work, the grassroots going door to door, uh persuading people uh to vote for this.

It required a two-thirds uh vote to be approved.

So the you know, this there's been a uh a history of trying to get the support uh from the community to build new fire stations, and the deputy chief pointed out how our fire stations are really, really old, and it wasn't until we used redevelopment money that we're able to build a new fire station um initially in Cherry Land after uh 40 uh plus years.

Uh but the you know the governor dissolved Governor Jerry Brown dissolved redevelopment, so we no longer had a redevelopment money, so we took a chance, and then like I said initially uh it failed, but then eventually we're able to get across the finish line.

So I do think it's important that uh the the electorate who's responsible for this at the primary uh assurances uh that the bond measure uh funds are being expended accordingly.

Most of the fire stations we're talking about are in uh district four, and that's one reason why uh the recommendation is that District Four, and it's not Nate Miley, it's whoever's the supervisor, um, potentially might be, although I don't plan on going anywhere.

Um it's not based on seniority either, even though I'm the senior um in many ways uh supervisor.

Uh supervisor, uh it's just based on the fact that most of the fire stations and most of the bond money is being expended in district four.

So that's why the recommendation is that I have um two appointees to this uh oversight body, and it's a look back body to make sure the funds are being expended uh appropriately.

So I do think this is all in alignment with um county policies and protocols and thinking in the past.

Um the one concern and the and you know, I have all the respect for Alameda County Fire, you know, their dependent uh special district uh that um uh reports to the board of supervisors because we serve as their um uh the oversight of this dependent district.

But um my big concern is having enough money uh to build um station 24 and station 26.

Um it's 90 million, and you're spending about 65 million on the other three, so I don't see how we're gonna have enough money to build the other two, and I guess Call Canyon station six doesn't need to be built.

That's that's good.

At some point in the future we'll we'll need to find the way to build uh station six, rebuild station six.

Okay.

So it's of my arithmetic.

Are you gonna make that work in terms of having resources to do 24 and 26?

Um, and you know, we've constantly had conversations about the fact that the cost isn't going down, the cost goes up.

That's why I've always kept trying to light a fire to move this along, move this along, stay within budget, according to specifications, and um and um uh have it uh done appropriately.

But you know, we're we're running we're running out of money here.

Right.

We expect uh Supervisor Miley that um we will be able to cover the cost of station 26 with the bond funding that initial that remaining 20 million dollars that we have will probably cover the most of the cost we'll have, maybe 5 million from the first phase left over.

Uh station 24 will be one that we'll have to fund uh with district funds.

And you have the district funds that's our intention.

Yes, we do, okay.

Um, it's our also our intention to you know establish a uh capital improvement program fund that would we contribute into it on an annual basis and start to develop some build some funds for future construction, okay.

Because I know you've told me that, Chief.

So I just want to get that on the record.

Okay.

Yes.

So thank you, but I'll keep continuing to light a fire.

Okay, because obviously, once again, within budget corner specifications, and um I'm gonna make sure it's all done right, and and at that Palmars station, I can't wait for it to open up and that you're beginning to move some dirt.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, sir.

Best news I heard is that you're planning to get this stuff done by the end of 28.

Yes.

Well, I would like to thank um my wiser and senior and elder colleague.

You did a lot of work on this name, Supervisor Miley.

I know uh it's important to you and um it really shows, and uh I appreciate the collaboration, Chief, and your office.

So um with reg well, one question I have is with regard to, and I completely um respect and agree with the idea that we would have the different functions that were listed out an accountant, somebody that has audit experience, somebody and and the like.

Um, would you envision that and yet we're selecting independently?

Our representative, Supervisor Miley has two.

I have one, my colleagues have one.

So, how um, if we're receiving applications, or if we're accepting applications that we would review and independently um decide on who we would put forward, will will we be asking them on the application, which experience they have?

Are they checking off one of those boxes or maybe even multiple boxes when we see the applications?

Will we will we be able to uh and we can't really coordinate who we select to achieve that diversity of background?

So I guess we'll just have to make it our best effort, but at least if we know who's applying what their backgrounds are, that might be helpful.

And I think that through the application process, we would be able to determine ask for some background experience from the individual applicant to allow for us to make those determinations.

Very good.

So this is an action item.

I'll uh ask Supervisor Miley, you'd like to take action here and make a motion.

I'll move the formation of the measure X on oversight commission.

And I'll second and ask for the vote to make a formal vote.

Supervisor Miley, Supervisor Howel.

Aye.

Motion passed.

Thank you very much.

Congratulations, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'd like to take a five minute recess if we could.

All right, I'd like to resume our meeting and ask the clerk to call the roll to reestablish our quorum.

Supervisor Miley.

Supervisor Howard.

Present.

We have a quorum.

I uh action item, rather, item number three is an action item, a general plan amendments.

We have two of them, and we will have a brief staff report before we take action.

Good morning, supervisors Ali Abbers with the planning department.

As you mentioned, I am here with two general plan amendments to the safety element and the open space element.

All right.

Next slide, please.

Uh so I will go over each item individually, but before we dive into that, I just wanted to mention that government code limits general plan amendments to four times per calendar year.

And as we have just entered a new calendar year, uh, these would represent our first general plan amendments, which may include more than one, so each individual uh amendment may include more than one change.

Um, and with your committee's approval, we anticipate uh presenting these proposed amendments uh to the full board of supervisors in February of 2026, as I mentioned, as part of a single amendment to the general plan.

So I'm gonna start with the safety element.

Next slide, please.

Uh the safety element is a required element of the county general plan.

Its purpose is to identify natural and human-made hazards and to establish goals, policies, and programs to reduce risk to life and property.

Uh your board last adopted uh a comprehensive update of the safety element uh on January 8, 2013, and it was last amended on March 17th, 2022 to incorporate the local hazard mitigation plan.

It's gone blank.

Um, so state law requires local jurisdictions to update their safety elements every eight years with the housing element cycle.

Uh the proposed amendments update the safety element for consistency with multiple state laws, uh including Senate Bill 379, which requires uh cities and counties to integrate climate adaptation into their safety elements, Senate Bill 99, which requires safety elements to identify residential developments in hazard areas identified in the safety element.

Do not have at least two emergency evacuation routes, assembly bill uh 1409 and 747, which require safety elements to identify evacuation locations and evacuation routes, and their capacity, safety, and viability under a range of emergency scenarios, and finally AB 2684, which requires them to address a hazard of extreme heat.

Next slide.

So uh an overview of the proposed amendments which are included in your packet as attachment A.

These are amendments dated November 2025.

Um these are proposed amendments, um, indicated as hard tracks to the original document, which is as I said was adopted in 2013.

Those are indicated as um underlines for additions and strike throughs for items that are being uh proposed to be removed.

Um hard tracks that are highlighted in yellow in the document before you were um added as a recommendation by Calfire as part of a mandatory state review.

And I just wanted to note that Califire uh is planning to conduct a final review of this document on January 13th of this year, so in just about a week um or week and a half.

And then finally, hard tracks highlighted in blue are hard tracks that were incorporated into this November 2025, this most recent draft, in response to um flood control concerns that were raised by the community of Sinnol, which I will go into in a future slide here.

Next slide.

A bit about the community process.

This project was initially combined with efforts to update the unincorporated area's community climate action plan, but these two projects are now following separate tracks to adoption.

The technical analysis and community engagement for this project began in 2022.

Draft amendments were released first in fall of 2023, and then we released two additional drafts over the course of 2024.

So the draft before you today is the third revised draft, and that's dated November 2025.

Next slide.

So we did bring one of the 2024 drafts to the MACs.

In 2024, so beginning with the Fairview MAC on February 8th, they approved the draft with a recommendation for approval, and they recommended inserting language into the safety element to address concerns related to the definition and recognition of creeks in the public works agency's water course protection ordinance and the corresponding protection that that recognition affords to impacted water courses.

The Eden Area MAC in February of 2024 also recommended voted to recommend approval with recommendations to edit one of the policies to change the language from consider adopting a hazardous tree ordinance to adopt a hazardous tree ordinance, and to again address recognition of creeks and creek protection as recommended by the Fairview MAC.

The Castor Valley MAC heard a presentation on this item in February of 2024, and they approved.

And at that time, as we were also presenting the climate action plan, they only had comments related to that, so no comments related to the safety element.

The Sonol Citizens Advisory Committee heard this item in February 2024.

They also recommended approval with recommendations again to address creek recognition and protection as recommended by the Fairview and Eden MAX, to include the Public Works Agency in a report out, the proposed annual report out about community climate action plan and safety element monitoring, and to edit one of the policies, it's policy P10 on page 66 to include large public property owners like East Bay Regional Parks and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

And then finally the Agricultural Advisory Committee also heard this item and approved with no recommend, no specific recommendations related to the safety element.

Next slide.

So after we went around to the MACs and the SONOL CAC and Ag Advisory Committee in 2024, we brought this item to the Planning Commission on May 20th, 2024, and again on December 12th, 2024, and on both occasions, the planning commission voted to continue the item, requesting that we make further amendments to address flood control and flood response concerns in the community of Sinnol.

So we reached out to Supervisor David Haubert's office, and he hosted his office hosted a series of town halls in Sinnol in 2025 that brought together residents and relevant agencies to discuss those flood control concerns.

And so the draft safety element, November 2025 version that's before you now includes revisions that are designed to address the concerns that we heard from the Planning Commission and that we heard as part of the really extensive outreach that Supervisor Howbert's office did during 2025.

Next slide.

So again, like I said, we did amend the safety element to include more information based on the concerns we heard from the community of Sinnol.

And those additions include in the introduction a new subsection describing the current amendment process.

So what was the community outreach, what were the concerns we heard, and that includes several paragraphs that describe the Synol community's concern, the background of the flooding that they experienced in early 2023, and how those concerns helped to shape the development of the document that's before you today.

In chapter one, we expanded the discussion of the Alameda County, Alameda County Flood Control and Water Conservation District and Zone 7 Water Agency and their respective boundaries, their flood management authorities, and their governance structures.

In chapter one, we also added a map that really clearly illustrates the jurisdictional boundaries of the flood control district and zone seven.

And then we added a number of policies that are aimed specifically at reducing flood hazards in SNOL.

And then finally added a policy promoting redundant emergency communication systems in hazard areas as the SNOL CAC recommended.

Next slide, please.

So in after we made these revisions, we brought the November 2025 draft back to the SNOL CAC, which voted it unanimously to forward the draft amendments to the planning commission with a recommendation for approval.

They noted that the changes were responsive to their community's concerns, and they also voted to reaffirm the recommendations that they had made when they first voted on this item in February of 2024.

And we went back to the planning commission about a month ago in this early December, and the planning commission approved resolution 25-10, recommending approval of the safety element amendments and the related notice of exemption from CEQA, supporting the advisory body recommendations, and further recommending that the safety element be translated into Spanish and into other languages that are commonly spoken in the unincorporated area.

So just a note about environmental review.

Staff finds that the proposed amendments are not subject to CEQA because they would not result in a direct or reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment and pursuant to the common sense exemption.

Next slide, please.

All the documents related to this item, including community engagement, the drafts, the CEQA notice of exemption are on the planning department's website.

Should anyone from the public like to see them?

And then finally, our staff recommendation for part A of this item is to consider forwarding the draft safety element amendments and notice of exemption from CEQA to the full board for approval.

So I can stop here if you'd like to talk about this item.

I'm not sure how you'd like to handle it, or I can go right into item B.

They're kind of related.

Let's keep going.

Okay.

All right, so moving on, item four B.

Some background.

So the open space element is also a required element of the general plan.

It establishes policies and programs that guide the preservation and enhancement of open space.

A comprehensive update of the open space element was last adopted by the Board of Supervisors on May 30th of 1973.

And the open space was amended on May 5th, 1994, and then further amended by the adoption of Measure D in the year 2000.

The proposed amendments would add an appendix to the existing open space element that would show our compliance with state law.

Next slide.

So the state law that we're responding to is Senate Bill 1425, which requires cities and counties to review and update their open space elements by January 1st of 2026, so just a couple days ago, to address equitable access to open space for all residents, and that's in correlation with the environmental justice element, climate resilience and other co-benefits of open space correlated with the safety element, and rewilding opportunities correlated with the land use element.

And a little slide on what rewilding opportunities are.

They are defined in the law as opportunities to preserve, enhance, expand an integrated network of open space to support beneficial uses such as habitat, recreation, natural resources, historic and tribal resources, water management, and aesthetics, or establishing a natural communities conservation plan for coordinated mitigation of new development, and those are it may include those.

So it could go beyond that as well.

Next slide.

So following draft guidance that was published by the state in October of this past year, so October 2025, staff conducted a comprehensive review of the county's general plan, the many documents that make up that general plan to identify gaps and to oper uh and opportunities to support compliance with this new state law.

And we determined through that review that the requirements of SB 1425 are already satisfied through existing general plan policies and measures, and consistent with the guidance that was published by the state, compliance can be achieved by integrating existing policy into the open space element by reference.

And so that's what we propose to do via the proposed appendix B, which documents existing compliant policies and incorporates them by reference into the open space element.

And just a note that as general plan documents that are referenced in appendix B are updated in the future, such as the community climate action plan, an update to which will be coming up fairly soon, that appendix B will be revised simultaneously with any future general plan amendments to maintain SB 1425 compliance.

Next slide.

So in total, the County General Plan has 38 policies that respond to equitable access to open space and policies or uh implementation measures, 24 that respond to climate resilience and co-benefits of open space, and 48 that respond to rewilding opportunities.

And on this slide, I've highlighted some uh some areas where there are no policies in specific chapters of the general plan.

Um, and that's just to highlight that that although there are some areas, not every chapter includes all three requirements, but taken as a whole, uh the general plan uh addresses all three of these requirements in all of the geographic areas of the county.

Next slide.

Uh so we began our um outreach to the advisory bodies in October with the Agricultural Advisory Committee, which um voted to recommend approval, 14 in favor, one opposed.

And then in November, we went to Eden Area MAC, uh, Sunol CAC, which both uh voted to recommend approval unanimously.

Um December, we went to the Fairview MAC, which voted to recommend approval unanimously, and uh to the Castor Valley MAC in December, which um voted to approve uh uh sending it to your board, six in favor and one opposed, um, followed by a presentation to the planning commission on December 15th.

The planning commission also unanimously approved um a resolution, which is PC 2511 recommending board approval of the open space element and uh the notice of exemption from CEQA.

Next slide, please.

So, as with the safety element, we've prepared a draft notice of exemption.

Um, it would not be subject to CEQA because again, it would not uh result in a direct or reasonably foreseeable indirect change uh in the environment and pursuant to the common sense exemption.

Next slide.

All of the documents related to these proposed amendments are on our website for review.

Um and finally, our staff recommendation is um that your committee consider forwarding the draft open space element uh amendments and notice of exemption from CEQA to the full board of supervisors for approval.

Um, that concludes my presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's go to public comment at this time.

Caller, you're on the line, you have two minutes, Kelly.

Thank you so much.

Um, this uh the open space element has a lot to do with measure D.

And measure D was approved in the year 2000.

Measure D uh was uh voted on by all the electorate of Alameda County.

And it told what it instructed what uh your board can do with the open space.

So just for your your you people, the board members here who don't that uh people who even oak should be voting on your open space.

Well, that's what happened.

That's exactly what happened with measure D.

And on the very same day, the exact same hour that measure D got approved.

You know who else got elected?

Supervisor Nate Marley took office.

So if there was any questions about measure D and who voted on measure D, Supervisor would know.

Um, he knows the exact same age as Measure D.

Um, and then you know, more than the plan the uh the planners, the community development agency is here doing a lot of work on the city on the uh the open the safety element.

Uh you know who's not here?

The public works agency.

The public works agency should be here telling us uh not about the impact of the of the other developments on the environment, but in reverse.

This is intended to protect our residents from rising sea levels from the climate change ideology.

You know, this climate change ideology that the public works agency doesn't believe in as a threat to honor residents.

You know, all these uh the Crumbling flood control channels are a big threat, and public works needs to do something about it, we have no additional speakers on item three.

Okay, we'll close public comment then and bring it back for deliberation.

Supervisor Miley, any comments or questions?

Uh yes.

Um, well, my first comment or question is I couldn't understand everything Kelly was saying.

Is there something wrong with our audio?

Is it yeah?

It's on him.

Okay, because I couldn't couldn't make out um everything he was saying, unfortunately.

Um so just want to state that.

And you're saying it's on his end.

Okay.

Um then with um we start with the uh general plan can be amended four times.

Uh and we're proposing just to make one amendment at this time.

Uh, but doesn't preclude us from coming back if we have to make another amendment.

Uh I there could be four additional amendments this year, and what we tend to do is um we'll work with other staffers to combine them.

Um so if there are three items that need to go at once, we would combine those into a single um resolution by your board.

Okay, so you're saying you do plan to come back with additional amendments.

I don't know if there are specific.

I um the community climate action plan is likely to come back to your board this year.

That's one that I'm working on.

Um Sandy might know uh more about what other staffers are working on.

That's the only one uh slated for this year.

Others are specific plans and the like, not general plans.

Okay, all right.

Um so that still gives us two more options if necessary.

Um this counts as one.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Right, right.

Um, because I know this is vetted by the planning commission and the ag and all the Macs, but I want to make sure uh various areas were covered thoroughly.

The um I know flood control was looked at extensively in Synol, but what about of the other areas regarding uh flooding?

Because you know, uh there's been speak at least a speaker or concerns about uh uh flooding as a result of uh the storms that occurred a number of years ago that destroyed uh property uh in the unincorporated area, uh roadways and other things.

So uh what would were there any considerations taking into effect relative to flooding because I know Sunol really experienced quite a bit, but I'm also wanting to find out about the other communities relative to flood control.

So I during the process, I don't recall hearing much from other communities specifically about flood control as a concern, but the document is uh is an unincorporated countywide document.

So the policies that are in that document um would apply to all of the areas.

So that includes the analysis, I believe it's the SB 99 analysis that's looking at um areas that are in like hazard areas that have only one egress, for example, that would apply to um I think some of the communities that were hit in Castor Valley with some of the flooding concerns, like I think Palomaris, for example, experienced flooding during that same storm.

Um so the policies do apply countywide.

We just uh dug a little bit deeper in Synol.

Um, yeah.

You know, there's a roadway washed washed out.

Um actually a couple of roadways washed out um uh Redwood Road, up in the hills, as well as um um, A Street, I think.

Yeah, Railway Road near Hayward um uh in Castro Valley, uh, near um uh, trying to recall the community at the moment.

It was near the Japanese garden, I think.

Is that the one you think?

Oh well that that's one, but there was another one over where this uh we have a specific plan where uh went Winnie Thompson and um Roxanne Lewis live that hold that area as well.

So I just wanted to make sure.

So the policies in Synol would benefit the other areas as well.

I'm just gonna go right to that policy section to see if there's anything that applies to Synol only.

Um most of the policies in the safety element are unincorporated countywide.

Okay.

And there were a few that were specific to concerns that Synol had um, such as looking at the the chain of lakes, which you know wouldn't apply to um areas that aren't downstream of the chain of lakes.

Um but otherwise the the policies as far as um response planning for for safety um review of uh development applications, all of that would apply countywide.

Okay, yeah.

Um because I do applaud the concentration and the laser uh focus on Synol, but I don't want to leave out some other communities that experience flooding as well.

And um, and then I know with the flooding that took place a couple of years ago too, uh we were concerned about um the fact and this is a uh is also part of the issue in Sun uh not Sunol, but in um unincorporated Pleasanton.

So the when development takes place in certain communities, um uh the runoff from the homes and the buildings and the streets increases uh and uh we uh need to be assured that that runoff isn't uh increasing the opportunity for flooding.

Uh so has that was that looked at?

It is, yeah.

Um and I actually believe that that was already in the safety element.

Um so I I don't believe that was even considered in the amendments because it was already there.

Um yeah.

Okay, all right.

I just wanted to flag that.

Then fire.

Uh what about fire?

Was there any concentration on fire?

Uh not the fire department, but you know, the the concerns with fire because fire has been an ongoing uh problem and concern.

Definitely, yeah.

So that was um I would say fire and heat um came up a lot as concerns during the community process, so extreme heat and fire and air quality concerns, things related to that.

Um so yeah, there are a number of amendments that are related to fire, much of them um have to do with uh um evacuation communications programs, they have to do with things like uh planning for communities when there's a s only a single route of egress.

So, you know, how do you um how do you make sure that those communities are prepared and have the communication that they need and that their roadways are clear, all of those things.

Um and further, and this is I think to our benefit, we have a really good partner in Califire on this.

Um they require a review, they so they they require that we submit this to them, which we've done, and they do a really extensive review of the policies that we've added, making sure that we are adding everything uh that they require as the you know state oversight body for you know for fire protection.

Um and uh and so we will we've we developed these policies in concert with them, um, any of the policies that we've added that are those ones highlighted in yellow, and then we go through that final review in a couple of weeks with Calfire.

So if there's anything that needs to be added, we'll do that at that time.

Okay.

Yeah.

I I I trust that you have Cal Fires involved with um and we did also work with our uh our local fire department as well in this process.

Okay, because I'm not gonna try to second guess fire, but good, okay, good.

Um then uh you mentioned that the EDMAC wanted to have the matter consider adopting a hazardous tree ordinance to adopt.

So what's the implications of that?

Uh they just want stronger language.

They want the committee, or sorry, they want the county to commit to adopting a hazardous tree ordinance.

What does that mean.

Uh so the city of Oakland, for example, has a hazardous tree ordinance.

It uh it can take a lot of forms, but the idea is that if there is a tree on a pri a you know a piece of private land.

Okay.

Yeah, that has potential to somebody else's house.

Yeah.

Oh, I okay.

I would respectfully flag this for Supervisor Halbert.

Cause I don't know if the board wants to go down that road.

I don't know if Dublin has a hazardous tree ordinance.

But I just want to make sure I was on my thinking was on target here.

I know in Oakland, dealing with hazardous trees on private property has become a nightmare.

I don't know if we want to go down that road.

And if we do want, I think consider is better than adopt.

Okay.

Adopt is more affirmative.

Consider is look into it.

I think it'd be good to look into it, examine it, and see what Oakland's experience has been.

I don't know if there are other jurisdictions that have hazardous tree ordinances.

Uh, but there are many, yeah, and they take different forms.

So I would I'd like to have more analysis of that before we adopt.

I'd like to have us consider it and then decide whether or not we want to adopt it, because I just know when I served on the Oakland City Council, dealing with trees on private property was a big effing deal.

Um, you know, it was always a dispute between the property owners.

Um, you know, one, and I'm talking about single family residents.

I mean, it could be that minutiae in terms of dealing with hazardous trees.

And I just don't know if we want to go down that road of hazardous trees on private property.

We might, but I need more analysis of this to come to uh through the community and also eventually to uh vetted to the community, but also eventually get to the board before we say, yes, we want to adopt hazardous tree ordinance.

So I would suggest we go back to consider, not adopt.

And none of the other MACs, nor did the planning commission or ag body uh commission.

No, yeah, it was only the Eden MAC.

It was only the EMAC, yeah.

They might not understand the bigger picture around this.

I'm not um dismissing their concern uh for hazardous trees.

I'm just thinking um before we say we want to adopt, let's just consider it and do our analysis and due diligence and get it vetted.

Um so that's uh and I'm trying to see if there's anything else.

Um and then with uh back on the flooding, uh we have a water course protection ordinance, and we also have a soil importation ordinance with land sites and things of that nature.

Does the general plan speak to any of that?

It does, yeah.

So the um the safety element outlines the um sort of regulatory landscape that involves flood control, et cetera, and it it the the flood control ordinance or the water course protection ordinance is mentioned and outlined in the process.

Um and there were recommendations and says that you may be referring to from the MACs to take another look at the water course protection ordinance.

So I know that that's been discussed a lot.

Um so yeah, I'm sure your board has no idea about that.

And what about soil importation?

Uh the soil importing ordinance, I don't believe it is to my memory, it's not included in the safety element.

Um I don't know if it would rise to the level of a safety concern as defined by state law.

Sandy, do you have any uh at least as it relates to the import um and what the safety element is uh mission in terms of having a jurisdiction ready for ready and prepared as well as respond to your natural hazards?

Uh the import ordinance would necessarily fit into that.

Okay.

And then with the just uh the the final question I have is around chapter three emergency preparedness.

Um was there any uh changes there or any modifications?

Did you was there any um coordination or will there be any follow-up with the sheriff's department and Alameda County Fire and other first responder?

Yes, yeah, so um the fire department, the sheriff's office, Office of emergency Services, were all involved in in the process of developing these policies.

And looking right now to that section.

Um in that section, there are additions.

For example, there was in interest in evaluating the effectiveness of utilizing emergency sirens as communication tools in certain areas where communication is harder.

Um preparing, translating, revising, and testing all emergency communications materials for community literacy and language access, et cetera.

Um, let's see, um, yeah, making sure that all of the communications materials are provided in in any language that are spoken by more than five percent of the county population.

Um so those are some of the additions that that we made.

So there are, yeah, there are additions, and um, and that hazardous tree ordinance is actually one of those actions that's in that section.

And once again, we're looking at considering right now it just says consider, so yeah.

All right, and and then with the uh emergency preparedness, is there was there any mention around uh emergency alert system?

Yes, I believe so.

Because that's been an issue, yeah.

Yeah, I'm looking back at that right now.

Emergency alert system.

Um yeah, it just talks about providing emergency notifications, so prioritizing development of redundant emergency notification systems and hazard areas, um uh emergency.

I'm sure it's in there.

I'd have to emergency notification.

I know the Office of Emergency Services, they've explained to us how to URAM alerts have been, you know, they might have one system, another jurisdiction uh in the county has another system, and there's not coordinated, then it takes time to kind of synchronize that and etc.

So that is a yes, it is it is considered in here, and to my memory when we developed these policies, the the majority of the out of the the comments and sort of the policies that we added around um related to AC alert, Genesis Connect, etc.

All of those systems was uh related to uh making sure that language access was covered.

That was sort of the biggest concern um on top of what what these systems are already doing.

Um, because I I think there was a um these systems are complex and the community and the planning department don't necessarily understand how you know the various ways that they function.

So we do defer to our our colleagues at the sheriff's office.

Yeah, and not to be the dead horse here, yeah.

Um because you know disaster preparedness, emergency preparedness is something we feel very strongly about.

I know President Howard Albert hits up to disaster council for the county.

I know from Altadina and Pasadena with those fires, uh I know our Office of Emergency Services learned stuff as well as those fires, and the fact that the you know the satellites uh or the cell phone tires were burned down and then some systems weren't compatible, they weren't talking to one another, etc.

I just want to make sure that's flagged in here.

Okay.

Yeah, and I I think there may be um we this was reviewed by Calfire in 2024 before the fires, and they're reviewing it again.

So I think that we're gonna have some additional learnings and potentially some additional policy recommendations.

Please flag that I will.

Yeah, I think we've learned some stuff from Altadina and Pasadena.

Okay, I think that's it for now, so thank you.

Well, Supervisor Myler, I thought maybe you were gonna go with the uh hazardous trees that we might want to form a commission about that, but no, let's not form a commission on hazardous trees.

But I do remember that we had some eucalyptus trees that fell and uh took out a roof and a home, and indeed uh during the winter season, it is uh the case that these big giant beautiful trees can fall down and become hazardous.

Um, so uh I know that we have a heritage tree ordinances and things like that that prevent people from cutting down trees.

Um, but uh uh at least it's some cities that we have that.

Do we have an Alameda County?

We don't, not for private property.

I think we should have a heritage tree kind of a kind of a thing.

I mean the Danville oak tree is famous, and it's 500 years old, and it's wonderful.

The uh Banyan tree in Hawaii is amazing.

We should have a specimen like that here in Alameda County somewhere.

I'm a big fan of that.

I want to commend you uh Miss Abers for the work you've done in Sunol, attending community meetings, working with my staff, working with constituents, nonstop to um make sure that their comments are heard.

I'll echo some of them, which is to say Sinnol is in imminent threat of continued flooding, especially the school, it will continue to be vulnerable.

Ways that we can harden the school site and make it less susceptible to flooding.

Killcare Road is vulnerable, it's got only one way in and out, up Kill Care Road and down Killcare Road, and it could be a tinderbox, is the right conditions for to align, they will, it's just a matter of time.

Emergency communications, language, super important.

People speak different languages, they need to know what's being said, but access to emergency services is critical.

Some residents don't have internet, don't have landlines or if they do getting notice is just problematic.

I'm talking about Kilcare Road, but even maybe um mines road and other rural roads that we have.

Um one question I have though is around around the safety plan.

Do you coordinate with public works on the safety of our roads?

Or is that strictly a public works thing?

And I say that because we have mines road that continually we know is on the slide, the hill is sliding down a little bit over time.

Um, not safe.

So is that a public works safety issue, or is that a CDA safety issue?

So um the safety element does include policies and programs, actions um for a variety of county agencies to implement.

So the public works agency would be one of them, um, the Alameda County Fire Department, uh the Office of Emergency Services, et cetera.

So it's not, it's not only identifying things that CDA can do, it's identifying things that the county as an organization can do through its various departments to support safety.

Um that's why all of these agencies were included in the in the process of drafting these policies.

So they were included in the review.

Um, and it was, as I mentioned earlier, was combined with the community climate action plan process because a lot of this is really looking at climate change and how it impacts safety.

Um so yes, these departments are more engaged in the process, and um, but it would be the public works agency's purview to uh manage roads and safety on roads.

So it outlines uh uh, you know, ways to do that.

Does our policy state that every resident will have access to communication of the emergency service?

Yeah, I don't think it's worded exactly like that, but yes, it's you know, looking at communications ums for emergencies that reach the broadest possible uh swath of community members through accessible formats that suit their lifestyles that are in their language that don't just depend on them having a smartphone, um, but look at a variety of of systems.

So it does uh make those those policy recommendations, yes.

Do our policies um just cover the unincorporated Dalmade County, but so um sensitive to, and I think we added it susceptibility to heat, um susceptibility to weather, period, cold weather, hot weather, rainy weather, cold weather.

You can hopefully get out of the rain and put on a jacket or a sleeping bag or get warm.

Hot weather, completely the opposite, and access to a way to cool down.

Is important.

But we just I'm thinking of in my district that would be the unincorporated far east county.

And I don't know.

What we do about that.

I guess we send people recreation center.

Or the cooling stations in the city of the okay.

Um a lot of work has been put into this, certainly um uh supportive of forwarding to the board.

So I'll let Supervisor Miley make the motion.

But are you are you okay with us not um having the language that the EDMAC suggested that he wanted us to remove consider and what language do they want us to use?

Adopt.

I thought we should keep the consider.

I agree, okay.

Agreed.

So that's how you can make that motion.

I'll support it.

So I'd like to move um the um this item dealing with the draft, safety element, amendments, notice of exemption from CEQA, the full board, um with the um understanding that under the the tree the answer to this tree, it'll be uh uh consider an ordinance not adopt, and then I also move item B, um the draft open space element uh amendments to the um general plan and the notice of um exemption from uh CEQA, the full board, supervisor Miley, uh supervisor Hammer.

I very good, see you at the full board.

Thank you.

With that seeing that uh all business before us has been completed, we are adjourned.

Thank you