I think it's 6 30, so we can call the meeting to order.

And um I can retire.

Lila, do you want to read the directions?

Sure.

Yeah, I think uh, I know.

Okay.

And online via Zoom.

For all participants, please state your name for the record prior to your comment.

If you wish to speak on a matter not on the agenda, please wait until Chair de Grange calls for your public input on non-agenda item.

Time limits are at the discretion of the chair and only matters within the jurisdiction of East Noble Citizen Advisory Council may be addressed.

To notify the council you wish to speak, please listen closely to the following for in-person participants.

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Thank you.

I see that David's hand is up, but let's do the roll call first.

Councilmember Conan.

Present.

Council Member McLean.

Present.

Council Member Start.

Chair De Green.

Here.

Yeah.

Um David uh Supervisor Halbert, did you want to speak first before we start the meeting?

That would be great if I could.

Would that be all right with you?

Okay.

I just want to say happy new year to everyone and to welcome your newest member, Ian, who I'm excited to see serve.

Thank you.

Good to see you.

Good to see everyone in Sinnol.

You have a jam-packed agenda tonight.

You've got updates from law enforcement, fire safety, pedestrian-friendly uh opportunities for the downtown area.

Synol has a lot going on for it.

I'm proud of everybody here tonight.

I'm sorry I'm not with you in person, but uh representing my office.

You have Kathy Kimberly and nobody better than her.

And I'm also excited to see the year in review 2025, all the things that were accomplished in Sinnol.

I wish you a great meeting, and we're going to have a great kickoff to the year 2026 and a great year this year.

Thank you for letting me speak out of turn.

I know you have a long agenda, so I'll be brief and just give the meeting back to Chair Connie DeGrange.

Thank you all.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

So we just look at you probably he is he introduced Kathy.

He introduced Ian.

And we also have Lila over here, who is our new clerk, just starting this meeting.

So lots of people.

So Kathy, you represent the Fremont district, right?

Well, all of District One, but my focus is on free.

Fremont.

Okay.

Well, thank you for coming.

Thank you.

So it's supervisors.

Yeah.

The Fremont's out there, so I'm in Fremont.

But I do things in all of the oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

Nice to see everyone.

Are there any public comments?

I don't have a card from anybody.

Oh we'll just get started then.

Later on on the sheriff and the higher patrol on a matter.

So would you mind filling out a slip of paper?

There's a some papers on the table over there.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

And you probably noticed the format of the agenda has changed a little bit, so the cover sheet actually lists that it's an agenda and the date and everything.

So it makes it easier to read.

So we'll have uh law enforcement a monthly update.

Sergeant Petrini.

Good to see you.

We believe our last meeting was November.

Well, two months what we're covering.

We've had 65 calls for service.

Don't believe there was anything really of note.

There have been a few minor incidents that have happened.

Um, the deputies have conducted 60 proactive stops during that time, and 128 patrol checks, business checks coming out, hanging out.

And uh we should have been out here every night for train of lights.

Does anybody have any questions for me?

Thank you for having some two guys out here for the Hanukkah.

Um, it's really important.

And for the trains, appreciated.

Well, yeah, the traffic's always a lot, a lot.

Training nights.

Trailing signs.

This is part of what I just wanted to tell.

This would be the time then about uh neighbors, neighbors are driving crazy uh down up Kilcare Road, actually in the KWA area, but it starts there, it shoots all the way down, and so even at the sheriff.

I've seen you folks up there and really appreciate just even a drive-by.

I know you have a big district.

We have a time frame of when they're doing it.

Yes, it's definitely it's definitely the parents are late and there's they've shuttling their children, driving like maniacs, and thank god that uh we've got those bot dots and the things to to help.

And the same thing with I was gonna compliment the highway patrol and all.

And I think you folks were up there just yeah, we kind of weak for a somebody who passed away.

Yes, okay.

Well, again, thank you for your service.

We would have liked to see you up there.

We'll uh we'll see if we can get some people to kind of hide out maybe a driveway and see if we can catch any speeders coming down.

Hide out and I know CHP will do the same.

It's beautiful.

Thank you very much.

Hello again.

I know it's been a while than I've been here, and I'm not sure if the other guy was able to make it the last couple meetings before the end of the year.

Our office has been shorthanded again.

We're on that swing of the pendulum.

We've had a couple people promote and move, and we've had some transfers.

Our academy is reducing from classes every 10 weeks to going to three classes a year again.

So the transfers should start slowing down, but when that happens, the backfill slows down.

So for areas that are shorthanded, that means it's gonna take another cycle or two before we get fully staffed.

Uh, we have currently five down officers right now, three to injury, two of the female officers had babies.

Um, and then there's a couple other officers that their wives had babies, so they're out for that, right?

So we're trying to grow the high patrol of the future, but it's gonna take some time.

Um, yeah, right.

So maybe they'll be cyclists before we know it, and then uh so uh we've got some people out with vacations and uh some things like that.

So I haven't been able to do uh the county road enforcement like I'm used to.

I'm actually currently working a 580 beat right now, so I've got some guys listening to the radio knowing that I'm down here to help out.

So if there is anything, especially through the next few months, as we get these, we're gonna get five new officers in and start training them.

That'll take I'm gonna be one of them taking me away from the county roads to train one of those officers, and then four other officers, obviously, who are gonna be training somebody.

Um, but hopefully by June, that'll give us five extra bodies running around to try to figure things out in between now and then.

If you guys have any issues, don't be afraid to call, call the office, and just let us know so we can try to get some focus on those areas.

I know you mentioned kill care for the school rush.

I'll bring it up again and try to see if we can get another unit in the morning time to come out this way and take a look on that.

Um, it's gonna be hard for me probably at least until February to try to come out this way, but I'll see what I can do.

But they live there, so they'll be there when you're waiting for later on and all.

Thank you for your service.

Yeah, and for any traffic issues, whether you call CHP or you call the sheriff's office, we text, we talk.

Uh, I talk with his captain, so we share information all the time.

So if you give it to them, they're good at passing it to us, and we'll pass it up to them so that everybody knows and we can kind of do a combined effort to solve problems.

And I'm back up to full staff, I have my three on each side of the week now.

Um, so with them being short, if you call them, he'll pass it down to me and we'll come pay attention to the areas.

Yeah, thank you both for your service.

Really appreciate you.

So my very unscientific observation, it appears there have been fewer accidents at the interchange between 680 and 84.

Is that your impression?

Uh, it does seem like it's been good lately.

We'll see if our fingers crossed and it continues that way.

Um, I do think a lot of it is because northbound 680 is open two lanes continuing on to 84.

It does seem to be flowing a lot smoother on the freeway.

There's still a slowdown, but it does seem to be smoother on the freeway with commute traffic.

And so I think that's reduced the amount of traffic on 84 itself.

Hoping.

All right, hoping that's the reason why.

And so as the summer goes, we'll see if it kind of continues that way, and people come back from holidays and weather warms up and you start getting more people doing everything.

Hopefully, it'll continue to be that way.

But I know I was gonna say I know there were issues with the cycling of the lights and things before Amber and I were working with Caltrans, trying to get them to do some more evaluations there.

Have you guys heard?

I haven't had anything come across my desk, but have you guys heard any more complaints about the traffic intersection signals?

People running the reds thinking they're making a right on red, but it's a straight through, so there's I know Caltrans was supposed to be looking at it, but I don't know if you guys have had anything in the last I haven't heard anything, but people have gotten used to it, yeah.

I still see it.

Initially it was pretty bad.

We'll still push the micro.

Okay, I'll bring it up to Caltrans again just to make sure they're still uh we're still sitting, we're sitting here on Main Street where it meets 84, and you're one or two cars deep and you miss the light.

You got a one light and it's there's it's our the intersections already jammed, and the traffic doesn't move, and so you sit through a couple lights that happened to me just yesterday.

And what that's what time roughly that's usually between I would say between you know 7 30 and 9 30 in the morning, right now.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, sounds good.

I'll bring it up to Caltrans again and tell them to come check it out.

Because last time they brought a guy out at like two o'clock in the afternoon and was like, Oh, it's going fine.

I'm like, you're not even there at peak commute hours.

So, right?

I was like, the problem is in commute.

Like, please go in commute and watch for an hour.

So that's what I've asked them to do.

So I'll bring it up again and ask them to check that morning and then again in afternoon commute hours and just really look at it.

The time that Lindsay brought Zice and I sat at that corner, the four corners, and watched the lights.

It was three, it's when school was out.

We it wasn't during the commute time, and then it was two minutes in one direction, 17 seconds in the other.

It's pretty routine, but yeah, it's the commute hours probably different.

Okay, yeah, I'll bring it up again, tell them to check the school hours, give them 30 minutes before and after each direction, and then again through afternoon commute.

Morning commute's not too bad.

People are usually flowing through, or it is bad.

I was saying, but I mean on main, yes.

But no, I mean at the stop light here, that's where I'm speaking up.

Right, and you're because you're trying to get out of Synol, and it's flowing for everybody to come through.

Okay, and is that right around school hour times?

Also, it's between I would say it happened between 7:30 and 9.

So I don't know the exact time when it happens, but it's uh right in that morning.

Okay, sounds good.

Y'all send a note back over to Caltrans and tell him yeah, check a little.

It's always it's always the traffic heading uh heading uh eastbound.

Okay, it's it's backed up there, and there's people in the intersection, and then when the light goes down by four corners by the fruit stand, it doesn't clear, so and it's not it's not cycling through, and so then the people on main street waiting to get on to 84 will sit there and just use backlog, Daniel.

You'll miss a couple cycles.

Okay.

Sounds good.

Yeah, I'll send it back up.

Anything else?

Thank you very much.

Yeah, of course.

Anything else for traffic complaints issues, uh, all right.

Thank you.

Go sharks.

Um is Chief Terra on the call?

Can you tell?

I am here.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yeah.

Good evening, everyone.

Sorry I couldn't be with you in person tonight.

Um as uh Sergeant Petrini indicated.

Um my report is since our last meeting, which was in November, and since then there have been 54 calls for service in the Synol area.

91% of those calls were EMS related.

Um there was one dumpster fire, and then we had a couple of other service calls and canceled in route calls.

So it's been relatively quiet, which is the way I like it.

Um please keep up the good work.

Um, and if you need anything else from me, I'm available for questions.

Shear, will you be able to stay for the presentation on the fire safety sirens?

Uh no, I wasn't planning on it.

Okay.

Um, is there a specific question or something?

Because I know um other members of ACFD team, I believe you were working with on that matter.

Yes, yeah, okay.

Yeah, okay.

That's fine.

Okay.

I just wanted to check in.

Okay.

Thank you.

Have a good night.

You too.

Okay, progress reports.

Um, I don't know, fire safety, you probably have something to report for Friday.

It's just some.

Introduce myself.

Um, this is just to tell the public that we do have a cowfire grant as a grant modification on someone else's grant who had money left over.

Um, we're calling this modification creating defensible space along Kilcare Road in Sonol managed by Diablo Fire Safe Council.

So we have enough money for 10 days of an arborist with five five man crew, um, a hopper, um, chipper, all the necessary um equipment to go along Killcare Road.

We're gonna be starting at the top of Kilcara Road and coming down, looking at trees, removing dead branches, and anything that would get in the way of emergency vehicles coming up or people leaving.

This was requested by Calfire.

Um what is he?

He was uh Forrester who just retired, Ed Orey when he came up and looked at um another grant that will be starting probably in March.

That's a Calfire grant to Alameda County Fire Department to do a shaded fuel break up Kill Care Road.

So that is likely to start in March.

So we have two different programs to aid in the evacuation route.

So there are many of us in town who are very passionate about providing people of kill care road a way to safety if ever we needed one.

So tree work starts in March or the groundwork.

I'm not sure.

I hear that it will start.

No, the tree will start work will start in February.

Okay, because we we want it to be ahead of the of the groundwork.

So two different operations, the same geographical location, one up in the trees and one on the ground.

So you'll be seeing a lot of a lot of work.

I'm not sure how long the um Alameda County Fire Department.

This is crew eight coming in, and they are ground crew, so um we shall see.

Um any questions?

Um, you call the Alameda County Fire Department or that rent.

The questions, thank you.

I didn't get any report from Jim O'Laughlin or Christian Bobbitz.

Did anybody else get it?

That I missed.

Maybe okay.

Downtown revitalization Work Group.

Yeah, we uh have a significant progress.

We uh had a conversation just in the last couple days.

Um, it's taking a little bit extra time because you know we are unincorporated, so you know, going through the process um to get our money, we approve it and then get the board to approve it, and then some things change um with the pricing because we have to add a couple things for public works and resubmit it and um now we're in the PO process and get a PO cut, but we're at the final stages now getting the PO um getting getting the invoice and then we're gonna send it to the Niles Canyon Railway and they're gonna pay the sign maker.

Uh and that should happen.

We're expecting that to happen very, very soon.

So we're we're moving ever closer to our uh our our long-awaited uh first ever uh prototype wayfinding sign.

And that's I report it every month.

Once that's up, I think everybody would you have the concern was you know, oh what you know, what if we don't like it?

That that's the purpose for the prototype.

We're we're not gonna go forward this whole thing, it's there for community feedback and questions and suggestions and that whole thing, and then once we uh if people might decide they like it the way it is, or they may decide that they like um some changes to it or different things.

It's it's been done when you guys see I think you're gonna like it's been done in development with um the Sinolians themselves, have built it some local artists, and um, you know, Tom Harlan, who was here for a long time was a big time in involvement with his artwork, so it's very very Sonoli is the design of it.

Uh so I think guys are gonna like it, folks are gonna like it, and uh if and if and then please be sure to give feedback on it.

Um we're still deciding how we're gonna do that if it's uh uh you know via uh county email or however that's gonna be, but we want the feedback, and then once that's done, we've already kind of done through the work, so we anticipate knock on wood, you know that the that the next four will be a lot quicker.

So the only thing left to do now, um, is for us to discuss is what names are gonna go on the prototype sign, you know, kill care woods, highway 84, statue of Bosco, you know what what are we gonna put, and then uh we'll do that, and that'll be the first prototype sign.

That's coming soon.

Where's it gonna be the first sign?

It's gonna be um it's gonna be across from uh the former Bosco's um on kind of on the sidewalk where that little kind of little mini parking lot is by the uh by the park.

I'm not sure the official name for that, but um right across from the Snow Town Center, there's like a little mini parking lot.

There's probably like a lattice fencing that goes, it's gonna be on there.

So to the left that would be Kill Care Woods going, Kill Care Road going up, and to the right of that would be heading towards the post office.

So that's the idea.

That would be good.

Get a lot of people coming up kill care looking for the park.

Yeah, so that's fantastic.

Yeah, yeah.

And you'll be selling residents the ability to, because I need the reflection.

We will not be selling them.

The sign the sign company will put have had decided if they want to do that, they can go through through them through the business guild and get that done.

Yeah, we got it cool.

And then there'll be no businesses listed.

They're not signs for businesses, it's locations in all locations of interest.

Okay, council staff comments.

Anybody have any comments or anything?

So there's a an A here, the Pleasanton water supply, and Lindsay had followed up on that.

That was a concern that I think.

Did you mention that, Mary?

About the concern, or was it somebody else?

We all got letters that said that uh on the the last day that you had a letter that there had been a problem with the water and it was all fixed, but that was 90 days ago.

Yeah, okay.

Um, she followed up on that, but she's not here.

As um, Lindsay is no longer with Supervisor Halbert's office.

Chief of Staff Sean will circle back on that with you.

We already have.

We're reporting trying to get the best answer.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, so puc has um extended their contract with the construction contractor.

I mean, because we thought that watershed center would be done by now, but and they uh so I called them about that to find out what was going on, and they said that's their the contract originally called for two years of maintenance after the construction was done, and so this extension is through 2028, I think, or 29, and um it's for the ongoing maintenance, and they're gonna come either March or April and talk about what the status is and when the watershed center will be open.

Um and then the feasibility study um for the septic that'll be coming up next couple of months, and then Caltrans has been invited also Kathy.

Did you have any comments?

Staff comments, okay.

Item 4A update on making Main Street more pedestrian friendly.

And Amber Lowe is here.

Thank you so much for coming in person.

I appreciate it.

Good evening, Council members and Chair DeGrange.

Um, can they hear me?

Am I too soft?

This year.

We're gonna move over.

I'll try to project my voice.

Um okay, yeah, thank you for um having me again.

I'm here to give you an update from like the last time also um the last presentation I did.

I guess I was supposed to come back in October, but then there was no room for um me on the agenda, and then so like um Chair DeGrange invited me back today.

Um I accidentally left my notes on the printer when I was rushing to get here.

So hopefully I remember everything I dragged down some from memory.

Um, so the first thing is the um the pedestrian that the some of the ideas that were in the revitalization plan.

Um I went and looked through them.

I talked over um the ideas with um Chair DeGrange a couple of times.

Um my plan was to have um we're okay.

Can we go back a little bit?

We um we public works have been working on a um update um RFP to um get a consultant on board to update our uh pedestrian and bicycle master plan.

Um that's like required a requirement to be updated every five years that it was due, and um we've been working on that.

My hope was to have that done like last fall, but then um that the RFP process is always like longer than we anticipate.

And um right now we're hoping to um have the uh contract approved by the board in February and get them started.

So um the ideas that were in the uh your downtown revitalization plan.

Um I was gonna have our consultant go through and um work with the community.

We have it in their scope of work and their budget to um work with the different um unincorporated areas, the the MACs and then the community host um meetings with the different communities, get their feedback on like you know how they want to see their pedestrian network done and help prioritize the projects so that um public works will have a list of projects to do.

Um you can uh see on our website.

Our current plan has a list of um sidewalk projects, um bicycle projects, and they are prioritized um like say with a bike lane, they'll say um what type of bike lanes and then high priority, low priority, what else we need to do like further study or like and as soon as possible, things like that.

Um so uh like I said, I'm hoping there's that they're gonna start in February, and then um they will be reaching out like probably by summertime hopefully to set up um like meetings.

Um they'll come to one of the CAC meetings for sure, and then um if necessary, they can host like other meetings with like broader community if if you wish, and then so um that's the plan for how to implement it.

So they're gonna um vet the ideas and then kind of um make them more like you know, go through the ones like um that are actually um uh maybe more implementable, but then it still has to go through the design process, the engineering and stuff like that in order to finalize it and come up with the plans to fit the project out.

So um still interested in having a CENO representative on that committee.

Yes, um, I we can talk about that like um separately.

Um, that by our director because um the the pedestrian bicycle advisory committee is advisory to our director.

So it's a separate, it's a separate thing entity.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The um the we have a uh VPAC right now, so um that advises um on the project they meet quarterly and stuff.

This is a consultant that we have that is going to update our um our pedestrian bicycle master plan and the EPAC kind of oversees that whole process and then make the recommendations and stuff, and also like um the consultant is going to be updating our ADA transition plan too.

So when it comes to the pedestrian improvements, it's very important that they're kind of tied together because um yeah we had to prioritize those ADA um the pet ramps and things like that too.

Um okay, and then um last time last year, we actually did a traffic um a speed survey.

Um if you guys want to know the results.

I did grab this from the printer.

Um so uh we did a speed survey on Bond Street and Main Street, and the results turn out really good.

You guys are really good citizens.

The 85th percentile speed is like um somewhere between 23 to like 27 or 28 is the max for the 85th percentile speed.

There are like some like outliers that speed a little bit like in the 35 to 40, like a few a day, like two on one day, and I think I see at most like three that are in that range of 35 or 40, but like so we did three days of study um both directions at two locations, one like um 200 feet north of Main Street and then um 400 feet west of Bond Street, and um yeah, there's we didn't pick up any uh speeding because like we wanted to look at that because um I understand that traffic calming was a concern.

So um we're still open to ideas and we'll continue to monitor and work with you guys.

But um, I think with the discussions we've had over the months and years is a lot of it's not Synolian, you know, it's it's because it's a big part of Main Street and the people cutting through.

Um and so it's good to hear that we did the study because that would include people who people are not from Sunol cutting through, but I think in range uh people we see speeding, people almost get hit.

Mary Mary talks about that on KillCare and stuff.

Kill care to me is Main Street, Bond Street, okay, but kill care, I think is really where the speeding action happens.

It's people coming off the coming in the bottom of Kill Care.

They're coming off foothill cutting through to go go on to 84 uh uh westbound.

They've come they've come down, they've curved around, and all of a sudden there's a place in Kill Care where it opens up before hitting downtown and it's just it's a it's a speed zone in there, big time speed zone in there.

Yeah, before the train station, yeah.

Yeah, we can take a look at that um more closely.

And then okay, um, do you have any more questions on the speed survey we did on bond and maybe time of year?

When was this?

It was actually done in May.

Last time I was here, I forgot like because the consultant didn't give it to us yet, and then so um, but when I went back, I found out that we actually did it already.

And so um these were um May 27 28 and 29 three days.

It was Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

After Labor Day, um Memorial Day after memorial day, yeah.

Uh transitioning to other um speed limit stuff.

Um Chair DeGrange wanted to wanted me to look at um Foothill Road, the speed limit signed there because um I guess uh west of here, Bond Street, um uh two hundred two of two miles um over there's like the that's the first um speed limit sign at 40 miles per hour.

So we have an um east of bond.

East, yeah, okay, yeah, east.

Um we have an engineering traffic survey that was signed um for from Castlewood down to mile marker 6.7.

And then so um we researched um the ordinances, the area that's between kill care and um I guess that mile marker uh 6.7.

There is a really old ornaments maybe in the 80s, as it is this 25 miles per hour, but there's no current ETS that supports it.

So um I'm having a consultant um quickly do um like a speed uh engineering traffic survey for us to confirm if it's still 25 miles per hour.

So um the segment that they're they're gonna be doing is from um from B Street to mile marker 6.7 on Foothill, so all the way through.

I think mile marker 6.7 is at the park, the southern end of the pleasant ridge park.

Okay, so beyond that point uh point, it's um 40 miles per hour, and it was done by our previous um traffic engineer.

So that one is still current.

So um, in order for the stage to um enforce it, we need an um the current ETS that's approved.

So um we'll get that done as soon as possible and then um post the signs accordingly.

I think in June you also had said that a work order had been placed to put a speed limit sign on the western terminus of foothill.

Yeah, that has been installed, like I think um shortly after, yeah.

Like, must have driven right past it.

I think it's I send it.

Thank you very much for doing that.

I don't confirm, but I thought I sent an email saying that oh yeah, we installed it too.

So yeah.

Um so what you're speaking of is uh foothill uh foothill road and the speed limit there uh going up towards say the park in that direction.

You're is that what you're speaking of?

Yeah, from B Street through the through Kill Care until Mount Marker 6.7.

Okay, uh that's a double line yellow line uh going out of that part.

Because I've been past three different times and almost a head-on collision for neighbors uh people driving behind me.

I wasn't going fast enough for them, and they crossed through the other side of the road and passed me.

That's what I'm scared of uh wanting to know.

You're gonna you're monitoring that, that speed limit in that area.

Um not monitoring, we're actually doing a speed survey so that um the law enforcement can enforce the speed limit there, but you're talking about like a double yellow, that's supposed to be no passing on either side.

But no, I wasn't that's what I'm saying.

It's been I I travel at road because it's it's slow, or supposedly, and they've actually pulled over and I almost got hit on the other side head on.

So that's why I mentioned hopefully that's what you're doing.

Sorry to hear that, yeah.

Um after the the speed survey is done, we're going to um put up the more speed the speed limit signed accordingly.

So, yeah, the other roads that are like local roads, they could be signed at 25.

So unfortunately, that one was I think like a minor arterial or something.

It was like the green color on the Caltrans map.

So it has to have it um the ETS button for the speed limit.

Um I think that's about a crosswalks on Main Street.

The cross on Main Street, I wanted to um defer to the um the pedestrian and um the the improvement for them to evaluate because um I was looking at that after our conversation, and I think it might be better to keep the pedestrians on the sidewalk side and then let them cross the street rather than um cross along the um like the island there because they'll be kind of right next to the traffic.

Um we could still convert it to to parking, like the parallel parking as part of the project, but um they'll be or we'll be kind of like creating a conflict point at where you know the the arrow pavement markings are there.

So on the revitalization plan, it refers to that as a sidewalk, but really like it's more like a driveway, more like a um an intersection at that point.

Like to the on the other side of the island, like uh where the driveway is.

Yeah, so we have to look at that very carefully for um pedestrian safety.

What we're talking about is during the train lines, and when the train is operating, it's the pedestrians go from the train station, and then they cross the street over to Casa Villa, but then they're in the middle of the road walking in the road to get to Bosco's or the country store.

And how do we how do we avoid that that situation?

So yeah, if and telling them to cross the street over to the parking lot in the park and to walk on the crosswalk and then cross the street again over to Bosco's is very difficult to achieve.

We could like designate a pedestrian area, like for them to walk, like we discussed, but like I think the permanent improvement would be better if there was a crosswalk, like they stay on the sidewalk side where the you know the the two benches are and then um have them cross that way, but if they're heading towards like where the cafe and the store where the restaurant is and stuff.

So that would be more like the the permanent thing.

Um I still have to look into the the pavement improvement, like temporary improvements to to do like to kind of um show where the a pedestrian path would be if if we were to have them walk behind there because I guess um, yeah, there's a concern about um the the county's right-of-way is actually like um straddles the the parking spaces in case like um those of you who don't know, but the county right-of-way actually goes all the way back there, so it's okay for people to walk, it is public right-of-way, but people don't know that.

Yeah, that's true that they don't.

Okay.

There were a number of projects in the revitalization plan.

And will those be going into your budget?

I'm trying to figure out how we implement that plan, how we work with you to implement that plan.

Well, the projects that are um in the public right-of-way, like not everything in here is um is suitable for implementation.

Like um, uh give like an example.

I I think I saw like at the um near the train station, there was a raised pedestrian crosswalk.

That's actually like not, I mean, I we could look at it more carefully, but um my preliminary thoughts are that it's not um appropriate because we'll it would block drainage and then also the ADA, like right.

You have like the the speed, do we want to separate the the crosswalk?

If they really want to cross, we would separate it and then like block out um have speed humps on either side and then get crosswalk in the middle.

But if you were to do that, everybody, whether there's pedestrian or not, um crossing, everybody would be subject to going over speed humps there.

So the community should think about that very carefully, like when you're talking about um traffic calming and stuff that everybody's on board to, you know, they don't mind going over the hump and stuff like that, and that's worth it for the community to do.

Um so some other things.

Um like some of the the aesthetic improvements, um, that might be able to be included in um in uh the capital improvement project if we were to do it, but then we can't just come in and then install those are I think more like if you work with CDA on it, especially like if it's off of uh if it's not on um the public right-of-way, that wouldn't be a public works.

Okay, um, an example of that that's in the revitalization plan and people have commented about it, is the two street lights that are missing in front of the Bosco's building.

Um so that has to go into the long-term budget.

Is that the case?

No, that one, I'm working on it, but um, that one we would require if there's no PCE power to it, then we have to apply for power, and then that takes a while.

Like in San Lorenzo.

I think we were trying to get the street light installed there.

It took um like over a year, the whole process.

So, how do I I'm I'm trying to figure out how to make something happen.

Um do we ask you to report back in six months, or do we have a schedule or there's steps that we could see and follow to make sure it's happening?

Um for the like the sidewalk improvements and the actual like capital improvement projects, not the street lights, the street light can be separate.

The capital improvement project, like if we're doing sidewalk and things like that, that um let's say over a couple million dollars, um, those will be we'll look at those and prioritize those with the pedestrian bicycle improvement plan, those projects.

But then the other ones like the pavement improvements that that we talked about.

If we were to come in and then resurface, like say main street and stuff, then we can include that as restriping because right now if we were to just come in and do it, uh we'll black out whatever is there.

It's it's not gonna look nice.

You have to um actually, it's it's it's an expensive process process, but it doesn't have to be a CIP.

Like we would could do it as part of pavement resurfacing, and then like the street light, it can be separate.

Like we do that when people request street lights all the time.

I have to look at I try to look at our old plans to see where those street lights are, and I didn't see like where they were, must have been a long time ago that those street lights were there because um it wasn't removed as part of the um like the main street process uh project from I think like 2012, it wasn't there.

Yeah, um, that the street lights weren't ever there because they were all installed in 2012.

They were installed there.

Well, I think that's everybody's understanding.

Yeah, I was curious.

Um, if they were there, we should have electricity too if it's been removed.

So it should be.

You've probably you've probably tripped over those concrete, the two concrete mounds with wires coming out.

I didn't love that in front of the country store.

Fabulous.

Yeah, yeah.

We need the light.

So the show we got the electricity there, so it's a case that we can resurrect the light poles.

Okay.

And um, I thought they were not there.

Are they like the black lights that have the bulbs on both sides?

So I don't know what the bases would be for.

I the bases look like the basis for the street lights, and there's wires coming out of them, and people are complaining that there's no light streetlights there.

So I'm assuming, I mean, I don't have any photographs from Tony 12.

So I don't know, but I'm assuming those are street lights.

Yeah, there's like currently the street lights mounted on the whip pole, aren't they?

I think the metal poles.

There's one, there is one telephone pole between Casabella and the Boscos building.

Yeah, there's a street light on there.

Well, you know what they're complaining about.

They're complaining because the banners are paint, we paint banners and we hang them from the street lights, and there's no banners in front of those buildings because those two street lights are missing.

So and then what they did is they took it upon themselves to to put banner brackets up and some different banner on their own on the telephone pole.

And of course, PGE got upset with that and took it off.

I have to dig more in the history, I'm sorry, like um to find out exactly what happened and how to replace it accordingly because um if it really was um like the the lights like that we installed further down that the 2012 project, we might have extra of the polls because sometimes we do that ordered in case they get they get hit and we have to replace them, but then I have to look in the history of uh that project.

Yeah, that's fine.

Any other questions?

Well, we've got extra inventory, we'll take it.

Oh, yeah.

Sorry.

We've got extra inventory.

We'd love to have some lights there, so but we have to install it for you though.

We can do that too.

Awesome.

I'll take a look and see.

Okay, thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Okay.

Go on to 4B emergency notifications in CINAHL.

And the fire safety group's been doing a lot of work.

Denise is going to share the results.

Welcome you.

You've joined a nice group of people.

Yeah, thank you.

I'll just preface this by saying this report.

I'm presenting it in the context as a layperson, not as an expert.

Connie is a scientist.

She was at Lawrence Livermore.

Rosemary has her PhD in applied mathematics.

And my professional background is in strategic research.

I started my career in investment banking in New York and moved over to management consulting when I joined a firm called McKinsey in San Francisco.

We do have an industry expert here, and that is Brent, and he'll be talking after.

We're lucky to have you.

Okay, so I I'm back here doing this because before I left, I had brought up the idea that maybe we needed to look into ways to notify the community in emergency situations since it comes up all the time.

So that's why we started this project.

The first thing we looked at were the characteristics of CINAHL.

We know that we are in a high fire hazard zone.

We have a major fight fire factor, risk identifying 99% of homes are at risk, areas lack cell phone coverage.

We have multilingual community, we have a hearing impaired community, we have visitors who won't be um part of our network if we do have notifications.

So we have all of these factors.

So we looked at, if we go to the next slide, we looked at um what have we done so far?

So I think the community and the SAC board has done a pretty good job of trying to address a lot of concerns.

But we still always had this ongoing concern for notification.

Next one.

So what we heard from people were some of the things that they were interested in.

Could we ideally I think what we were trying to find was a completely passive way of getting information to people, like we thought maybe if we had a siren, that would be enough to just let people know to look, you know, check your devices, but we were wrong.

But what we learned from people by looking at what they wanted is that we wanted to look at this in the lens under the lens of a cost, ease of use, and reach.

One of the things we did was we looked at um other communities in California like Marin, Paradise Berkeley, Laguna Beach, among others, and we wanted to see how they were responding to catastrophic events or preparing for them, and we noticed that there were a few things that showed up all the time, um, even if they were in it, didn't matter if they were an urban environment or a different type of community.

Um L Rad sirens were showing up.

That's a long-range acoustic device combining sound with messaging.

Um they were using redundant communication across many channels.

That is a big big issue.

Trying to get information out to as many people across as many channels as you can.

Using battery and solar power backup and the use of low frequency bandwidth mesh networks or satellite to communicate, which is a really important one for our community.

Next one.

Two companies kept showing up.

They were Genesis Protect and the home HQE Safe Network.

Both really great, interesting companies have great products.

Again, from our point of view, what we kind of thought um so far is that the Genesis product seems to be better equipped to serve large communities.

They were really good at coming with zone-based evacuation plans.

We're small.

When we talk to HQE Safe, the one thing that really appealed to us about that company is that they use a mesh system.

So they use a low frequency radio wave channel.

So you do not have to rely on cellular, do not have to rely on regular electricity.

And we thought that that was pretty attractive for our community.

But then you get to funding these sorts of things, and it's complicated.

A lot of communities, like for example, Paradise received about two million dollars in funding from FEMA.

That's not available right now.

They put up, I believe, 21 sirens.

Other communities have used parcel taxes, city and county budgets.

Cal OES has a list of grant opportunities.

We can try congressional directed funding or the Sunole community improvement funds.

But it is a very expensive project, and it is hard to get funding right now.

But we wanted to see what would it be cost effective to do something like this.

So we asked Genesis to come out and do a siren test for us.

And it was actually very eye-opening and valuable, I believe.

We set up a siren in two locations.

One was in front of the little brown church, and then we set it up in front of the clubhouse in Kilkear Woods.

And you can see that I did get a number of responses from community members, which was very helpful because we were able to we got a nice um grouping along Killcare Roads.

You can see the blue dots are where are right next to where the sirens were.

So if you were right next to the siren, it was perfect.

You could hear the messaging, it was great.

I think let's see.

When we when they did the siren at the Little Brown Church, I think we went up to Elliston and you could hear the siren.

You definitely couldn't make out the message.

So our terrain is really difficult for having sirens.

We would need a bunch of them.

We thought we might be able to get by with just two.

That is not true.

We couldn't.

The next slide.

When we talked to HQE, they did something interesting for us.

They did a siren location and sound map.

So they put up there, you can see that there are sirens going up Hillcare Road.

There are sirens over on Little Valley, Sheridan, and Welch Creek.

And so they put up nine sirens.

And if you see the red, the red part is where you can really really hear, that's the best location to be in for hearing those sirens.

The red on the right hand side or the left-hand side?

Um both of them.

Okay.

Yeah, the red.

And one thing to note about sirens is that they're really only good for hearing them outdoors.

They don't really penetrate indoors.

So if you have double pane windows, you probably at two o'clock in the morning, you're probably not going to hear it.

We have any sort of a range or estimated which what one siren will do in terms of lengths like that.

So we have to consider the obstacles like hills and trees.

Well, that's true.

Yeah.

In the Midwest.

Tornado sirens.

Yeah, if it's flat, it's great.

It's a great source.

So, you know, I think in Paradise, maybe they have a flatter, there's areas where it's flatter and it's straighter.

Straighter.

That's true.

So it's tricky, but it was this was so valuable to see this.

Um, because people have asked for a while, why don't we just get a couple sirens?

Why can't we?

And I thought that too.

Why don't we just get a siren?

It would be simple, right, Brent?

You were part of the group that had them at KWA.

Yeah, yeah.

Canyon is closed, and I don't live too far, and I didn't hear it.

I would expected it, but I didn't hear it just to let you do feedback on it.

Yes, it was it was it was very interesting to get that feedback.

Oh, yeah, but glad to have it though.

We go to the next slide.

So we go back to looking at cost, ease of use, and reach.

Um, what we kind of determined is that the LRAD and in-home notification systems are very expensive.

That is a fact.

We don't have exact, all of these are negotiated through government contracts.

So we don't have, you know, the exact figures, but figure about a hundred thousand, two hundred and fifty thousand perennials.

That's a lot of money.

If we were doing two, you know, maybe we could get funding for it, but it would be a lot more.

So that's a consideration.

Um the sources of funding are complicated and require coordinating with our county and state officials.

And residents will need to make some sort of financial commitment either by purchasing an in-home unit or satellite services, unless we found funding sources that could cover.

Yes, I will talk about the home unit.

The ease of use.

So there is, we did we determine there's no involuntary system.

There's really no easy, easy way to get a notification system that will reach absolutely everybody passively.

Um, there will be some level of resident participation required no matter what you do.

What we did find that we thought was very interesting, and and I'd love to have Brent's thoughts too when he's up here.

Um, the in-home units from HQE are really user-friendly and adaptable.

They use language options and a vibrating wristband for a hearing impaired community.

Um, what we liked about HQE is they can provide, well, you can purchase for each home a unit and they create a mesh system of communication for Sinnol.

So it becomes a little unit that even if the power goes out and you have no cell service.

If you are within this range in Synol, you can communicate with your neighbors and with emergency personnel.

So we thought that that would be yes, add so they simulated covering Sunnol with nine towers.

This provides a nice bubble over Sinnol.

So if you have a cell phone, if you're registered as a resident, you have your cell phone, you're registered, you can use their network that they create in this bubble to communicate to send text message to anyone in that bubble.

So, which is good.

You can communicate with your neighbor.

It's I wasn't gonna wait till the end, but since she brought it up.

Have you have you were are you aware of BitChat?

It just was invented.

Like it just this is like breaking in the last 30 days.

Bit chat.

This is Jack Dorsey, the guy who invented Twitter.

You ever know what's an air tag is right?

Or your iPhone.

You know how air tags work.

Like it's it, we all it goes through all of our iPhones and it sends small pieces of data and it doesn't use any GPS, it doesn't it uses the entire network.

Hold on, hold on.

It does not, it does not.

It uses the Bluetooth on all the phones.

This new bit chat, he invented this technology.

Look it up, BitChat.

There's no cell phone, there's no GPS, there's no radio, there's no anything.

All it uses is the Bluetooth on the phone for you, for your neighbor, for everybody in this room, and then it it allows you to communicate with so when the power goes out, the internet goes out, there's a natural disaster, there's a catastrophe, the actual phone that we're holding.

But it has a limitation, and if you're out in Andrade and you're with it, not within like I think it'd be 25 feet or Bluetooth, I forget what the range, you have to have a concentrated network of Bluetooth users.

I don't know, Rosemary.

I know that Jack Dorsey is way smarter than me, and they say they say that they say that all the stuff you guys are talking about.

They created a mesh network and they cover entire remote areas.

It would work perfectly it won't work out here.

Not on Bluetooth.

I love the extended Bluetooth.

I don't know about that.

It says that it works in the works in remote areas.

So it's the one left.

100%.

I will look it up, yes.

Yeah, we're looking for any, you know, like I said, not an expert.

Just trying to to do some research on this and and find some um opportunities.

Um, for reach, the L Rad sirens in speech do not travel very far on Kill Care Roads.

So we didn't find any use of a well, potentially we could use a siren.

What we were thinking is if we had one downtown, and this would be for visitors who are not in our mesh network.

So if something was going on, they would at least hear a siren.

Um, we really like the in-home portable units because they have the ability to reach all residents in Sinnol again, multi-language capability and the vibrating wristband for our.

Yes, it's expensive.

It is expensive.

Um, it's under 200 or about 200.

Probably about 150 to 200 per unit, but you'd still we'd still have to get polls to set up the network, right?

Yeah.

Um so next slide.

So considerations, caveats, and next steps.

We were thinking that if CINOL does pursue a system, it should align with the countywide notification objectives.

So let's say Alameda County is thinking about implementing some sort of notification system, SNOL would probably want to be on the same platform as whatever the greater county is doing.

I would recommend or we would recommend a follow-up with HQE systems to report to the community on their in-home notification.

I think it would be interesting to have them come to a SAC meeting to present something.

Um we would have we should communicate with Alameda County OES branch for recommendations and guidance.

Um, and then the idea of does SNOL need a CIRA system or just the portable unit and the ability to communicate if traditional when traditional systems fail.

Our community, if we had sirens or community members comfortable with monthly obnoxious siren tests.

I mean, it could be, you know, it's a thing, right?

Once a month, it's really loud if they were all up and down the street.

Um, are residents willing to go to opt-in and pay for individual units, or if we were to just say, you know what, our our our town can't do any of this, but if you I think um, and I think that who looked, Sean Wilson did this a few years ago.

He looked into the cost of satellite fees.

So you know, would you say the star?

Yeah, so I think uh folks could pay.

I don't know what the monthly costs would be.

So that would be a very, you know, a very simple way of maybe getting people access.

Starlake, you still have to have power, unless it's right in left.

Power, okay.

That was that was the rubber generator.

Okay.

But when that goes down, then you're then you're getting your song go.

And the HQE handheld units, the portable ones that you can take from your house into your car, they have a 10 day battery life.

And again, the cost of these units is 150, 200 bucks or something.

But you also have to have the yes.

There's we have that diagram where they showed the polls and the units.

No, I didn't put that one in there because I didn't want to make it too, I didn't want to bore people to tears.

Okay.

Um, let's see.

Do we okay?

Do we need coverage in all of Snow or just Kill Care and Welch Creek?

That's that's a consideration.

And no systems perfect, software issues are going to occur, maintenance will be required.

Um, how do we pay for it?

So we do a gradual implementation.

So just some ideas that that we came up with after researching these two systems and talking to people.

We had a lot of support from um folks at Senator Jerry McNurney's office, they've been super helpful.

Brent's been very helpful.

Lindsay was working with us.

Um, and we spoke to his name of Mateo Rodriguez of Cal Office of Emergency Services.

So these folks were really helpful in kind of giving us the big picture and some of the more granular details around what it would take, what it would cost, um, how useful this would be for our community.

Um, if you guys had any questions, let me know.

Otherwise, no magic bullet.

No magic bullet.

No magic bullet.

Well, yeah, I was good.

We were really discouraged after the Genesis demonstration.

Really excited after the HQE demonstration.

Okay.

All the software is developed in California to Mecula and this reinforced building.

These are military people.

So it would be interesting if the county were doing something that.

Oh, the other the other consideration is who who's in charge?

Who's in charge of managing the system, sending out the messaging?

We were thinking, just an emergency.

So there's so many considerations.

Um, yes, we will get there, but it was very interesting to dive in and see what is out there, what other communities are doing, and maybe what we can do here.

Denise, what's what is the cell phone coverage going up Kill Care?

Very poor.

It's very important.

Yeah.

Go past Little Broad Church.

It depends on your network, it depends on where you're standing, it depends on all kinds of things.

So basically, Little Brown Church is a guarantee.

We have the cell phone lot that people use on their way home.

They pull over, they finish the conversation, and then they continue to drive home.

So are a lot of the residents up there to make their cell phone calls, texting and so forth.

Are they doing a Wi-Fi connection to their Wi-Fi?

Okay, so most everybody up there on a standard day electricity has internet connection to their mobile device.

What is the while this is being figured out?

What is the temporary plan in the meantime?

Is there one of any sort?

It's on a little four-wheel motorcycle thing and drug goes house to house.

So I if I recall, I've received a text message at some point, just over text.

Yes.

Um maybe it was about the alarms or certain event as a temporary thing.

Could we not have a group text set up that everybody can subscribe to, join in on that?

And that is, yeah, there's AC Alert, same thing as AC Alert.

There's actually fire uh, I think it's called Fire Safe is an app that I have that'll tell me if there's a fire anywhere within a radius that I pick that I want to be notified on, but at least something better than nothing to where at least the fire department, if they've got a call somewhere, send out an alert, and everybody can do what they want to inform themselves as to how big a threat it is, but at least you know something's going on.

Yeah.

Or community members can create their own little like little pods, little groups like we've got, you know, this group of five people make sure because you know some folks even don't don't have cell phone.

They they are just using landlines.

So it's a little bit of a conundrum to figure out how to reach everybody.

We're trying to reach as many people, and CFU is actually my model of people in the woods.

Would CFO be able to get this alert?

We need carrier engines.

One neighbor is going back old school.

He's he's it's a shortwave uh I think radio.

Ham radio is one that we thought about.

The other and I embarrassed to talk about it, but uh non musk is doing something.

I saw this getting seniors getting phones and the satellite system that you would have and and all that.

I can't believe that guy until it happens, but there's there's a chance and and being one of the elders here, that this is astounding what you have done, what you have done, and got interested in starting something like this.

I mean, this is the new era.

I have a flip phone, and it's it doesn't scan for emergencies.

I know we've talked about that.

Well, we we're worried because evacuation too up there.

I mean, really, we want to get to as many people as possible.

Yes, because I get I would get 10 messages, but I don't I could I just need one, but what about the people who don't get any messages, and that's what concerns me.

Just just Google Kill Care Road.

Could you go back and see the road?

Lila, could you go?

Oh, you can see, and that's why there's no communication.

Go back to Denise's slides, or it showed uh the two uh aerial views of the there it is.

So you can see on the left-hand side, there's the pink fuzzy spots.

Well, maybe I don't have my glasses.

Nine antennas there.

Yeah, um, those are the antennas or the towers.

That's that's for a larger area than Sennol, but the on the left-hand side it sort of forms a little curve in the shape it's kill Care Road.

If there's five.

Five of them there.

Yeah, one and three, four.

And then there's some on a droughty little valley and down south of the water temple.

And and what that system is we have the poles installed on Kill Care Road, and then that forms an intranet.

Yes.

And so that's an old bubble.

And it's like your bit, yeah.

What is it?

I don't know.

And they use they'll they'll use everything.

They'll use, and if like maybe think of that is we're talking about, you know, you look into um buying the little units, you know, and then making a mesh, like, oh, I heard about something like this, and they do the same thing, but they already use the phone.

And there's there's Bluetooth, which they say is a hundred feet.

And I don't know.

I'm not, I don't sell these things, I don't know.

And then they have another one.

If it's not available, it says they use um there's your phone has two things on it, and it's Bluetooth and they have something else.

And then basically, but the only way it works, you know, but it's never this was just invented in July.

It's announced it.

The only the only way this works is if everybody has it.

It only works as as far as more it's like your mesh network, right?

There has to be some so that's what the antennas are for to make sure that everybody has it, but then they still have to have the unit.

So they have the antenna and they have to have the units to create the network.

No, everybody always that's not true.

No, you that's not what they says.

It's not true.

No, they have the poles up there, and those have solar panels on them, except for in some areas of the canyon, they didn't think they'd get enough sun, so then we'd have to be attached to electricity to charge the battery.

Then a signal would go out on a geographic area, and that area is the like the blue-green side, that would whatever geographic area is chosen by emergency services that it could be just Nas Canyon.

The um message would go out on cell phone to the land units and to any other system where once the power went out, or your your cell phone died, then you would have your portable unit.

Portable unit, and that can message one another.

You there's also an app for your cell phone, it'll always work.

It doesn't matter with emergency, because I did ask.

So if you wanted to tell people up the hill, hey, there's uh, you know, there's a flood, there's you know whatever's happening, a landslide down here, you can do that.

Yeah, let me let Brent come up.

We've been we've drove him crazy, picking his brain on these things too.

Like the air tags are you have to be the certain distance.

This would make sure that that communication happened.

I'm asking you or see who you were here back in the day when they used to have the audible alarm, correct?

Yes.

Where did they have the did you hear it at your house back then?

No, okay.

That's my question.

They have extenders, they get it from and it's a something out the window and all that and all.

Oh, okay.

Oh, I've got it.

Oh hi, Ms.

Kelly.

Um yeah, uh on the uh the bit chat.

I just googled it, and they're claiming 100 meters, but the the total the maximum range there that they can go is 300 meters.

Uh and that's because uh, you know, Bluetooth is uh short wavelength, and that's that's why the mesh tastic things and the HQE things they're using uh uh long wavelengths, but you know, low low bit, low bit rates but long wavelengths.

That's that's why you you get that.

Um the um so the HQE is basically a reseller or providing mesh uh uh mesh network services, and that's a great great thing, and that's pretty pretty well uh is set up.

And um uh the the gentleman just mentioned about how people are exploring you know the uh satellites and all the the um the cutting edge uh technologies.

Um so I looked at that and uh yeah, um this the cutting edge stuff is uh coming along pretty quick.

So they're thinking uh in a few years, uh you know, less than five years, maybe a couple of years, that uh companies like uh, you know, uh what was it?

Uh T-Mobile or whoever, um, they're gonna be offering satellite to uh to cell phone services so you can talk direct.

And um when when that happens, and the the growth rate on this is really really huge.

So this is coming, you know, in a few years, and and it's gonna be expanding rapidly.

So, any if the what I would uh take from that is uh don't put too much money into creating your own um infrastructure, don't make a huge investment in a lot of uh antennas or a lot of uh expensive uh um you know sirens or whatever because whatever you you build out that's really really expensive is all probably all gonna be obsolete in about five or seven years or maybe three years.

Thanks.

I heard I'd heard that uh I thought T-Mobile already they already did that, they already activated uh satellite on their on their services where that was like a big thing that came out last year.

I thought this was all to do it the other day, yeah.

So that's what I was thinking.

I was like, I thought about this.

I'm thinking about buying the radio as a set and siren, but the antennas.

Like, I think this is all gonna be, you know, could be possibly antiquated because we already have satellite service, beam and beam to phones right now.

Would you buy this special um cell phone that satellite?

No, it's not a special, it's just a T Mobile instead, and the Elon thing and AI.

I think we we're headed in in that direction, especially the test that was done of KWA, uh, and I knew it was touted that it would be a hundred and something thousands plus maintenance.

Uh we're moving fast, and I hope just keep keep going to see this.

You're just destroying my enthusiasm.

I was so excited.

Okay, so this is exciting.

Just currently, one's already done.

Thank you.

So, thank you, counsel, having me this evening.

Uh, really just kind of keep trying to pulse where you guys are looking at, provide some information, try to shape it again.

I have to look at it from all the unincorporated area and how does it work with the other partners and stuff too, right?

Because there's a lot of aspects of how good an alert will go.

And I I love the fact that you guys recognize that there is no silver blood.

Like I was with Sonoma before, during and after.

Um, to this day, that county didn't employ any more sirens, but we did do other things because there were more infrastructure aspects that we can employ.

So uh micro towers, things like that to increase the density of cell towers and cell service uh to make other systems more um uh effective.

And so um, and then ultimately, you guys are no offense, you guys are dealing with salespeople, and they're gonna promise you the world.

And hopefully I can kind of guide you and say, like, look, uh, you know, when they claim that they're the ones that put it in in one county, maybe like paradise.

I think it's probably not them.

They probably got the original contract and it went on to somebody else actually, um, where I can tell you which counties have employed them and what they're costing you or what it costs them and what their annual costs are.

So, kind of cover a little bit of this.

This is real generic.

I just wanted to have you guys have something and then be here always available if you guys have questions, especially because this is a big investment.

And I would love if you do go forward uh like this to become that case model that we start building off of, right?

I don't want this to be the one off, and then something goes into something totally different.

So just want to keep keeping we're here for the resource.

Um, so next slide, please.

And I put this together rapidly.

I did want to have some of our partners with sirens here to speak to some things, but uh Berkeley literally is having uh pandemic type issue uh this last week, and then Oakland had a fire, structure fire on Monday with 47 units, and they're very busy right now that we're actually helping them with.

So you guys get the purpose of what this presentation is about, but let's really kind of want to cover, you know, what works, what doesn't, stuff like that.

Next slide.

Uh so again, uh you look at it countywide, Oakland's got 25 sirens.

If you look on their website, I have resources at the end, you can kind of get a sense of how they're using them, what their capability is.

They can only do like three tones essentially.

Um Berkeley, 15 units.

They are on the actual uh have bought into Genesis as one of the providers that you guys came.

Cost them 1.97 million dollars for those 15 all outdoors.

Uh I don't want to publish, but they had a lot of challenges and still have a lot of challenges with them.

It's a brand new system.

City, it's not none in the unincorporated area.

UC Berkeley has I think two on campus, uh, very different strategies of how you use them.

County, as me, I cannot activate any of those systems.

None of those partners can activate the other sirens either.

Whereas we share AC alert, none of them are networked, they have their own um ways of turning things on and off.

Uh what was that last thing?

I think that's it.

So none of them are networked at AC alerts.

Where some of these salespeople who've been advertising you stuff, when they're talking about zone alerting and stuff like that, that's not just the siren.

That means that I'm shifting my interior alerting system to their platform, and some of the things they're not sharing with you, right?

And I will say, again, they're not sharing what that the way those systems some of those systems get turned on, right?

I have to shift my whole whole alerting platform, the subscription to your subscription.

So they're selling you a siren, and maybe they have a way to turn it on and off, but a lot of the sales pitch is around a collective application where I'm using another application to turn it on and networking it with it, and a lot of other things in the background.

So if you were to look at Genesis, we are using their uh evacuation zone on that map, right?

That's Genesis Protect.

That was one product, then they have the siren system, and then they have their alerting system, which is the one done in uh LA that's challenges, right?

So there's about 11, I think, counties statewide using their alerting platform.

There's 26 counties using the platform that I use, and we are using the biggest platform probably in the nation.

Um, so with that, they all have strength and weaknesses, but I just want you guys to know when they're talking to you about this stuff, they're they're really kind of selling other things there that if you really want to make it scream the way they're talking about, like make it really perform well.

I'm kind of happening to buy in a lot of other products too, right?

So, um, you know, what is a siren?

You guys kind of I think you guys touched on it because you guys kind of got to see the effects, right?

There's omniodimensional ones that point one direction, some that point multiple directions.

The HQ, I'm sorry, the uh most of them are really only made by a few providers.

I have a couple other uh companies up there.

I think those are like the big production companies.

A lot of them are wholesale the sailing afterwards, branding them and doing other things with them.

So uh the biggest thing being um, you know, whether they can do multiple tones, multiple languages, um, uh doing a voice, um, you know, you pay a lot more for all those other capabilities.

And then, and then of course, some of them have a better density of like penetration and stuff like that.

And you just have to kind of feel out what are we doing uh rule area, are we doing cities?

Are we doing you know what's that area that we're trying to get coverage on?

Um, and I think both most companies they'd give you a great uh assessment, and really what they're really looking at a lot more than anything is where can they put their siren, and then if that has power and and a clear line of sight for communication and everything, then what types of sirens can they put right there, right?

That they can get the distance and get the coverage you're looking for.

So anything on here?

Let me know if you have any questions.

I'm just gonna kind of move along.

So this is kind of generic, and I think you've covered it, but I didn't know who was all involved and who wasn't.

What's the current technology with drones for zones?

Drones, drones for for sirens, yeah.

Uh, you know, you know, I can't I don't know if you got to have 10 drones go up into the kill carry, just specific areas that broadcast most, and they're all going down, not so I'll tell you so.

For say so, we have civil air patrol uh in the state, and that's part of the drill.

They actually fly and do it.

I will tell you that even with an aircraft flying by the penetration and audibility is very low.

So I've been in uh Mendocino County as emergency manager, Sonoma.

Every year we do that exercise.

Then on top of that, drones, you don't have an issue, but fixed swing aircraft, you have visibility issues.

So if it's any cloud cover, you're offline.

Bad weather, you're offline.

I mean, nice thing about a drone is you just you pre-program a pin point, uh you know, and and it doesn't care if it's raining, it doesn't care if it's daytime, nighttime, even windy, it's gonna go to that waypoint, latitude and longitude, and it's gonna hang out there with a siren going off.

I haven't heard of anybody doing it.

You may have discovered, I didn't say anything.

Everybody quite quiet quiet.

I know you can create your own mesh based on the topography of the area and get whatever kind of coverage you want.

As long as the siren is loud enough.

Yeah, you're gonna need multiple drones, you're gonna have to reprogram it.

And I will tell you, you know, I'm kind of gonna get out of out of pace here, but you know, we can circle back to whatever questions you have.

Uh Marine County, Genesis application, they have uh you know buying your phases.

I think I dropped the link if you want to look at their webpage because the fire district actually took this on years ago.

Um, but they're spending about I think it's like 34,000 a year in maintenance because it's a digital asset that needs updates, right?

And so that speaker has to have, and then also when they start telling you it's a satellite communication.

We had problems with some of them turning on and off.

Same thing's happening in Berkeley, and so when it's satellite, you know, cloud coverage, things like that, they have up and down time.

So when you try to turn it on, and maybe satellites down, you it doesn't go through.

And so I'm just telling you that it's a very literally one of Berkeley's comments because I asked them, and main points, internal, massive other, I'll even like you know, um, but one of them was very staff time intensive going out and fit replacing batteries, things they didn't anticipate being where certain sirens aren't working.

It's a brand new system in the last couple years from Genesis.

So I'm not saying they're not good, just saying that Kelly I think makes a great point that you're making a big investment.

We got to make sure that you're gonna get the longevity that you want out of it.

Uh Oakland years ago, because of the Oakland Gulf's fire uh in Berkeley, they bought it to siren systems, they became dilapidated over the years, and that's where they replaced them.

If you look at San Leandro and that area, they also have sirens, but we took them offline because we went to do radio systems.

We didn't have a way to turn them on, and people didn't want them anymore.

So these systems kind of ebb and flow with the community.

Um, but let me circle back.

Uh, where are we at?

So you're talking kind of care characteristics, so you just say you kind of get a sense of what what they are, how you're just talking sirens, we're not even talking about mesh technologies, but I think it's another great layer that you're looking at.

Um, strength, you know, it's a great like hammer, if you would, right?

It gets everybody's attention.

It it doesn't maybe you know, the voice is not very, you guys experienced it on the those that went out.

I said go go a hundred meters down the road, you can't tell what it's at.

Um, but it'll get your attention, you'll seek other information.

That's what you want to train people to do.

Like go look for what you should what's going on with some problem, and then make a decision, right?

Um, so it's great as a secondary alert, it's great, uh, it's a great resource.

The picture there just kind of shows the challenges, trees, terrain, not just terrain, nighttime, obviously, because people are sleeping and they're indoors.

These are very much an outdoor system.

Um, and then also weather.

If it's raining, whatever, you'll be surprised when you will not hear because of the rainfall on homes and trees and everything else are windy.

Um, and you know, obviously, sound travels through the air, and with water and everything else, it doesn't travel the way you think it's gonna go.

Um let me just take a look.

So you're really looking at 0.5, maybe a mile of distance in most of these systems.

So, I think I'm gonna stop there unless you guys have any questions.

You know, there's some of the strengths and limitations.

All right.

Next slide.

So I kind of alluded to this.

Uh, you guys have already seen it, you've got to have power, you have to have communication.

If they tell you it doesn't need cellular, well, a lot of them you need your cell phone to turn it on and off if you're not connected to a system like ours, right?

So you need to have some type of cellular aspect.

Um, or you need uh satellite communication.

Uh so there's an internet and a cellular, there's a radio, there's also ones that trigger off of radio.

Um, like I said, you got to figure out moving forward, whatever you guys buy into, if we go in that direction, I want to make sure we're using something similar because I don't want to have some that are on radio, some are on cellular, you know, it'll be a mess to turn them on and off.

Um needs ongoing.

I promise you, you're gonna want to test this thing.

Uh literally, we got to the in Marin got to the point where that's a Genesis application.

We were like, we're having so many issues.

I want to see the uh satellite communication be up and down when it's up and down on the linkage because we realized that was the problem.

Whenever cell uh satellite was down, you couldn't turn them on and off.

Uh so you know, then they started showing us those records.

Um software support, like I mentioned, and then I've had counties where people you're the person who lives next to it, and people will cut the wires and analyze them.

So just be cognizant of where we're gonna put it, how you're gonna harden it and make it like a long-term great, great project, and then you know, get the buy-in from the people who are nearby.

I think that's the biggest thing.

If wherever you decide to put it, I know you want to talk about whether it's uh effective and people can hear it, but really get the homeowners nearby to be okay with it because that could be a real sore point.

Um I know I have a school sign out in front of my house that blinks, it drives me wild.

I love the school, my wife's a teacher, but the sign drives me nuts.

Um, so cost and governance.

Um, like I mentioned Marin County.

I think they're spending about 34,000 when I talked to the director there not too long ago every year, and that's that's before they're going into their longer progression and the next phase of uh implementation.

Um, and that's with limited amount of sirens.

Um, so and then that's not even hard costs or soft costs like staff time.

Um, I'm talking just uh power utilities, uh satellite data updates, payments to the vendor for routine maintenance.

Uh equipment purchases, you know.

Obviously, you want to keep you're gonna have breakage.

Um, one of the ones that I had that people get vitalizing and have to pay the power company to go out there and reconnect it, run power line back up to it.

Um, you know, a couple thousand dollars every time.

Uh you guys talked about poles and placing poles, you can share poles.

That's always an option.

Uh, and then really the biggest thing is, you know, county staff.

We're we're growing as a program, but this wasn't something we were envisioned.

I'm gonna have to make sure that we have staff trained to sit that we right now.

We're working through a big project.

Eventually, I'd like to bring it back to you guys is our policies and procedures, especially for alerting itself, and it's some exercises that I'd like to incorporate this community into.

Um, but that's a big lift.

And also training the public, doing the outreach, making sure that somebody's around all the time that can use this thing.

Um, however, we do that at the county level, we gotta make sure it's important, right?

And so that becomes that becomes the soft part of liabilities and making sure that public messaging and everything else in lines as we can at no kidding tomorrow.

Um, I have uh stakeholder engagement with all the cities to try to work on just our alerting piece of the new policies and procedures that we're doing, updates.

Kelly will be happy to know if you're still on the line that I'm I'm diligently working on weather integrations with our alerting system, just we know where it kind of stands, but making sure we're looking at the most current ways that people can opt in, maybe get some of it, if they can innate it, maybe they can opt out, right?

Give them some more choices.

So we're working on all those things.

The biggest thing at the county level, or what into what opting into like it's not just us sending out alerts, right?

Like I'm kind of talking to you some of the previous meetings.

It's not just a county that sends alerts, right?

There's federal partners, there might be alerts from uh National Weather Service can send their own alerts through the wireless emergency alert system.

So there are automations that you can go through or come through, right?

So that they send an alert and automatically go through our system.

The challenge is that when they make they change their mind every 10 minutes because they're using an automated system or their automated system changes, all of a sudden you guys start getting all these random text messages from us, and it just has our name on it, and this happened in San Francisco, it's happened in other places where they've implemented something.

It's you got multiple vendors, and then all of a sudden people are upset, like makes us look like we're all know what we're doing.

And so we are a lot of our vendors will say these things work, and then when you try to implement them, it doesn't work the way you thought it was or thought it would.

So we're really looking at weather alerts that come down from national weather service.

Can we now dial them back to only the most severe ones?

Does it do some type of geo aspect so it automatically or target targets the community members that are at risk, right?

And then you know, I don't want to automatically assume that those are ones that you signed up for.

Can I now create it where you can come in and have them all the weather alerts?

Great.

You go here, sign up, change your subscription.

Then if you you don't like what you signed up for, you can opt yourself back out.

The problem is meeting everybody's ones, so uh as a result of all the things I'm hearing, we're gonna make sure we as part of this big project.

We're we added that to the list.

Like, look, you can uh review this and let us know what what's working with slot, let's test it out, you know.

Next couple months it'll be done, and hopefully, I have some better services for you.

Uh, so when it comes to governance, though, again, I'm always gonna hard point this, who's turning it on and off, right?

You can't have a bunch of people buying all these random systems and then somehow managing them.

Um, who activates it, who maintains it, right?

If I if I know it becomes a county asset, I want to make sure it's in our budget so that there's 34,000 every year to fix and maintain this thing, um, you know, and long-term goals and costs.

Like, what are what's the vision over the horizon?

Uh, next slide.

And I know you guys are are experiencing a lot of this in different times.

I just want to make sure you had something to refer to, and if there's talking points that you didn't know, you have them now, things they maybe you weren't considering, or maybe things that you like.

So, from my point of view, my recommendation is I'm really I've already talked to some of our executives.

It's like, hey, whatever direction we go, I just need you to make policy and make sure that we're we're traveling in a good direction.

Um, I just want to avoid the fragmented systems, um, you know, county-wide standards.

It would be something that would be even challenging because some of the cities have them, so making sure they understand, like moving forward, let's try to make sure that you're dialing in the systems they have.

I could probably get vendors to network and bring bring that's the one of the value.

I don't want to, I don't like to talk too much about the names of vendors, but one of the vendors you looked at can do that, they can bring those systems over, so um, that's a string.

Um, and then of course, align the messaging so that people understand what you know, whether it's sometimes limited on tech, sometimes I'm doing emails, things like that.

You want to make sure that people understand what these different messages mean, uh alternatives.

I've talked to some of you about this.

The bottom line, what I've heard before we even started testing this is your concern was cellular service, and and so I don't want you guys to lose.

I don't know who's vision of maybe it is and I don't know where the work's been or what we can do for that.

I know I can probably make some uh connections with uh utility companies, but I have not heard anybody say, like, hey, we've looked into the micro towers and I've seen where they're putting on top of telephone poles, right?

And so they have power source and they're just going down the street.

I have one out in front of my house on a pole.

Um, you know, I'm just hoping maybe we can find some of those solutions because that would make our existing services better to you, and I think would cover more of the other things that you have that you're concerned about.

Um, you know, we're talking about potentially millions of dollars just up front costs, right?

You know, if you go at Genesis obviously they're they're some of the most expensive bids I always see uh I sent you the bids that the city of uh Alameda did and one was there's three bids lowest was three hundred thousand and Genesis was three million they literally called them back and said we lose a zero somewhere here and you know it was what it was so um you know again those little benefits and increases your emergency alerts 911 access evacuation coordination tools that are available to our firefighters and then public daily public so um I don't want to lose vision of that and and it I haven't I know you guys I haven't done anything in that realm but nobody's really said anything I don't know if that's something you want me to try to to bring around um I'm sure we could do some outreach and see when the you know the last yeah we usually try to put a lot of city discussing this but I'm sure the technology's changing so fast and I would think that if you own some property and you know you're willing to put it on your property might even make a little bit off of it so um I don't want to get off topic but really I'm here for any questions you guys have and just kind of give you once overall um I really love working on it's very good.

I just think um coming from a place of again like zero knowledge this I thought this was a really valuable exercise um to kind of understand what the technology is what people are doing and then of course to hear all of the okay the butt but but no it's very it's very valuable very helpful and I don't think I mean I don't think Sonol wants to go rogue and just but um I'm all board with whatever obviously I'm one I don't live here two I'm not the I just want to make sure it goes the way that you get what you're looking for and that we create a standard here that's my big thing right because once we do one somebody else is going to want it right and you know it's easier to redo it over and over again right and then also make sure it's um that it's more effective.

So you know that that's the best I that's the best I can do what I what I'm thinking about doing is uh trying to create some of the policy stuff and floating it with our saying hey like if we buy into things like these are the minimum requirements and um you know uh look at it from that perspective and just at least try to provide guidance and the best thing I can do is really kind of keep giving you the different vendors and making sure they're you know being upfront about everything and then also giving you some of the don't just hear it from me like I have things all have people in our end you know get their point of view on it um or even other community groups right because ultimately you want to feel uh comfortable so you have I do want to say the mesh technology is there's another one called Titan uh I think you're really on point uh that the it's not a lot of data but it's enough to trigger an alarm or send a little text and those are when you're talking 200 for a unit that's that's how the air tanks work because even though it's not you have it's like within 100 feet or whatever the active technology if it's not it just holds it and waits and as people move around boom it got within the range and I got close enough to Denise and then you'll find where your golf clubs are you'll find the whole thing on that whole deal but I I definitely I was just listening to this whole thing and I wanted to definitely recognize and thank you Denise and and Connie and Rosemary because you you you guys are looking into this and none of you live on Killcare you know, and and and a lot of us a lot of yeah, but you don't now.

And three, I don't know, at least three of us do, and a couple of people out in the a lot of people out in the audience, and you guys are all doing this.

So thank you for for your efforts and looking into all these different things.

I did um hearing Kelly talk, I'm like, I didn't even think about that.

I want to look this up.

Does anybody in here have T-Mobile as a service for their cell phone?

No, you do do?

Do you?

You say you do.

So T-Mobile already did it in July 2025 of this last year.

Most uh plans already have it, but you can opt into it for $10 a month and you have access to a satellite cell phone service done.

So you get all the alerts, no matter how how you how far you are.

Um on that Verizon, you can do it.

You you can get on it with Verizon, but you have to pay the extra 10 $10 fee.

But then that's the next thing I looked up.

Oh, why isn't oh here's why Verizon AST space mobile?

They're signed up with somebody else and they're gonna have access to to satellites on their phones.

Well, when's that gonna happen?

Launch sometime customers in 2026.

So if you're on a Verizon service, for there they don't want to sign on to Starlink.

Everybody's gonna be doing their own stuff now.

But I think that the main thing is is we want to be notified and AC alerts, anything that would notify these sirens.

If we if we could get it on the phone somehow, that would be good.

It needs to be seen how it happens, but you know, we know that technology is going so fast.

So even I know we branded AC and R actually any different things in there.

So when you hear them because you have the technology that's gonna set the alarm off, and if it could set these off when we're indoors where we're somewhere and it's not we can't hear outside, that sure would be helpful.

I just wanted to the Nixel component.

You hear about people who are signed up for all, we have both that are bashed together.

Um Nixel will go across it, so if you're at home on an internet provider, that's a uh limitation.

Now if you're full signed up in the Everbridge for the full subscription, blah blah, that does go voice over internet.

And so if you're on your internet at home, you will get that.

And then if you and then you also get all your neighbors and people calling and texting you want to, oh my god, you know, everything is okay and stuff like that.

So having access to that instead of a little X for your signal, you know, you know, would be helpful for sure.

But those systems are uh really changing, they're much more affordable.

You're not into it or um, you know, end of all time, if you would.

Uh and so you know, again, though, you like you like you guys mentioned, there's really hasn't been a one-stop, you know, silver bullet.

Um that's why we use some of the platforms as it is.

So, Marie, did you have a question?

Is do you have any understanding or knowledge of if a community gets a system, what the homeowners insurance will react to respond to it, or they just don't care.

Oh, you know what?

So I've never heard of a discount or anything like that.

Or even give you insurance.

For homeowners, yeah.

Like, right, you you have this and then you're now get your homeowners insurance back.

Oh, I don't think so.

I don't think that uh unfortunately you can't pack up the property, the house with when you take it away, like evacuate with it.

So I think you're paying for the structure and stuff like that.

Just wondering, you know, I mean, at least you're trying, you know, you're trying to be their own discounts.

If if uh there's a central arm system on there, um and they will give you a discount.

I mean, I know I've been doing this for 45 years.

But um it's gotta be an actable on this monitored right at this point.

You know, and I still go along with the end.

I mean, what if I think the technology's moving so fast that some of these that we talked about may be redundant in a couple of years.

What if as he says you've got 15 drones or kill care road all hitting alarms and hitting cell phones uh and the fire department can see where the fire actually is, if the smoke's not too bad and they're gonna hit it, so that may be where we're going for some of the stuff.

I do want to share with you too before I forget.

Uh there's new grant funded position that's being filmed by some people in Berkeley.

Um they're basically like fire-wise who are the switch, right?

So there's working, just get costs and different things that's really beneficial because what I see the vendors do a lot of times is say, oh yeah, we're gonna go get that grant from you for that.

They just know that program already.

They're gonna write it up as a generic, hey, we're gonna implement a siren system, but they're already the vendor planning to fill that contract, right?

Or they'll have another vendor, you can have a vendor fill out the grant application, but you can't be the vendor who solves it or fills it.

So they'll work in tandem.

So what I'm saying is once when you know the project and you know the scope of it and the cost, then it is easier for me to help find, hey, by the way, let's go to the firewatch group and say you want a siren or you want this, and now we have it all scoped out because they have limitations on how much but if I don't have anything to work with then it's like people ask me can you help me find grand money it's like you haven't really scoped out the project yet so I'm sorry go ahead no no so I just wanted to read uh the the legwork that you're doing right now is is priceless and and the getting money a lot of times is kind of sometimes can be the easy part right it's just uh these building the project that you can meet the performance period of the grant and spend it timely and then that then they're looking at two questions one is it your department that does the earthquake alerts over uh text messaging so that's actually again it's it goes through this the state actually does that okay so it hits your phone and people don't realize that there's so many different agencies that are actually able to send alerts for different capacities yeah national earthquake tsunami comes from the national tsunami from the federal state side and so but a lot of times um the face to it and the other question is is are there still uh AM broadcasting stations that have alerts so we use the emergency alert system EAS and when and that ours is actually tied to that also so I can send out multiple things when I format a certain message a certain way it's going across EAS which will hit AM and FM and TV when you hear that want on TV which nobody really watches conventional TV anymore.

So that's how we do that.

So if we have some type of a siren system that at least alerts everybody something's going on and powers down but everybody has at least just an AM radio they can at least tune in and get some information so that exactly and we also always kind of say uh the now weather radios with same tech same code technology which are very inexpensive you can have those too where you just have it plugged into your house or you know plugged into a wall it's on because if you get one that has the same technology program the number into it for wherever you area you live in it'll sit there quietly until a signal like I send an alert then that triggers that code and now it'll come off and and the only downside is once in a while people do tests and it may scare you and it'll be like whoa so we've actually got grant projects where we buy those radios for the school districts and we put them in all the admin offices in some school some some areas so there are we're actually using a lot of technologies even older ones and people this it's hard to get that message out I mean AM radios are pretty cheap.

I mean probably everybody can afford to have a an AM radio versus subscribe to a special phone or service but just have an AM radio that's got a battery in it at least they can know to turn it on and those you can actually hook up to to uh disability type devices yeah so um shake your bed turn flashing lights on so you actually get adapted services with those technologies and some things that uh HQE is kind of showing you also as plugins for disability type aspects so um one thing that we need to keep in mind and we all started out with thinking about sirens and notifying people of a fire but if people in there are in their homes and there's no electricity and no cell phone how are they reporting a fire if their house is on fire how are they going to tell anybody about that so that's why we liked the mesh system and you're making communication available both ways.

So Rodney you had a question just in case I'm sorry you have a speaker guide you want to say something I just put it up there just in case there was something so we're good okay I just want to make sure the door is open.

You know, you're you're our most active advisory council, at least in my office.

And uh, but you know, I promise like once you guys decide to do something or something happens, we're gonna be other people who want similar services.

So I'm here to help with whatever you need.

What should we do?

What should we do next?

Uh one, I think we need to figure out how to get you know knock on the door of utilities and figure out what are the capabilities for uh some of the micro cell towers that because that's what that's where Santa Rosa went to.

That was we really had these discussions with the board supervisors, public, you know, makes too much.

Yeah, we have thousands of homes running.

We already got the power poles and telephone poles that are going up and down into Kill Care.

If there's something you could put on top of the poles.

I don't know if you've seen one of them.

It literally it looks it looks like the pole just got longer, they bolt it right on top, and it just has like a cylinder type deal, and then they run a couple uh like a device for power to it.

It looks I mean basically what happened on grab the cell phone service.

It would basically grab the grab the cell phone signal like down by the church and and whip it all the way up the pole and just repeat it, repeat it, repeat it all the way up into the top of Kill Care is what it does.

I would assume that's it.

I'm that's not my I just know uh some jurisdictions have implemented them so quickly, it was like we didn't even have a house up that fast.

Um so I would say that that'd be a great step.

Like I can try to make some contacts and see what the I know providers are very sensitive, they won't tell their density and their details and like proprietary to their their uh market.

Um, but I think that'd be a great first step.

And then ultimately whatever is decided with the siren that you keep, you know, or uh mesh technologies because you can do mesh without the siren, right?

Um, you know, that's where we're headed.

Yeah, whatever direction you go, it's just more of um how do we implement it and get them put together, and I think your next step, depending on the who you work with on a provider, it basically becomes like okay, we've got some competitive bids, we got an actual feasible plan here, and how how do we get it funded through just don't get I wouldn't get tied to a particular vendor, I'm saying.

I'm I'm very impressed that you're saying the same thing and Denise is saying the same thing.

It's just question.

Yeah, I'm ready to talk now if you don't mind.

Yeah, okay.

Do you want to come up here and talk?

Okay.

I think the biggest thing is redundancy, just backing it up.

Um I have to talk to them, they can talk to you.

Um, so redundancy is the biggest thing.

I like low tech.

I mean like what low tech.

There's so many times, like, used to jump on a rig, and we had this, you know, 750,000 rig, and one of the computers just went up.

It happened to me all the time, and I'll be looking at the rig next to me, and we couldn't use it because they didn't have a year on it.

And it always started and always worked.

It sounds like what we're doing, we have to because it's the old tech isn't going to work for us.

But if we can think of a way we can use old tech, that's what I would like to see.

But it doesn't sound like it will work.

But I technology is wonderful, and I think we should try to get a high tech, and then just old school siren.

Non-battery, that is what I'm talking about.

The old crank.

If something like that works, let people know.

Yeah, well, I mean, I'm just saying, you know, and also technology-wise, you know what I mean.

If you do the old old tech, that portion's not gonna cost you money to upgrade your system and all those other things that all the extra cash yearly, but then still have the new high-tech ideas, and I mean you that's your guy's decision, but I'm just throwing a little bit.

Yeah, as I said, too many times I jumped on that rig, and it was just like, didn't work, and it was computer chip somewhere.

And it'll be that one this week and that one or the next week, and next month to be something else.

So it happened all the time, and so I'm just wanting to check.

Thank you.

Do you folks know that those green, those greens cubicles up and all the way down Kilcare Road?

Uh it was mandatory that Xfinity had to install them.

Those are backup batteries for complete power outages.

That's one thing that it's installed, and also I've been told by DGE all the way up the canyon.

The wires are going underground.

That's what I've heard too.

So I I was told I I I ask when I see them out there, I run out and I get information and then I spread it around but this was a fact.

So that means the polls would go away.

Yeah the polls well no they're still going to carry that it's from the top of the pole will go away.

As far as that's what we would have to pay for undergrounding from the street up to their homes.

Two years so if it asked for leaves and polls there and it's jack it up even more going up the road and then from going to the pole to the house is what they're going underground too.

So you're still gonna have lines well we want to tell the fire safety work group.

Thank you.

Thank you one work is true.

We just make more work and I just I kind of I was hearing this hand as I and I hope no bubbles got popped you know I know you were saying you're excited and stuff like that but I think the only thing I this comes from places we pretty sure we're not the technology is going so fast and we've we're talking we're talking about two commas you know in six digits and millions and this is what this should be sure if we do something that it's totally necessary and you know maybe maybe there's other technologies that are emerging so quickly it might not be um we learned about you know the extra uh the repeaters but you learned about um you know we I looked up this the cell phone I emailed you already on it if you have T Mobile you already have satellite internet and you can have access to all your alerts and it's already all done I didn't even know that you know and uh I you know Verizon's got it coming and you and if you have Verizon you can sign up for T Mobile services ten dollars a month and you can you have you have satellite internet you don't even need your internet for your phone it's like you have Wi-Fi everywhere you go.

What I what how don't how did I not know this I think you're welcome we were at Livermore Lab this week for responder training you know and it's really uh dead area so my one phone was on SOS and next thing I know it started asking do you want to sign up for e mobile so so that so the satellite satellite Wi-Fi was hitting your phone and your phone goes do you want to sign up for this is $10 a month.

For those of you so those that aren't tech tech enabled what we're talking about here is this is where this is where the technology is going on your phones.

Your 4G 5G 6G 15 it's not that anymore everywhere you go on this planet if you're up in Antarctica you're out in the middle of a fishing boat in Alaska you're out in the middle of the ocean you have full Wi-Fi Wi-Fi just like your house because you're not you're not getting it from a router inside your house it's being beamed to you from a satellite that's that's all it is and it's already available now on T Mobile that's what that's what you had.

Did you do it?

Did you sign up?

Did you do it?

No I didn't know I was like looking at it like what are we you know it was a big class and I was like that I mean I need to think about this more because I I there's a there's an X with no signal where I live and and we do have Wi-Fi but you know when the power goes out I do have battery backup when the battery backup goes out or the tree falls over onto the internet line yeah we're we're done right but I just found out if I have Verizon which I do I can piggyback for ten dollars a month off of the T mobile plan and I can have Wi-Fi service wherever I go on this planet.

That's weird.

And that's something I feel like I feel like I feel for $10 I feel like I should have known that and that it was coming.

And I was stuck in the desert for two days without any cell without any communication.

You didn't get a notification like he did like hey do you want internet for 10 for $10?

But I think that was a dollars I think the point was to start a conversation and there's a lot of really smart people in Central that probably have greater knowledge of different technologies or or things that we could do and I think that's what we want to do is get those you've been working on it for months and months and months so thank you.

If it wasn't for you we wouldn't be having this conversation you know and then Rosemary helping and thank you so much because we we need to have this discussion we we brought it up but then there's all there's yeah there's so many other things that we start talking about, and this kind of forget about it, forget about it, but your persistence, uh Denise.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Brent.

I appreciate all your your help.

And Brett came out for some of the testing that we did, that participated in too and uh, it sounds like looking in at the cell companies, micro cell towers, that type of thing might be asked around here.

We have to have they ask for a lot of conditional use permits around here, don't they?

Yeah, we always kind of represent it through.

Maybe we can have a little more conversation next time.

So if you have some way of uh getting us some contacts or a way to follow up on that, that would be appreciated.

Um could you email me on one day?

I'll try to find us a point of contact.

I could probably reach out to dispatch and find out who the provider is.

Hi, you guys.

Okay.

You don't hear what we did last year.

Moonwalking.

Is that moonwalking?

Number five, item number five, two 2025 year in review.

It's all the accomplishments that we did in 2025.

Um, and we when I first started trying to put this together, I was thinking we hadn't completed a lot of big things, but we've moved things along more than anything else.

Um, the feasibility study, which we should have some costs in the next couple of months.

Um, that's taken a lot of effort and working with the contractor, visiting all the businesses and many of the homes.

Some of the homes have gates and or nobody's there, so I can't say we've met everybody, but we did talk to as many people as we could to like identify their level of interest and identify what their needs were.

Um we're still working on the prototype signs, which um I think that's that's coming to success.

Okay, we make it stronger.

Yes, it doesn't kill you and it's just yeah.

Um we supported the school in the hundred-year anniversary celebration.

All they did with the uh parade, the announcements, the picnic, coordinating with uh Niles Canyon Railway for the skunk train rides.

We we did talk to public works about the berms and not being happy with the berms right there on the road, but we really haven't closed that issue.

We really haven't finished that up.

Um, the berms are still there, still forcing the pedestrians to be right there in the middle of Sunole Boulevard, Sinnel Road.

So we need to maybe work on that a little bit this next year.

We had the bulky waste drop-off day in the spring, which I hope we'll do again this year.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm saving for we're seeing a lot more construction.

I mean, more for us is two new homes that we've approved, and a fuel station continuous use permit.

We had the special fire safety picnic in May, and then the presentation on home hardening and retrofitting homes in Sunol, and that's still available for people to see.

Um I participated in the Snow State Senator McNerney's round table as civic leaders discussing community concerns, and that our main concerns that I talked about was fire and flood, and he has been very helpful.

He is the one who who made the connection with us and state office of emergency services to look at possible funding.

What came of that was that state office emergency services will only fund Brent, they won't fund SUNAL by itself because we're not a real entity.

Um, we supported the nomination of the Soil Area Creeks as a priority conservation area, and um, and that was approved by MTC.

So that has allowed us to be able to enter into more requests for grants to protect the creeks uh and um to address some of the aurorial issues.

Um we worked with CDA to address the community issues and the concerns about the compostable waste project, and that we haven't closed the loop on that either, so we'll need to do that this next year, because that's a state required project, and they've been trying to be responsive to our needs while we implemented Nalameda County.

Um so we had Amber Blow here, the epity director of public works for Alameda County, and she is working to address the traffic issues in downtown Sean.

We did that modeling of evacuation routes with UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz.

We negotiated with East Bay Regional Parks District for successful reopening of the gate to the Pleasanton Ridge at the end of Killcare Road.

We facilitated discussions between Niles Canyon Railway and Sinnol Business Guilds so that the business guild could use those tickets as a fundraiser.

So that was a win-win for everybody.

We uh kept pushing, kept pushing to get that PGE pipeline moved so that the Oliver de Silva quarry could revegetate that hillside because that was holding that project up.

It's been holding that project for years, but there was an added benefit of getting the salmon coming upstream and going all the way into the uh little regional park.

That was real success.

Um we supported the um unincorporated budget process.

We worked through that.

Um that will probably come up again this next year, and then we're still working on flooding.

Um, we did bring in a civil engineer to help us with that, and um, still working on that.

How many people here went to the zone seven flood meetings last week?

There were three nights last week, one.

There were a lot of people who did go, yeah.

Overall, yeah, overall for the three nights, yeah.

Yeah, and then we had a couple, we had three town halls last year.

Storm flooding, senior support services, budgets, and then the building permits or structures.

So I guess that's four town halls.

So it was a it was a busy year.

Yeah.

I was in the speech earlier, but I didn't do it, but I just want to let you know not speaking for the planning commission.

I want you all to know is that many times your words and what you say is brought up those meetings.

So I want you guys to know what you say, does matter.

So that it's changed vote.

So I should change my vote before.

I was not supporting something you guys voted for it, so I rotated, and but it's also your other boards wouldn't float us.

And so we your words do matter, is what you know.

I'd like to thank the whole council for their work this year.

Like this list of accomplishments is great, and not all SACs have so thank you.

Thank I mean I was I was thinking the same thing, but I was gonna thank Connie because this is an impressive list of accomplishments, and you know, and she spearheads all of this, and uh, congratulate you and thank you for everything you've done for uh on the on the council here, and then just for the town of Sinnol.

This is uh it's uh it's it's amazing.

Um, every month.

I'm very happy to we're so lucky to have Connie.

100% agree, 100% agree.

So this is a congratulations to you, thank you.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you, Carrie.

Okay, did anybody did I miss anything that we need to add or no?

Okay, so um item six, upcoming meetings.

Um there's been a lot of discussion about whether we need to go to the zone seven meetings, and they are the exact same nights as our meetings.

Um, they're the third Wednesday of the month, and they can't change theirs.

After I put this together, I Lindsay had said put um Valerie prior on on for February so she can come and talk.

So I talked to Valerie, and she said she can't come and talk here because she's got to go to her own meeting in zone seven.

So that's not it's not compatible.

Um, so is there are there any limitations that you can share with me that you know now for moving the date maybe from a Wednesday or a Thursday or from the third week to the second week or the fourth week, so that we can permanently or just February?

Just one either February or March, and I'll because I have to talk to her to see when she is available.

I'm good, either way.

Okay, good.

Okay, we'll see what she can do when she's available.

Are there meetings the same hours?

Yes.

Okay.

Number seven, approval of minutes.

October 15th.

And these are the first minutes that I was put in the course.

I might have September.

Well, you might have done some other ones, yeah.

Then I thought it was Shabana.

Yeah, take that flowers back.

Okay.

This was the um the budget meeting where we talked about the unincorporated budgets.

Any comments or changes?

Uh that's where the n the 90-day water thing came up here in the top.

Yeah, that's when the first notify that's where the first information came about that.

Okay, thank you.

So I move we approve the minutes.

I'll second that.

All right, I'll click.

Okay, approve.

Councilmember Harrison.

Councilmember McLean.

I think Councilmember McLean, you would have to abstain since you aren't here.

I abstain.

Would you like the way she did a good job?

She did.

All right, meeting is adjourned then.

Thank you.

Oh, yeah, I need that gavel.

Yeah.