Okay.

It looks like it's so let's call the meeting to order.

Do you want to do the roll call?

Or do you want to read the directions first?

Or whatever order you prefer.

Oh, please state your name prior to your presentation.

Or in-person speakers.

Peace ballary speaker card and hand it to the chair.

The chair will call your name when it is time for public comment.

For online participants, use the raise hand function on the item you would like to speak on.

The clerk will call your name when it is your turn to speak.

Or dialed in participants, dial star nine to raise your hand on item.

The clerk will call your name when it's your turn to speak.

With that, let's start roll call.

Council member Conan present.

Council member Harrison.

Present.

Councilmember McLean.

Council member start.

Present.

Chair the Grange.

That'll be a council.

Okay.

Okay.

Looks like we have a lot of comment cards, and we had a couple stacks that were generated, so we're putting them collating them by topic number.

Okay.

And I'm sorry if they're not in the same order which you turn them in.

Just one public comment.

Okay.

Jim has a public comment.

Okay.

Bob Frillman.

You're the first one for public comments holding.

All right, guys.

Thank you.

Okay.

Good evening.

My name's Bob Frillman.

I live at uh 10848 Foothill here in Sinnoll.

Uh, what I wanted to comment about was that I didn't follow up on this, but back a while back when we had the big flooding up the in the canyon.

I caught one of the guys from public works and told him that the culvert, which uh at mile point, I think it's mile post 8.0, which catches water on foothill, runs it under foothill road into a half pipe that runs through my property and out into a meadow.

It's done that since Foothill Road was put in.

It's it's not going through the culvert that the county put in, it's undermined, it's coming under the culvert.

I made a movie of it during the uh the last big storm that I can email to you guys, or I can email it to public works or email it to somebody, but one of these days a fire truck or a cement truck is gonna go through that road.

It looks like the under the pipe is is missing about that much earth all the way across foothill.

But when they put that, you remember a few years ago they put those concrete catch basins along Foothill.

The one next to our house has never worked, never floods in that low spot between us and Gromley all the time.

So that's kind of what I wanted to say.

Get some direction from you guys.

I can get email addresses for you all later if you want to start there.

What am I working with?

8.1.

8.0 on Foothill Road.

We will go out and check it tomorrow, and I will contact public person.

Okay, and I'll give you a phone number because you you probably need to get into my place to see it and the gate slopped.

So cool.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And so you have not reported it to public works then.

No, I just saw some.

I I saw the crews on the road, and everybody was busy as you know, could be because things were flooding everywhere, and I just mentioned that it was happening, and it has gotten quite a bit worse, I think.

Public works has been very responsive at the after the last storm.

The same problem existed on Foothill Road where Stephanie lives and the park is John Midlock came out and looked at it and repaired.

I'll repair within a couple days.

Okay, yeah, no, we will respond.

You know, as it is, it's it's sitting there, but one of these days it's gonna be a problem, and better do it now than later.

I guess.

Thank you, Bob.

Jim.

Hi Jim.

Hi.

I'm just gonna make my comments from here.

I think you can probably hear me.

Well, can you move forward just a little bit?

Oh, no, you can't.

I mean, you don't have anybody with you.

Okay, that's fine.

Mike, two things on uh I'll do my tree tree report.

Uh longs other comments, and uh we can deal with any questions.

Is still plugging away.

I I sorry I didn't provide you with the written uh update for this evening.

Uh uh, but uh you've had the recent ones uh right now we're uh thankful for the rain uh because for our all the trees that we planted.

Just a second.

So um Lila, he's doing his the tree report uh first.

So why don't we stop the clock until you when you're done with the tree report?

Then we'll start the clock again.

Okay, it's a little out of order, but that's okay.

Go ahead.

So basically right now our focus is uh working with the resource conservation district uh in Livermore, and they were uh the ones who came uh a couple months ago and brought 45 volunteers and uh cleaned up uh you know every cigarette butt in the creek and uh around the entrance to the park and uh did a lot of other cleanup and also planted some plants and uh planted a few trees that we had left over from our previous plantings.

Uh Jennifer and I uh last name is the resource conservation specialist who is working with us, and she after that work day, she said that she was very pleased with being able to come and she'd like to come back uh when the creek was running uh so they can actually do some water sampling and so on.

This is not only a service to us, but it's also an educational program for about 40 or 40 to 50 uh youth.

Uh so it's a great group.

So she is willing to organize this and come back and do another work day with this where they will focus on uh quality of the water and actually do some testing uh so that uh the students will will see that and then we'll we'll also see it because everyone keeps asking is well is the creek contaminated because of all the septic systems up the canyon, and uh the answer to that is depends on uh when you test and uh what the results might happen to be.

Uh when we did testing before, there was no significant uh uh you know hazard that that appeared, but we we will continue working with uh the resource conservation district because they have a lot of specialists uh and they they are willing to help.

They're looking uh for things that where they can get involved with the community, and so I think it's something we really need to take advantage of.

The only bad thing about our last experience is that uh there were about 45 volunteers uh except from Snow.

There were four or five from Snow.

And so we weren't totally left out, but the fact is uh all these people came to Sinnal, they got introduced to Snow.

Most of them never never been in the park.

Uh, and so I think we need to work with them and when we get this other upcoming thing uh uh planned.

We'll make sure we get plenty of information out, uh, you know, to everybody and encourage groups and uh you hopefully you can bring your neighbors and we can have a uh uh I was sort of embarrassed by the fact that we only had uh four or five people there.

Uh but we're f our focus will be planting trees and any other plants we can get from the local nurseries, and they've been very profitable so far, and also then doing the educational part uh for the students who are there in terms of water monitoring and testing.

Uh so I that that will be before the creek dries up.

Uh uh, she's concerned when it dried up so quickly uh a couple days ago, but uh it's running good again, and with the amount of rain we got, it'll be running for a while.

So we'll I'll keep you up to date in terms of what we're doing planning and uh uh would ask your help in getting a good turnout of some old people.

Uh it's our part, and uh we should take uh good care of it.

Uh and uh now do you want to go to your public comment?

Do you want to go to your public comment now?

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

Uh and uh I just wanted to uh again uh express a concern.

In fact, uh you're probably wondering what I'm talking about tonight because we have a good turnout, but uh we have have not had uh turnouts like this at uh our SAC meetings, and you know that has resulted in uh confusion, uh a lot of uh uh accusations in terms of that the council's not functioning, uh we need to change it.

Uh the supervisor is uh looking into uh uh possibly making changes.

Uh and it's it's all rumor.

Talk talk about it, but I think that it's important that the community recognize what the role of the uh council is and that they uh get informed.

And uh I know Andrew's gonna be doing some things uh to make sure that we get the information uh out in more systematic ways so that people have the information, and then also uh uh I think we should be trying to get some feedback from that.

So not only do they know that tonight is discussing uh firecrackers and uh you know fire danger, but you know, what are what are their opinions?

Uh I I don't know how many people call uh council members and uh give you direction or these express their concerns to you, but probably not too many.

And uh I think we need to foster a uh an environment where people want to know what's going on, and then once they know what's going on, they they provide their input in terms of what what their opinions are about it, and so that we we get the community much more involved in what's what's going on and uh eliminate these concerns about the uh and again I I'm not sure where all the concerns are coming from.

Uh in terms of uh you know, we we need a new uh council.

Uh that to me doesn't make any sense.

Uh I don't want to get into uh uh recounting of what what they've been doing for the last few years, but uh it's quite substantial.

So uh, I think we all need to work together to get the community interested and involved uh and uh you'll facilitate open communications on these issues.

Thank you very much, Jim.

Well said, Jim.

Okay, more talk.

Okay, so yeah, everybody's hot.

Okay, so that is the end of public comments.

The rest of them are on specific items, and so we'll go to the law enforcement update.

Sergeant McTrini's first.

Good evening, everybody.

Uh since our last meeting in January, we've had 28 calls for service, uh, nothing of particular note.

Um, few issues that were ongoing have been addressed, and hopefully you're not gonna resurface uh a while.

Uh proactive stops are down just a little bit out here, but we've had some issues in other areas we've been paying attention to.

So we've only had 20 uh in the last month.

And I have a suspicion that some patrol checks aren't being logged because it only showed 33, and I know they're out here way more than that.

So I'll have to have a conversation about making sure their stuff is accurate as they're no longer doing it.

Um on a slightly different note.

So I'm every year I apply for an off-road highway vehicle enforcement grant.

Part of that is I have to do a public announcement that I am applying for it in the beginning of March.

It should be uh posted for public comment and review.

Um what we use the grant for, particularly for the SNOL area.

Um, I talk with the railway guys a lot, Steve Walkery.

Every now and then they get issues with some guys riding dirt bikes along the tracks.

That is illegal off highway vehicle uh stuff that we can take action with.

The grant gives me funds that I can get guys not dedicated to patrol to just focus on that.

We have other areas where we have off highway vehicle issues, but for SONOL, that's been the main issue we have out here with patrol duties.

Sometimes it's hard to get guys to just focus on that and try and catch them when they're doing it.

So that's what the grant's used for for us.

Anyway, any questions for?

Does that grant provide you with the equipment for the I don't want to know what they're called, they're not motorcycles or the the dual sports that we use are purchased by the county, they're county vehicles.

Um if I could ask for them through the grant, but it can create some issues if we use them for like a search and rescue disc because that's not off-highway vehicle stuff, so the county buys them, which gives us the ability to do multiple things with them.

I get funds for staffing for overtime.

Uh, I get funds to buy helmets and uh boots and riding gloves and things like that.

Thank you.

I'm glad you're doing that.

I don't see officer landers here.

He's not coming, they got sent uh some other thing tonight.

Okay, so if anybody has any traffic issues, I'll take them.

And then I'll immediately take them.

And thank you for responding to the school.

Um, lockdown may have appreciated that.

No problem.

Car protection.

Um is Chief Terra on.

There she is.

Hi, I'm here.

Good evening, everyone.

Sorry I couldn't be with you tonight.

Um, hopefully, my situation will change so I can be with you next month.

Um, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to report on monthly numbers.

So, since the last meeting, there were 25 calls for service out of the Sunol station, and all of those calls for service were either EMS related or calls that we were canceled in route, meaning somebody called us and then it was determined we didn't need to go.

So there were no fire calls and no incidents this time of year.

Um, that doesn't surprise me.

As you all know, we're going through significant rain right now.

Um, and it will be continuing overnight and into next week.

So please be cautious relative to water, potentially driving through pedals.

You don't know how deep they are, and any potential slide risks.

Call us if you need us and we will get to you as soon as we possibly can.

Are there any questions for me tonight?

Thank you very much.

No problem.

Have a good night.

Thank you.

Um is Chief Nichols on?

Okay.

Progress reports, the fire safety work group.

Rosemary Chang.

Thank you.

Rosemary Chang here to report on what's going on Synol.

Um fire wise.

Um the money we have from Calfire, we have a grant uh grant modification that allowed us to work probably seven to ten days on Kilcare Road to remove trees that are impeding any uh emergency vehicles.

We're trying to work with um Alameda County Fire Department who have another CAL fire grant, and so we're working in tandem with them.

We're doing the tree work, they're doing the groundwork.

So the work has begun.

We have three days in.

The first tree that we took out was over Tom Sawyer Bridge.

This is a favorite tree of one of the cowfire foresters, and I sent him a picture before, during, after we took out the tree.

So this is what he said.

Rosemary, that's the best news I've heard in quite a while.

He retired in uh December.

So this was one of his last things to find money for us.

Thanks for letting me know.

I really thought that tree would someday fall in a windstorm and quite possibly pull its roots under the roadway.

If it happened, it would take out half the roadway and all the underground and overhead utilities around it.

Plus, it would destroy the bridge and whatever is in its reach beyond that.

Sycamores are very strong and very heavy.

I remember seeing several other trees and large limbs at various places that are also a threat to the evacuation route.

I assume you'll be able to mitigate some of those too.

So this is the beginning of the work.

We're going to be working now all down uh Kill Care Road.

I've contacted homeowners who will contact their neighbors and we're going to be stationed there and removing trees that uh and work on the canopy on Kilcare Road.

So unfortunately, we have this weather, like good news, bad news.

We have this wonderful rain, but it's impeding the tree work.

So we're going to try to resume next week, and we have probably about three or four more days.

So any questions.

Sometimes I wonder, who's decides that maybe people who live in that area?

Who's deciding that those trees need to go without talking to the people that live there?

Okay, that's a good question.

We've done multiple walkthroughs with CAL FIRE.

We did one in the fall, and that's when it was uh Ed Ori identified the need to have tree work, and that's how we found the money.

So we've done that walkthrough.

Then about a month ago, we did another walkthrough in Alameda County fire, and uh we marked trees.

And these are the people who well, then I have an arborist who also worked in the group.

So different people go down and they look at the effect on the evacuation route.

And we look at trees that are, we don't want trees to fall on the road.

So we're looking for balancing the trees and any diseased or injured trees, especially um, and of course the dead trees that might fall.

So it's uh we try to inform, I've not been the best person to have formed the community.

With the help of Andrew, Andrew is going to help send out the message to the community about all the tree work and how to contact.

So um, yeah, did I answer your question?

Well, sometimes I wonder if.

I mean, I understand that trees are um some are not safe and they have to be cut down, but I'm wondering if they have to be the whole tree needs to be cut down as opposed to, you know, trimming the tree, or you know, taking the tree down and letting it regrow, um something like that.

So I'm just wondering why we sometimes like why do we need, you know, still need to cut the whole thing.

Okay, we only take down the tree if it's dead, or it will fall.

Now the tree we took out Tom Sawyer Bridge, it was highly diseased.

You could actually, if you look at the base, there's a hole, you can you can put your hand in and move around.

So it was a disease tree.

We would rather limb up, or we'd rather balance the tree.

We'd rather remove limbs so the tree could grow.

The arbors were using that's his philosophy.

Um, we look at the tree if it's balanced.

Uh let it grow, but without all that weight.

It's the weight that will make the tree fall.

So and it's much cheaper to limb up than to take down trees.

We don't want to take down trees unless it's a danger.

So we don't go and say tree tree-treat down.

No, bro.

That's good to know that.

Thank you very much.

I was wondering about that.

So one of one of the many pieces of input we got, um, were people saying the neighbors should have input as to which trees they've identified our problems.

So I'm assuming that that's a process you've started following.

Yes, Andrew's helped.

We will start that process.

Believe me, there are more than enough trees that need attention, and we're trying to get to the to the big to the big ones.

And um, we're still looking for money.

That's if anyone knows of a pot of money that we can chat into, let me know.

I think happy to appreciate all your efforts there.

Connie, I'm accepting any kind of feedback from the community through informed Sunol.

And also for the people that need to see it, see it.

Yeah, Andrew and I talk all the time about this.

So, okay.

Downtown revitalization work group.

Yeah, we have significant update here for everybody on that.

Uh, we did our nonprofit that we are running the project through, received the check from the county.

So thank you, uh, supervisor's office.

Thanks, Sean.

We got the money.

Uh, and we are now uh waiting for the invoice from the sign company to go to uh the Niles Canyon Railway and the sign will begin to be built.

So um that's just in the last couple days here, so very, very excited.

And again, uh we probably just want to make sure we said we say it every time.

But the sign is a prototype.

It's not, you know, if everybody loves it, then that's done.

But that's probably you know we we assume that people are gonna have comment and and feedback, and that's what it's for.

That's why we're not doing all of them.

So we don't like the design.

It was designed by a local artist here.

There was a there was a focus group and what we wanted, and very artisan and very sinoli and all those things like that.

We think we we captured a lot of that, but um, that's why we're doing one sign.

So when it goes up, we want the feedback, bring them comments, emails, um, anything you want, and then uh we'll go from there and decide if there's any modifications or we keep it as is and move on down the road and get the rest of them made.

So um that's the update.

So pretty pretty good, pretty good uh production there on the on the on the wayfinding signs.

Lots of progress since last one.

Yep.

Thank you.

Okay, uh council staff comments.

Um Sean, did you plan to talk about the bulky waste day?

I can.

Okay.

Do you want to go first?

You're welcome to go first.

Go ahead.

Since I brought it up.

So um, unfortunately, we don't have a secure date for the 2026 bulky waste synol cleanup.

We have a tentative date, which is April 11th.

I'm reluctant to say it's a secure date because one of our biggest partners in this is Pleasanton Garbage, and they haven't gotten back to us on securing that date.

We have secured the property, the sheriffs will be out there taking prescription drugs.

We had one respond, one of our expired prescription drugs.

One of our uh other partners, I believe it was the e-waste person, he agreed to uh attend that day, but until I get confirmation from Pleasanton Garbage, we don't want to uh send it out formally.

We have a printed copy of the flyer, the data's at the mailhouse.

As soon as I get the green light from Pleasanton Garbage, we will send that out to everyone's house just like we did last year, and it will be the same format 8 a.m., 12 p.m.

Bring your ticket, dump your trash.

Multiple trash dumps are accepted.

But again, fingers crossed that April 11th is the day.

Once I secure that date, I'll let the chair know, and an informal email will go out before your barrel gives your house.

So patients, please, and we're hoping to get this thing going on April 11th.

Yes.

I just want to say that I get often requests for when we're gonna have another one.

So this community loves that day.

We're really excited about it, and we are so appreciative for District One and all that you do in bringing that day to us.

Thank you.

Yeah, no problem.

We're happy to do it.

It's it's a great community event, and it it helps all of our partners in in the recycling industry.

So it's it's it's a good thing that we can do.

We're happy to do it.

I wanted to let you know that PGE is going to be at our meeting in May to talk about undergrounding the distribution line, electrical distribution line on Killcare Road.

Um I'm gonna have another conversation with on Monday, but what I'm hearing from them right now is they're putting printing up a bunch of signs and a posters and things like that, um, which is more than of course we would normally have at these meetings.

So what I'm thinking about maybe doing is a maybe open house before the meeting so that people can come and and talk to the PGE reps, and then during the meeting, they can give a presentation on what they're planning on doing.

We're still working on that issue, but but I just want to let you know that we will have a lot more information in PGE is wanting to come and talk.

Okay, I've been contacted by them.

I don't know, maybe other people are neighbors on the phone.

You have to know whether or not I'd be interested at all.

At the underground show, they're already talking easement with people on our driveway.

So yeah, they're talking, I mean seriously.

Yeah, yeah.

The costs are probably done up, but that's the discussion.

Yeah, I think it's it's a good move.

But I'm certainly getting a lot of calls, and not from PG<unk>E, but from people are getting calls from EGD.

Mine's already underground.

Okay, any other um council comments?

Betty?

Okay.

Um we'll go on to.

Did you have anything else, John?

No, okay.

We'll go on to 4A, consider review the addition of the fireworks.

A quick question about that, actually.

Oh about PGE work.

If it happens that they put the lines underground, are they also going to be putting phone and optics like uh Wi-Fi internet?

That will be our question.

That will be one of the questions in May.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, and all of those things impact the other things that we're working on, the potential sirens, the potential um micro cell towers, because those were to rely on the other poles that the other equipment's on.

So yeah, there's a lot a lot of questions to be answered in May.

Okay.

Okay.

I think, oh, there is a common for this.

Okay, um 4A.

And Sean, is that yours?

Or are you the speaker for 4A for on the fireworks ordinance?

Yep.

You ready?

Yep, you're up.

So we only had about 10 minutes, so uh I'm gonna we're gonna drink from fire hose today.

All right.

There's a lot of words on a lot of sheets of paper.

Um, I'm not gonna use this.

I'm just gonna, if everyone grabbed a copy of the PowerPoint, it'd be great.

I'm gonna skip over a lot of the statistical data for the sake of time.

I'll do a quick introduction.

I'm Sean McMillan.

I'm a captain with the sheriff's office.

Uh I work out of our Eden Township substation.

I am responsible for everything that goes out in the tri-valley sector.

Uh Mark does a great job.

I've worked with Mark 20 almost 25 years now.

I have a ton of faith and trust in him uh in serving this community.

A little history, uh the sheriff's office was tapped several years ago to look into and do some research on coming up with a some statistical data and if information related to fireworks uh related to social host ordinances.

Um, the Fairview Mac really uh put a lot of pressure um on the sheriff's office because just like here, they're a little bit more rural.

Uh fire goes uphill because heat rises, and there's a lot of concerns, right?

There's only a few ways in and a few ways out.

I know personally, I live in a community where we've gone through a lot of wildfire issues.

I live in the North Bay, seeing my fair share.

Um, so we've done a ton of research.

We did our presentation last year uh to all the Macs.

Went on a road show seeing if if there was interest with all the Macs, and all the Macs were in agreement.

Yes, we should look into this uh to come up with some social host ordinance.

Um we haven't drafted a ton of ordinances in law enforcement.

So it was a wonderful challenge.

County council.

So we have uh put together a draft, and I have to credit uh Lieutenant Corey and his team, uh, namely Curtis Imperial, he's a detective with our uh investigations bureau for really putting in uh weeks and months and hour on hour uh into drafting uh the draft and county council has approved it, they gave it the green light and the thumbs up.

There's uh a lot of legalese in there.

I'm not gonna go through that.

So I'm just gonna kind of go through the highlights of the ordinance.

So essentially, and again, I'm not gonna uh go off of the PowerPoint, but it will give us a lot of teeth.

So typically on a 4th of July or a New Year's, uh, when we're when we're responding to a large volume of calls for service related to fireworks activity, and I'm not talking sparklers, I'm talking aerials, uh large uh type mortar style fireworks that cause uh cause a lot of distress to our pets, they cause a lot of distress to our elderly folks that live up in high fire uh areas um and just create havoc in our communities.

We anticipate this year because it's a big anniversary, right?

The United States, right?

Probably gonna be a high demand for fireworks.

But when we go to these um types of calls for service, typically what happens is there are folks in driveways or the middle of the street gathering around and they're launching, you know, these mortar aerials and whatnot, right?

Usually when we arrive, they skedaddle or they run into a residence and we're left with what's left.

Some of it has been exploded, some of it has not.

We use our bomb squad, they collect, we go and dispose of them.

Having a social host ordinance is gonna allow us to essentially, if we can gather enough evidence to identify an associated residence, or if we on view somebody lighting some of these things and they run into a residence and they don't cooperate with our investigation, we can levy an administrative uh fine against the owner of that property.

So there's a lot of information in this pamphlet.

I encourage you to review it and read it.

If you have questions, I'm willing to take questions.

The administration citation process is not that complex.

Obviously, if we contact somebody who is in the act of this, we have the health and safety code, uh, and now we'll have this uh administrative ordinance as well.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, um, I saw your earlier presentation.

Um, just how does this compare to what might be have done in other counties or in other places?

Is this something new or is this something that you're kind of replicating what the kind of thing that you would do in this situation?

We've looked at a ton of different other agencies, especially surrounding agencies, Hayward, Livermores, I believe, has one of these.

There's some Contra Costa County jurisdictions that also have something similar.

So we've taken a lot of the verbiage from those other uh entities, those agencies, if you will, uh, and have worked with our county council to sort of tailor it to us.

There are other agencies who have ordinances that our county council flat out was not comfortable with because there may have been like a there were some things lacking, okay?

So we wanted to make sure that this thing was tight.

Um other uh agencies that were investigating and looked into their ordinances, they they're their due process a little bit different.

Um, so sometimes those things don't hold water, so all it's gonna take is some contesting it and it might just fall apart.

So not to speculate, but I think ours is pretty tight as it stands.

Yes, sir.

Did you help me understand your your term owner?

Uh Mr.

Bad Guy lights the fireworks and runs in the house, but he's a tenant.

Yes, owner of the property or the guy living there, both.

Both.

So if I can identify the responsible party, that's gonna be an upfront initial investigation.

If we can't, we're gonna be able to identify who is responsible for the property.

That's the whole reason behind this, right?

Um, because if you see someone lighting a firework, right, that is a misdemeanor.

If it's not committed in my presence, say I turn the corner and I can't identify that person, what do I have, right?

But if they run into a residence or if they're launching or and this is very common, I I can see where that we're gonna have the ability to do this, the San Leandro Hillside, all of these hills, uh, they have balcony, all these hillside residents have balconies and and yards, and everyone goes up Fairmont, they go up those side streets and they want to watch because the view's great, right?

You can see the whole bay.

I can't tell you how many residences I try to make contact with people launching stuff off of their decks, and they just simply don't answer the door, right?

So we will be able to research through county records who owns property and administer or uh levy a citation against the owner of the property.

Don't you think that's a little heavy handed that I've got a tenant in Pick a City and he's an idiot, pays his rent, so he stays in the house and he lights a firework, firecracker, bottle rocket, and you come looking for me.

Absolutely.

That's the point.

That becomes a civil issue between you and the tenant, and that's why there's a process through the BZA where it can be disputed.

Now, if you can give us some information and throw your tenant under the bus and we can figure things out, then that'll all be through administrative hearings through the VCA.

I'd be surprised if that stand stood to a legal challenge somewhere in spite of your county council's opinion.

That's awfully heavy-handed, I think.

I mean, I get contact the owner of the property and say, hey, who lives there?

Oh, yeah, sure.

Ed Smith.

But here's your here's your citation, deal with that.

Well, I don't know if that's necessarily gonna be how everything goes.

I think it's gonna be a case-by-case basis.

Um if you want to make a public or comment on the item, you need to fill out a speaker.

No, I'm gonna I just I just keyed in on the word owner.

Yeah, thinking, okay, owner as in tenant, good.

Get him thrown in jail, fine, but owner as in me, that's a different story.

Because I don't like firecrackers.

Right.

Okay.

Anybody else want to make any comments and and have a speaker card besides Ken?

Because Ken does have a speaker card, okay.

I mean, wait until he's done.

Are you done?

Yeah, that's fine.

Okay, I I um have a comment for you.

This is you know, on a preventative basis, this is fabulous.

Um we understand it.

How are we gonna get the people to understand it?

So they're gonna say, I don't want to do it now because if these guys are gonna come knocking on my door.

Great question.

And now I get to segue sort of into my closing.

Is what our plan is is obviously we're we're going to the different Macs right now, trying to get a thumbs up approval for passing this uh social host ordinance, and then it's gonna go to the board of supervisors and then for a second reading.

And if it gets implemented, what we plan to do with the sheriff's office is public service announcement and likely a uh press release, something on the news.

Um, hey, by the way, all fireworks, including safe and sane are banned, they're illegal, and by the way, if you're gonna launch these things from your property, not only are if even if we don't catch you, if we can identify the property that they're being launched from, we now have the ability to to levy administrative fines, right?

Starting at 750, second fine is 1500 bucks, third fine is 2500.

So I'm hoping that just the announcement and getting the word out on social media platforms through a press release as well that this is gonna curtail a significant amount of activity, as well as all the proactive enforcement that we do prior to.

That's good.

You guys bring it up.

You can bring it up.

Just bring it up.

I'll put 4A on it.

And you have a comment or public comment.

Yeah.

Thank you.

First of all, there's nobody in this room that's a bit more fireworks than I.

Most of it was scientific research, really.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, you're exactly right.

It is super hard.

We used to have hordes and hordes of fireworks where I work because we would collect them for years.

Um, then sometimes light them off because it's scientific, but it is extremely difficult to figure out who did it.

Um, you guys have a much more difficult job than fire, but for both of us, everybody wants to scatter.

Yeah.

Um, with that being said, you want a really good show, nothing on this side, go to the other side of the hill and go farther north.

San Leandro, Oakland look like war zones.

I like this because it's a danger, and things are so much more built up urban interface that it becomes a big problem.

The county puts on about eight extra rigs of people on that day, eight extra.

Um, that maybe not you face, but the municipalities, some of them use 4th of July and fireworks as a uh monetary thing where they allow them to be sold, and then the lines are blurred between legal illegal.

So if we can keep them out of the county, because I know the county wants to do that, that will be good.

Although I will say I would be much happier if the person that led it was held responsible, as opposed to whose ever house they may be running in and out of, whether it's theirs or somebody they're visiting.

Of course, allow me to respond to that real quick.

My comment to that, sure, and to your initial concern, right?

So just so everyone knows like the our our idea with this is not to just like go around and issue citations car blocks to where we're seeing fireworks and levy fines on homeowners.

That's not the intent of this.

What that what that portion of this citation allows is that if we have tenants that are uncooperative and we can't identify them, however, we can prove uh that those fireworks are coming there, whether it's on viewing it ourselves or using our drones or whatever, then that's when we would issue a citation that would then go to the property owner.

So I I do understand your concerns, but I don't want you to think that this is like we're just driving around and seeing fireworks come from a spot and we're just writing down an address and then sending a citation to a homeowner.

Like we're gonna do our due diligence to do a full investigation to try and identify exactly where the fireworks are coming from, and who's doing it.

That if that kind of like clears up some of your concerns because I didn't understand perfectly good with that.

I am when it comes up out okay, Bob.

You have a comment on this item?

I guess a couple of questions.

See, uh, I understand what you're saying that you guys aren't gonna be out writing citations to property owners, but what you're gonna do is convict me of a crime that I had nothing to do with, other than the fact that I happen to be renting a house to some idiot in a burn zone.

So, uh, if the captain is before this committee asking for your blessing to carry this forward, I would respectfully ask you to deny that until this ownership thing can be removed.

Well, now if the owner of the property is somehow complicit in this, if I own an apartment house in Oakland, okay, and I tell the tenants, come on, guys, we're gonna have a barbecue and a fireworks display in the backyard.

Different story, then doesn't that take me out of the ownership place and put me in the perpetrator place?

So this is not a criminal law.

This is a fifty dollar ticket, sure, but it's doesn't go through the criminal court system.

This is an administrative system.

So, you know, an example.

If you have a tenant living in a home that's been red tagged or a derelict property, it's gonna go through code enforcement, potentially the BZA or whatever other entity, right?

And if things don't get resolved and they don't get all but our number one priority, like he said, we're gonna show up to a call for service or we're gonna see something, we're gonna try to catch apprehend, cite, arrest, educate whoever is is responsible for it, okay.

But if there's things happening from a property that we're not getting cooperation, this is the direction that we intend on going, with the hope that it causes some uh deterrence in the community.

Okay, I'll go back to my thing.

I would respectfully request that you deny your permission.

Thank you.

I don't know if it helps, but you you made a comment that like you're gonna be convicted of it.

Like the citation is not if I get a citation on you pull me over.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you pull me over on the street and I'm I'm speeding, you write me a citation.

I'm guilty of something, I've done something.

That's it.

To appear for a hearing or court, you you have the ability to contest it.

Officer, yeah, yes.

Is this kin to uh loaning your car to somebody and a crime is committed, license plate is caught by somebody recorded.

You're gonna follow up with the owner of that car with something, and then they can take it up with who they loaned it to.

Yes, plea, plea in court.

This doesn't absolve us of any like discretion, right?

Um, and so and again, the this just because you get a ticket doesn't mean you're guilty.

It just is the notes to appear, right?

Before a commissioner or magistrate, judge, whatever, and then you can contest it and things happen from there.

Yeah, there's due process.

So since it'll be my guys that are gonna be the ones out here doing this, my instructions to them are gonna be find the person that lit it off.

They can't find them, okay.

Find out who wants the property, talk to them, get the information of who's at the property, who's responsible for living at that property, and then you're gonna issue the citation to them.

If we find a property owner that says, I need to talk to the police, get off my doorstep, whatever.

Okay, now the citation's gonna go to bed.

It's a it's a last resort thing.

Well, then good.

Well, address it to the captain.

You are you guys that were involved in right in this.

Couldn't that homeowner term have a simple sentence?

A homeowner who is uncooperative with the detective or with the police with law enforcement.

What I hear is that homeowner, that means that you talk to this derelict tenant who tells you to go pound salt, and you got me, I ain't going nowhere.

And I work and I paid taxes and I have money, so I get I wind up with a $750 citation, even more.

Bob, you're Bob, you're repeating yourself now.

I'm sorry, your time is up.

But if that could be modified somehow, I think it would be a fairer ordinance.

Okay, okay.

Can I make a comment?

Yes.

First of all, I'm I'm I I sold insurance for years.

There's always an adage as this thing grows to if when the lease gets signed.

If you have a lease, no fireworks allowed.

That's gonna help you with your liability.

Make sure they've got insurance that it goes to the next one after that.

Um, and that solved the issue.

But and as Ian brought up, you know, you drive my car and get a ticket.

I don't get the ticket, you do.

Okay.

If I have an accident, yeah, I'm liable, but so you if you own the home, it's just a case of where this thing's going.

I don't think they're looking to just nail anybody, it's gonna go through due process.

So I I still think it's a super duper deterrent, and that's really what we need.

You have a comment.

Yeah, yeah.

My comment would be I I hear everybody's point here, and I I agree with everybody pretty much, but I think we definitely if if we're looking to take action on our part, I think we've heard the community and it needs to be progressive.

I think what I just heard from Sergeant Patrini would be what I would if we would if we were to take action, what I would approve would be we need to contact the people on site first, and that is that's what we're gonna do.

I think what he said they're gonna do, and what what you guys said that you know the the but what's what's written on paper are two different things.

So it's another tool in the toolbox, correct.

So I I hear what you're saying to contact the people on site, that's what we're going for.

If we can't get a hold of them, contact the owner of the property.

Okay, and he can he can give us access to the site.

If he says pound sand, then the third step would be discipline towards the homeowner.

But you know, I I heard the people, and I think that that that's you know, we don't want to just give carbon to write a check to write a citation of somebody who wasn't even who didn't even, the owner didn't know they're out of town, they're on vacation, they didn't know.

It should be we should we give a chance to get to that step.

Uh fireworks suppression details out of Eden Township.

I'd say 90% of the time when we went to a house, the people that lived there were the owners of the house.

Yeah, it was rare that it was a renter.

Now we have run across winter, so I'm not gonna say that that's never happened.

Um, but my direction to the guys based on how this reads is gonna be if you can't get the person there, find out who owns it.

If it's a rental property, find out who owns it.

If the owner doesn't live there, go contact them.

If they're cooperative and they give you all the info that you need to get the citation to that person, that's the direction it goes.

If the homeowner doesn't like the police and doesn't want to talk to us, then that's where the the ordinance falls the way it lays.

I don't think I think if you wrote it that way, I don't think you're you're gonna get 100% backing of it.

I don't think anybody's gonna have any problem with that.

If we if we were if we wrote it that way, I guess I'm not clear what would change because I heard it's a draft ordinance.

Yeah, but what would change from what you were talking about between what you were talking about and what um Sergeant Petrini was talking about?

We're talking about the same thing, yeah.

Basically, right?

Best practices in investigation, it's not codified, right?

It's just how we do business.

So we're just being transparent how we do our business.

I think the concern is being able to levy a citation to somebody who didn't have a homeowner who didn't have a chance to rectify it.

If he said pound sand, you know, get out here out like the cops.

Yeah, he's gonna get a citation.

But if you can't, if they go there, they can't contact him and they go, you know, the heck with it.

They can just send a citation to the homeowner, and I think people are supportive of that.

If I ever found out my guys just issued a citation to a homeowner without contacting that person over their rental property, I'm gonna be here most often because that's not what the intent of this is for.

Well, maybe this page will will help folks out.

So this is straight from the PowerPoint.

If an enforcement officer is unable to identify the responsible party or is enforcing this ordinance through report and serve techniques, the administrative citation shall be issued to the legal property owner and or legal occupants.

The property owner will be identified through the county assessor's office property records, and maybe uh post it on the property or mail to the residents.

If the property owner's uh legal mailing address is different from a violating address, a copy of the citation and notice the violation letter will be sent to that address as well.

Uh there's a civil penalties.

Pretty straightforward.

Um, but I do want to talk a little bit about uh the appeals process, right?

So there is this isn't just you're guilty and you are on the hook for this fine.

There's there is an appeals process here.

I really encourage you to read everything in this PowerPoint.

If the responsible party, property owner, and or legal occupants wish to appeal the administrative citation, again, not a criminal citation, not a vehicle code violation, uh, a penal code violation.

This is an a county ordinance, right?

If the responsible party, property owner, and or legal occupants wish to appeal the administrative citation, they must uh file an appeal within 10 calendar days from the date of the administrator's citation that it was issued by completing the form, returning it to ACSO, the BZA shall then conduct an administrative hearing within 45 calendar days from the date of appeal that the appeal was filed to ascertain whether a violation has occurred, and if so, the sanctions to be imposed, which may include civil penalties.

Administrative hearing by the BZA.

At the administrative hearing, the BZA shall hear and consider all relevant evidence, objections, or protests, and shall receive testimony under oath relative to such alleged violations.

The hearing may be continued from time to time.

The BCA's decision of any appeal may be sustained or determined to be unfounded.

Let's see.

Then the responsible party, property owner and or legal occupant may appeal the BZA's findings to the county of Alameda by filing an appeal with the clerk of the board of supervisors within 10 days.

Uh 10 calendar days of the BZA's decision.

So at the end of the day, the BZA is gonna hear this, and it and there is plenty of time and opportunity to contest if you are if you are a property owner.

Obviously, you don't have anything to do with it.

Does that make sense?

So is it you gave us this presentation in June?

Or maybe Sergeant Imperial did, but we saw this presentation in June.

No, this is a completely different presentation.

No, no, I a presentation on the on this effort.

That's what I meant.

Yeah, and and it seems to me you put a lot of effort into it.

You've really talked to a lot of people and made modifications and tried to make it so that it was workable and everything.

And I think the fire danger is just so great in unincorporated Alameda County that we have to do something, and I but I think the process you've gone through is to identify the best approach that you that can be done.

Um any other comment?

There's a comment online, okay.

Brenda, you may on you.

Yes, thank you.

Good evening.

Um, I'm a member of the Fairview community, and I just wanted to say maybe to quell the notion of the property owners being responsible.

The property owners are always responsible for the behavior of their tenants.

If your weeds are overgrown, uh code enforcement doesn't send a letter to the tenants, they send a letter to the property owner.

The property owners are responsible for the violation, every violation in the county.

The sheriff's department has gone one step further.

They will try to find the responsible party, talk to them, try to quell the situation before they ever involve the property owner, which I think is superior.

Up until this time in this presentation, every surrounding county and jurisdiction has this ordinance that the property owners will be responsible.

Um I'm gonna hand it to the sheriff's department, taking the extra step of trying to find who's uh who's actually firing off the fireworks and all that before they ever engage and cite the property owner.

This is normal.

The county doesn't do that.

If your weeds are overgrown, county's gonna reach out to you, and they're not gonna try to find out who your tenant is.

So please um just understand that this is a long time coming.

We're in a fire hazard zone.

We've all been re-rated as such in various addresses, and uh I just want to commend the sheriff's department for enacting or trying to enact with your cooperation, a citation provision that they are actually taking the extra step on trying to find out who the violator is, and the property owners can always appeal.

These things go before the zoning adjustments.

Thank you.

Okay, go.

Thank you.

Do you have any other comments?

Chairs, so I move we recommend that this moves forward to the board of supervisors.

I'll check at the connet.

Approve.

Council member McLean.

Approved.

Council member start.

Vice Chair Harrison.

Chair DeGran.

Motion passed.

Thank you very much.

We'll go on to item 4B, review the onsite wastewater treatment system downtown project alternatives.

And um Lily Walsh.

Was that for the last item?

Okay.

Lillia Walsh, Quest Engineering and Norm Hanshi will be giving the presentation.

They're going to be going through, they went through a couple of months ago.

Was that November?

Went through the alternatives and worked through some of the questions and issues and conversations and now have cost it out.

Very preliminary cost estimates for each of those alternatives, and so we'll have some more discussion about those.

If this is your first time hearing the options or the alternatives that we're studying for the wastewater management system, I would encourage you to grab one of the handouts that you can follow along on that information as I go through it because I'm kind of reviewing since we presented it one time previously.

So there's a stack over here if you're interested.

Yes.

All right, so we've been doing this visibility study.

Uh Norm and I at Quest Engineering, and we took kind of the study area, which is sorry, next slide for this one.

Um this is the the red outline is the area that we've looked at uh focusing around downtown Synol, and the three parcels that are highlighted in yellow are the areas where we're looking at putting some of the shared infrastructure that would support the community wastewater system.

Next slide.

So just to remind you all of the situation in Sinnol right now, everybody has an individual septic system or OWTS system at their parcel that serves their wastewater needs, and there's a diagram here sort of showing how that tends to work.

And next slide, please.

This is sort of the breakdown of what parcels in SNOL look like at this time.

So about 20% have a system that's up to code, and about 50% have no documented system with the environmental health department.

Um so we don't really know what everybody is working with in terms of what the status of their system is.

We just know that everybody is on some form of subject.

Next slide.

So we would like to propose some options that you all could consider as a community for what a community wastewater system could look like in Sinnol, and that would be a scenario where multiple properties would direct their wastewater to a centralized treatment location where it would be dispersed and treated together.

Um next slide.

We've looked at seven alternatives for Synol to consider that range from a very minimal situation to a much more intensive, robust community community wastewater system.

This is a summary of those, but we'll go into each of them with a bit more detail.

Um I wanted to note that a couple important caveats.

Um right now we're not totally clear how much of the bond street parcel will be available to house um this wastewater infrastructure, and so as we get that more clarified, we'll be updating alternatives to reflect that.

I also wanted to note that all the costs are estimates, and so we did our best to get as accurate as we could based on our knowledge of um specificities of Synol, the distances that piping would need to cover, how many different components we would need, and we talked with the people that produce those materials and asked them to sort of give us their best guess of what that cost would look like.

So we did very exhaustive um estimating, and you know that'll be a part of the full report that you all get to review as well.

So this is a bit of a high level summary, um, but that a lot of estimating work went into these numbers, all right.

Next slide.

So starting with alternatives one and two, these are kind of our lowest infrastructure ones, they have no built infrastructure at all, they're just uh uh community management districts.

So we'll go into alternative one, next slide.

So alternative one is there's no project, nothing happens that's different from what's going on right now.

So everybody continues to have their on-site wastewater systems.

They manage them on their own, they're responsible to environmental health for any red tagging or compliance issues, any failures that they have, they have to fix on their own cost.

So that's how things are functioning now.

So that's an option for CINOL.

We don't want to change anything, we're continuing as we are.

So that's the status quo.

Alternative two is a step above that.

So we would be forming a community wastewater district that would be tasked with managing the review of everybody's septic systems.

So having an inspection of everybody's septic systems to assess what their status is and then moving them all towards code compliance.

So you would be tasked to improve your system if it was found to be in failure or lacking.

And the goal of that would be to increase the quality overall of all of the septic systems within that study area.

So again, there's no built infrastructure in that scenario.

It's more of a collaboration in the community to try to improve the situation overall.

There would potentially be site-specific policies that might be a little bit more flexible or appropriate for SINOL that would be different from the environmental health standards, which might allow some more flexibility for meeting the codes.

And there could also potentially be funding that could be secured to support the cost of the improvements that would be triggered by that review.

So next slide.

Alternative one, again, those costs are very variable because it's just as it is right now.

So some people aren't putting any money into maintaining their septic, others are putting a lot of money into it because they want to upgrade and expand their house.

So big range of costs, and all that would be individual.

There would be no shared costs there.

You would say the big number.

Yeah, so the range would be from zero dollars to a hundred and two thousand if you were going to put in a new giant system.

An annual operations and maintenance costs would again range from zero dollars to a thousand seven hundred, depending on if you're like a large commercial system that is due reporting.

So again, these are these are the same types of costs you all are facing now.

Alternative two, there'd be higher costs because every site would be reviewed, every SEPI system would be reviewed, which would trigger more repairs.

And so for that one, we expect there to be over the next 10 or 20 years, about five million costs over all the study area, and we would average that out to about 56,000 per household for those repairs and upgrades costs.

Again, that those would vary dramatically.

Some people have would have no additional costs because their systems already up to code, others would have significant changes to make to get a functioning system.

And then we'd expect some operations and maintenance costs as well, averaging about 1,400 per household.

All right, moving on to alternatives three and four.

These are alternatives in which public bathrooms would be added to the downtown Synol area.

So there'd be two bathrooms, one at Niles Canyon and one at Depot Gardens.

And both of these provide that, they don't have uh the same comprehensive look at the whole study area.

They're more focused on the downtown.

So this would not be getting into residential parcels.

Um if we go to the next slide.

So three is more minimal, it would just be adding these public restrooms and connecting them to the existing leech field and depot gardens as minimally as possible with very little additional infrastructure, some upgrading of the manifold in the leech field, but not a lot of other changes.

Alternative four is more robust.

There would be a rebuilding of the leech field so it would have more capacity, and that would be a great way to move towards a larger community system while still meeting those immediate short-term needs for a public bathroom in downtown.

Um, next slide.

So, yeah, just to highlight alternative four is a really great option to move towards a community system.

Um, it would allow a couple of really important things besides the bathrooms being there, it would also allow parking over the depot gardens leech field, which we know has been a desire for the community, and there'd be some additional capacity created by that upgrading of the leech field, which could be used to support small businesses in downtown SNOL that have operations that are outpacing the size of their septic.

So they'd be able to pay a fee to uh take some of their effluent out of their septic tank and put it into that community leech field if they paid into that system.

So that would help a lot of short-term needs that the community's been dealing with and move you all towards a larger, more robust system as well.

All right, next slide.

This is just a diagram of where those bathrooms would be located and the leech field as it is now, and then with the expansion that we're proposing, which is a little bit more leech line and a tank as well.

And we'd be trying to use existing infrastructure as much as possible, including the existing line that connects um Sinnal Town Center building with the leech field as it is now.

Alright, so alternative three, again, this is the low uh sort of low infrastructure version of public bathrooms, just adding them and connecting them to the existing leech field.

It's about 909,000 for all of that work, and we expect at least 35, sorry, 35,000 for annual operations and maintenance of those bathrooms.

And this one again does not allow parking over the uh leech field, only alternative four would allow that.

All right, next slide.

So alternative four again, a bit higher cost because we're going to be rebuilding that leech field and creating a larger capacity, so about a million six hundred thousand for that, and then operations and maintenance around 44,000 a year.

We expect.

And there's a diagram there of the modified trenches.

We would be increasing the depth and uh sort of stability of the trenches so they would have greater capacity and you can park on top of them.

All right, so then we're moving into alternatives five through seven, and these ones are community-wide wastewater management systems.

These are our biggest, most robust options, and this is the um the most comprehensive residential, commercial, and mixed use, would all be served by this.

All right, next slide.

All three of these have some form of collection system, either conventional gravity or effluent only.

They have a treatment uh facility, which would allow that wastewater to be treated before it's dispersed into the soil, and that would either be an MBR package plant or an advanced system.

And then the disposal in both scenarios would be leech fields on the existing ones on Depot Gardens with a little bit of expansion and potentially some leech field on Bond Street as well.

Um, and there'd be a management district form to manage these programs across the service area.

All right, next slide.

It's probably easy to read on your sheet, but this is a summary of those three options.

So uh alternative five has an effluent sewer system and advantex.

Um, six has conventional sewer and an MBR package plant, and seven has a combination system, so that means it collects both effluent and uh sewage or raw sewage, and then it could either be an advantex or an MBR.

So that one's kind of a combination of the two.

Next slide.

This is alternative five, and the capital cost are is about seven million.

Um, and that would cause so there so this would be shared across the households within the service area.

Obviously, this would vary a bit depending on who opts in to the system, right?

If not many people do, higher should have costs.

If more people do, that's more distributed.

So we're estimating a range of about 49,000 to 64,000 per household, which would be paid out over 30 years at roughly 2,500 a year to 3,200 a year.

Um, there'd be some OM costs as well.

We expect that to cost about 1,400 per household to 1,800 per household.

Again, this is an effluent system with an advanced tech treatment uh facility.

These numbers again assume everybody in the service area participates, which is probably not going to be the case.

And these costs include the work that I mentioned in alternative four that would expand the leech field capacity.

So that's an essential part of the community system.

So it's its numbers are represented here as well.

All right, next slide.

This is alternative six, so this is a sewer, uh gravity sewer with the MBR package plant.

MBR treatment facility has the capacity to treat the water much more intensely than advantex, so it's it's a more robust treatment center, but also higher cost.

So this one's about eight million total, and the range for household payouts would be 56,000 to 73,000 over 30 years, looking at about 3,000 to 3,700 per year of costs.

And there'd be some on lot costs for this one as well.

So when you have a sewer, you pay to connect to the sewer.

So you'd have to pay for the installing of a lateral from your septic or your house, sorry, to the sewer.

So that costs would be dependent on your location and your parcel.

Again, and also operations and maintenance costs around 1,600 to 2,200 a year, we expect.

So you might need to abandon a septic tank or put in a lateral or a grinder pump.

So those are some of the costs that would happen on site.

All right, next slide.

And this is our last one, alternative seven.

This is the one where there's a combination of uh effluent system and gravity sewer, and you could do either an MBR or advantage system to treat it.

Um looking at seven thousand, sorry, seven million five hundred thousand roughly, and that's fifty-four thousand to seventy thousand per household over 30 years, um, two thousand seven hundred to three thousand five hundred roughly um for those annual payments.

And then the OM we expect to be around one thousand four hundred to two thousand three hundred per household, sorry.

Um again, assuming 100% participation.

So these numbers will change in the reality of if you guys were to choose as a community to go forward with one of these alternatives.

Um, there'd be a whole process of decision making and opting into that.

So these numbers would change.

Um, but this is our best guess at this time.

All right, so the this slide just compares those costs we went over for those community-wide systems, five, six, and seven.

Um, and it shows sort of yeah, the high level review of all of those options.

Um the annual assessments for those as well.

I know that was a lot of information.

Um, so yeah, happy to answer questions, and I encourage you to like take a look at the handouts as well to familiarize yourself because it's a lot of detail there.

So I think I'd like to do is have like the council ask questions first and then have public comments after that.

Do you want to?

Yeah, I mean just really quick because mine's real simple.

I just going back to uh alternative costs.

Number five, annual ownership and maintenance cost, 200.

Well, no, I think about the one it was number six that's buried me because I'm not good at math, so it's easy number.

Ownership and maintenance costs about two hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars.

That's annually, um, yes.

So the OM costs are all annual.

So 20 grand a month-ish.

Um so this is for the whole system.

So that so it would be per household, and that's what the number underneath the 1,600.

So the buttons for the whole system, but 20,000 a month.

Yeah.

What is that?

What does that look like?

Is that we we are we is it staff?

Is it well?

What where do you come up with uh not per household?

The two hundred and forty thousand thousand dollars a month.

What is what is being bought with that money?

Is it labor?

Is it supplies, is it all the above?

What are we looking at?

Right, right.

Yeah, so the the MBR does have a higher maintenance cost than the advantex.

Um, and so part of it would be there'd probably be a part-time or full-time potentially person that would manage that.

Um also this would cover permitting inspection, testing of water to make sure that there isn't a negative impact of running the leash field.

Um, what else wouldn't do that norm?

I think that's the majority of the cost, but we we'll be sharing the full breakdown of all of these too.

So this is kind of like a high level summary.

Are there any other major elements?

There's a would be a replacement fund for your um you have you have funds on hand for replacement of parts over time or elements of the the MVR.

I don't know if you're familiar with the membrane bioreactor, but it's basically a very um it's a a filtration system uh that pulls the it aerates the water and then it pulls the water through a fine membrane to a tertiary level.

So it's really high high quality water.

Uh that's why the costs are for more for that.

But there's usually a couple of days a week for an operator to be on site to observe and and uh we're looking at a pie chart, like a pie chart of the two of the of the twenty thousand a month or the or the two hundred and forty thousand dollars a year, a good chunk of it's labor.

It's it's people it's people doing work uh to maintain that and and maintain permits and test water and do okay.

Inspection testing, maintenance, not actually, you know, there's some parts, but mostly it's people's labor.

Got it.

Thank you so much.

So what I what I see here are a number of alternatives, and some of them can be implemented on a gradual basis, so we could implement installing restrooms at the Niles Canyon Railway and getting rid of the port-a potties.

We can install a restroom at the park, and that would allow more activities at the park, movie nights, that type of thing, which right now you have to bring in the porta-potties for that, and it discourages a lot of people from using it.

Um we've been working on revitalizing the downtown area for a couple of years now for at least four years since we found that plan.

And when I met with a business that wanted to refurbish the cafe and have a beer garden in the back, they went through the parking.

Well, there's 75 parking places here, 25 here, and if the Casabella has any vent and Bosco's has that is full, there's no parking, and parking really discouraged the lack of parking really discouraged them from coming in and refurbishing the cafe and bringing that business into the downtown area.

So I'm really attracted to option four, which would actually I think dig the trenches for the leech fields deeper and have make it capable that we could have parking in the Sun Old Depot Gardens.

That parking would be available to the schools and the parents, especially during the school construction that's coming up, and that's gonna take the parking lot almost all of the parking lot during the construction.

Um it would help make the area more attractive for businesses, and I think it would be really taking us a long ways or a lot closer to being able to revitalize the downtown area.

Um we the photos that we have of the bit of that she showed us of the restrooms, they don't that's just an example from the owners from the vendors' brochure, but we could make them look like Sunol.

Um, I talked to the train people who are now paying for the maintenance of the porta-potties, and they're willing to put in that money to the maintenance of the bathrooms.

And we could they don't want it to look like a Victorian train station, but they're excited about maybe making it look like the 1926 Sunol Glen School.

I'm finding that the tile roof of Sunol Glen School will have to be removed to replace that membrane, and they may not have the bond money to put the tiles back on the roof for the school.

Maybe we can put those tiles on the restroom and put a plaque that would at least save, save a few of those tiles on the restroom in the bathroom, and it would be reflective of the time period of CNO.

Um, so I I'm really excited about the options, the short-term options that that this gives us of revitalizing the downtown, and at the same time, the town can continue to have a conversation about options five, six, and seven.

That would take years anyway, because of the EIR and fundraising and identifying that and making sure that people are truly supportive of it, but we can do we can implement part of it now and get the direct benefits immediately to the community.

So I I find it really exciting and encouraging to hear to hear what you've done.

Would be the idea to have them open 24 hours.

We can decide to do it any way we want.

I know the Pleasanton locks them down at sunset.

I think East Bay Regional Parks locks them down at sunset, and then they're opened at 8 a.m.

Is that just is that uh on a timer type just does automatically or it's okay?

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, and there's a peak pad on it, key code.

So you could.

If you had the code, you could give it a and they may come in and maintain it every Tuesday in one park and Thursday in another park.

The reason I ask is we had the we had the bathrooms that had the uh what's what's a better term to use them they have they got blown up, right?

Yeah, the porta potty got a lot of vandalized.

I think what we thought you're saying is really good in terms of when you see the progress that happens and all of a sudden you've got a nice bathroom when this is going on.

People get enthusiastic and most passionate about it.

Oh, what's going on with you want to get more involvement rather than what's going on?

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Being unincorporated as we are, maybe this would be a question for um Sean.

You know, if you have a bathroom, they're gonna get used.

And if if something you know happens in the bathroom and then somebody passing through and they leave, something happens, you know how how would that, who would be responsible for who would we call saying, hey, we need to clean up on aisle seven.

There's been an incident in one of the bathrooms, you know, rather than you know, it's not it's not pleasant, it's not livermore, it's not Dublin.

Who do we call?

How quickly could we assume that somebody could come there?

Can we lock it and say out of order?

Can a community do that?

Because if there's some something happening there, I know we can talk through all those things, but I'm asking in case they've already been talked through so I could get it together.

I know, and and Jim is not here who talks about the Snow Depot Gardens, but yes.

What Pleasanton has been doing and the park's been doing, they lock it if there's a problem.

In our case, that land is licensed to Niles Canyon Railway.

So they right now have them pay the fee to maintain the board bodies, and they'll apply it to these.

They have said they will apply it to these restrooms.

It's not in writing, but they're excited about the whole idea.

Yeah, the OM costs for that one as well include maintenance, but it was just an estimated, you know, kind of baseline, but we assume that there'd be some regular maintenance uh for at least cleaning and repair.

Thinking of uh what if uh immediate maintenance is required.

Yeah, and that happens, that will happen.

We have we have experience with that happening here downtown, um, with bathrooms.

So if the boss goes, it's happened, yeah.

So who goes who goes in there with the rubber gloves and and uh take care of it?

Yeah, and if it's if it's not part of somebody's business, if it's a community deal, you know, we're gonna have it.

We're gonna have it, we want to be proud of it, and part of the pro being proud of something like this is that it's clean and presentable all the time and want to be sure that it stays that way.

So that's like we'll take those issues that happen now, like uh-oh, well, we we need something to happen in the cool right now.

So um used to be regional parks.

I see the rangers there in the morning, checking out the bathrooms, replacing the supplies, um, making sure they're clean at the city of Pleasanton.

I see a little band that says imperial services on it, and that's all they do is they just do public bathrooms everywhere.

Make the route.

Yeah, so it's certainly not inventing it.

We're not gonna be the first ones to have this.

That's why I asked and I know somebody somebody's had this, and I didn't I we've never had it, so I don't try to kind of learn myself how how it works.

Yeah, when you figure that like your annual ownership maintenance cost of 44,000, how often what when is it what does that include with how often is somebody visiting those and cleaning them?

I said roughly twice a week.

Twice a week.

That's what I've built in, but we can obviously adjust that based on these conversations about how you want to, you know, or we don't know.

We we think we might know, but then we do it, and we didn't know, and if they're used way way different than we thought they would be.

So I appreciate the information and thoughtfulness.

Thank you.

Yeah, and I think Connie, what you said is accurate.

If the community wants to be on a trajectory towards having a more robust wastewater management program, alternative four is a great first step because you're allowing parking, you're allowing the public bathrooms to be available downtown, you're allowing some extra capacity to be built into that leech field that you already have, and that capacity can be used as we call like a pump and hall system.

So businesses could pay to pump some of their effluent into that leach field to help them continue to operate beyond the capacity of their separate system.

Um, and then if you you know develop the funding and/or will to build a more robust system, you've already done a big part of the infrastructural improvements, but if that didn't happen, you know, you would have that capacity to use however you wanted or needed to as a community as well.

So it's a great path forward for some initial major improvements, and it's not wasted activity or wasted money, because that is usable as it is, or as it would be for the later project larger projects if we decide to go forward with that.

Yeah, the full capacity of those modifications would be reached once treatment was added, but there's massive improvements short term as well.

Were these also were these designed in mind where let's say you know 30 years from now something happens and we did some somehow I'm not anywhere, don't anybody get excited, but like we decided okay, we're gonna get on a main sewer system, we're gonna connect to Pleasant and we're gonna do this.

If you know, that would not be anywhere on the map right now, but if that was to happen, could these be upgraded to that, or would it need to be kind of all started all a new process?

I mean I would assume that any improvements to the infrastructure could be beneficial, but I don't know what do you think for the terms of that.

Probably it would if you did put uh sewers in the street for any maybe even just small parts of the town, that would be a step toward a tying into the Pleasanton or you know, or to another another facility, but the leach field itself, um uh not you have probably probably would be uh outloaded or outdated if you know down the road if you were tying it to the larger system.

So far away in time, yeah.

And I I've had people ask me, you know, about you know the downtown revisation and the sewer, I'm sorry, the septic, and do this.

Could it tie in potentially to a sewer system down the road?

Uh and without you know having to just scrap it and start over anew, you know, and I mean I agree, it's way far down the road, but I thought I'd ask.

Yeah, so the the line collection lines within the community would still be useful, as would the laterals if people chose to join into that and built laterals on their own parcels, you know, that would all allow them to connect into the sewer, but the leash field itself is more of a short term or not short, but indefinite term where there's not a sewer connection, that's where it's useful.

So the the infrastructure going from people's people's um homes or businesses, that infrastructure going to the leech field, that infrastructure could be reused.

But where it's going, the leech field, that would be it's like either going to a leech field or to the sewer, yeah.

So we have a stack of people.

Sorry, so is that a public comment?

But I just asked um a presenter to have make a public correction just for the record on alternative two right here, the costs, like it's missing a digit.

I'm sorry, can you say that again?

The cost right here.

Um I think there should be another digit, correct?

Oh, is it typo?

Gotcha.

Okay.

Sure we can.

Yeah, thank you for that.

Yeah, there should be another zero at the end of the first one.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um are there any hands up on the online answer.

Okay.

Um do you want to I see.

Can you have a your hand up, but I don't have a card for me to put it?

Yeah, we're I can't hear anything that you said tonight.

But um, I looked at the report from question.

And I think you should know that as far as I can tell it to offer a good job for your.

Thank you.

I did just have a gank study for the more value.

Again, for two or three counties and several water resource control boards.

I just simple and she describes the cost and the reason.

Josh.

Thank you, Ken.

Um maybe we need some blank cards of people.

So I know what you're like.

And I respect your judgment since that's been the business that you've been in for I don't know, 20, 30 years, 40 years.

More than I've been alive, but more than 65 years.

Okay.

Okay.

Rod size.

I go last.

You want to go last?

Okay.

Bob Frillman.

You're up.

You're up there with you.

Whatever you'd like.

I'm Bob Frillman, live on Foothill Road in Sinol.

Uh, I was outside with the deaf with the sergeant, and I'm sure you probably said uh I heard you throwing around numbers about hookup fees and maintenance fees and cost per year.

How many people are you assuming are gonna sign up for this ride in the park?

Or are you gonna be forced to hook up to whatever winds up getting decided, as they've done in other unincorporated areas?

Yeah, no one would be forced to join.

Uh so the community would have to decide that this is something that they wanted to pursue, and then if that was chosen, then there would still be an individual parcel decision to join.

Um, who joins or how many people join would affect the cost, obviously, but it wouldn't be compulsory to join.

Um, what number did you have in mind when you so the study area we looked at is about a little bit more than 100 parcels?

Um so that's what we were working from.

So we assumed for these estimates that everyone would opt in.

So that's um, yeah, there's there's some of those parcels are not there's no uh facilities on them, they're county owned, or their railroad or their easement.

Some of them are uh residential, some are commercial, some are mixed use.

So everything that's in that red boundary in the first map uh we considered a part of this uh system for the estimate purposes.

So there were a hundred uh hundred potential hookups or potential sites to hook up, and there were only 50 houses built on those hundred sites.

Your numbers would double.

Am I correct?

So we did another, so these estimates are 100% estimates, which is like everyone who has a septic system within the study area would be opting in, but we also did a 50% estimate, which is about half of the residential uh parcels decide to join, and that would be a different set of numbers, like lower cost but also higher proportional shares.

So that'll be a part of our full report, and um it'll break down the the 50% scenario.

Okay, thank you.

Shame on me for not having stayed on top of this more as it unfolded.

Um, here it is.

Well, this the study area, I think she showed a map in the very beginning of it, and it only goes up through the button property, the old button historical on foothill.

Right, right.

So how far as I remember the this the whole party started way back when, and when I guess Dylan hired these guys to do a study we hired him in in Kilcare, um, what three, four years ago, two, three years ago.

Uh and it was because supposedly their receptive systems leaking into Sinbad Creek, which was subsequently found to be not true, uh, or no, no coliform bacteria present in in Sinbad.

Point of order.

Time.

Time.

May I have point of order?

This sounds like town hall to me, and we're getting a lot of criticism from outside this room about being town hall.

This is like comment.

I'm sorry, I'm not talking to you.

I'm talking to the chair, and I said, This looks like town hall.

I suggest that we manage this the way the county wants us to manage it.

Question and I'm gonna leave it to the board to the chair to do that, but this is not what the county wants us to do.

So Bobby Bob, your time was up is up, and what the county wants us to do is what we always do, right?

Andrew, I will leave it to this man to answer.

Yeah, I just went to him and I asked him, was this town hall?

And he said this is town hall.

So if you want to ask, it's him.

Yeah, good.

Thank you, Andrew.

Ken Horton, would you would you like to come up to the podium or would you like to speak from there?

No, she's there.

I'll stay here.

Okay.

Um, how many people on the board are paying into the system if it passes?

If it goes, hands, please.

None, thank you.

I'm okay.

So maybe half the people, and we've got four uh commercial type things are gonna have way more than 50% of the capacity, and I'm looking at from your numbers, about 200 to 250,000 over time for this.

Probably more because in a few years, the maintenance will go up.

Things will start to fail, things will cost more.

And we've taken a really small amount of people in town, parcels, some of them may not even pay because there's nothing on them.

And we want to have that subsidize a couple of things in town and utilize that creek.

Um Dylan Rowe was just here, and Dylan Rowe's words to us from Environmental Hope were that a concrete wall is the gold standard, unless you have a problem with perk, you have a problem with not enough room, or you have some type of a hill or something near the creek.

So for a lot of people, and you cannot get on this system without having a concrete wall.

So if you don't have it, you have to replace yours, and all these are upfront cash out-of-pocket costs to those who will have to go that way.

If the county wants this, why isn't the county putting in money for this?

Or if the board that doesn't have to pay wants it, why don't we come up with something where the Snow community makes money, looks at a bond, looks at a grant or something.

Thank you.

So one thing I want to mention is that uh the paying into the cost would be proportional to the strength of your flows or the volume of your flows.

So large commercial operations would pay more than a residence significantly.

They would pay proportional to that.

I didn't see that in there, but it's not it's not in there.

It's not in there.

Um that this is just a high-level summary, but that it that work is being done.

So we've done very exhaustive analysis of the flows of each uh commercial facility, and so that's what we use to size um kind of the equivalent number of residences that a commercial parcel would pick.

Just a second, let me just say one other thing.

In terms of funding, this is just to summarize the costs.

Um, and it's just our best, you know, our best work to do that.

But the next phase of this work is to look at sort of how could these systems be managed and how but funding could be available.

So uh we are assuming that there would be some funding from other sources, not just people paying in directly only.

We would expect that there would be some pursuit of grants or money from the county.

We do anticipate that that would be the case, um, but we're just capturing what the raw costs are here.

So hopefully, after the completion of the whole report, we'll have a better sense of what you might be able to pursue in terms of funding, but we do expect there'll be other sources.

Um, thank you.

Um, some of the places you've talked about now aren't we?

Okay, do you want to?

Let's wait, wait until everybody gets to make their comments, okay, and then we can come back.

I did.

Sorry, okay.

Fraud.

Oh, I'm I'm in.

Okay.

Oh, you wanted to be after Andrew?

Okay.

Yeah.

Um, I do want to comment that.

Um, like I trust Ken's judgment better than mine, but I also really appreciate the upgrade and clarity from Quest uh, I'm feeling really good about the the money that uh has been invested to get to this point.

Um Connie's points of that we have a real parking problem in this town are real.

We need to be able to park over it in the area where the leech field is in is an issue.

The other one is everyone is in Sinnol, there's a risk of hit having a hundred thousand dollar hit, and some of the people who are living up on Kilcare Road are ponying up $70,000 to fix their particular problem.

And so I know this doesn't necessarily solve all of that, but it's a step toward understanding, and I want to uh give my appreciation for for the fact that we have a menu now of some numbers to work with.

Um, but to my point earlier, and and I apologize to you about calling it out in the moment because I'm I've been town hall for years.

This has been for as long as I've been here, it's been town hall, but there's criticism from outside that the county doesn't want us to be have downhall.

And so I'm learning too to keep my comments within the two minutes.

It's it's hard.

Um so I apologize to you for the moment because we're all adjusting to that.

However, to my I believe that this process, uh, one thing that I do want to say is I think we do need to have something like a town hall, or we need to have some offline meeting where we're allowed to really express and talk and and discuss this.

I don't think this is the forum to solve this problem.

And uh, so I would suggest a work study group of some kind where community involvement can be done.

Thank you for your respect and attention.

Hey, Ronnie Advice here, speaking as a resident again.

Um, like a lot of things I heard today tonight.

Um, again, this is looks like an informational item, not an action item.

Um, I'm assuming I'm correct.

This is information.

We're just talking about it.

Um, something I things I've heard in the past isn't where I think myself is who's paying for this long term and short term.

Where is the money coming from and who is actually paying and where's the money coming from?

Um, something that's very important that I did hear was that you won't be forced to be in on.

If you don't want to be in on it, you don't have to do it.

That's the first time I've heard that.

Um, I can tell you right now I knew three RS is off the top of my head, but they're all neighbors.

They're they want to be out.

Just like I can actually tell you who they are, but they do not want to be in it.

So I guarantee right now I know three people went out.

I only talked about five people about this in that area.

Um, and another issue you guys have to realize is that when you're doing stuff to take lines, you're talking about this my part, I have to go through my neighbor's property.

So I'm up on a hill, some of some other people here.

If you won't hook up to a city sewer, I think it's more of a city type sewer or Synol only, you're gonna have to go through your property of your neighbors.

Okay, that's a lot of the money right there.

Also, you have me, I have electrical lines on the ground, gas lines on the ground.

Now I have to go around where my easements are.

There's a lot more to it for some people, it doesn't affect most people in a downtown area, but it could affect some.

I always want to keep that in mind.

But the most important thing I heard tonight is that I don't want to uh to hold you to it.

Is that no one will be forced to be in on, and that's and now I'm moral supportive because in the past I'm like, no, I don't I don't agree with this.

With that information, then I'm more supportive of the idea because I love to have some stuff done downtown, especially at the parts of stuff.

I think it's a great idea, but in the past, I had the image that you're being forced to do it.

Thank you.

Um yeah, just to follow up that I agree there's a big variety of how easy it will be for various homes or parcels to connect given the topography and the distance.

So definitely that was something we were looking at in our study, and I just want to reiterate these are just options for Synol to consider, right?

We're not pushing you all to do one or the other, right?

Um, we're just sort of presenting this is what we think might be feasible given your unique community and situation.

Here's things for you all to think about.

And um, we think there's a lot of variety in that, right?

There's no project, you don't do anything.

There's several options that would improve things without putting in a giant system, and then there's giant systems that would serve the needs of the community in long-term ways.

So those are all available to consider, but we're just presenting those and setting them for you so that there's a little bit more to chew on.

So thank you.

And now, I think all of us are okay if you don't want to be in the system, but we're trying to revitalize the downtown.

So, okay.

Um, did you want to say something?

I just want some clarity.

Um, to make sure I understand, you know, you you you spoke and you said you you were very supportive of alternative four.

And I want to make sure I understood alternative four.

All there's no cost to anybody for that at all, other than SCAC, Niles Canyon, maybe the county gets a grant, something like that.

That's just a starting point.

All these other options and stuff folks are talking about that that may or may not ever happen.

Not we're we're only talking about the potential of the bathroom is kind of what we're thinking we might be looking at right now.

And there are there are some businesses that aren't represented at this meeting in downtown.

There are quite a few business and property owners who are interested in it.

So there might be just them, you know.

But that's a ways off.

That's but we're looking at the only thing we're looking at in the near term is potentially a bathroom with the adventure with took like Lego brick off of the bathroom at some point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

You would it would allow you to do some infrastructural improvements that would be beneficial long term.

Okay, thank you very much.

I just wanted to I didn't see any cost of a uh per purpose.

So the full picture of how this would be funded is we haven't answered that yet, but we would assume that there would be pursuit of various county or grant funding to support it, but we haven't kind of done that stage of the analysis yet.

We're just estimating the costs.

Thank you for everything you've done.

If I may ask to piggyback on your question, something like alternative four does not include residential or businesses, it is just for bathrooms, parking lots.

Some business, sorry, some business benefit, yeah.

It would have some business.

Would have some business benefits, but there's not any connection to your business other than Isles Canyon Road.

Yeah, there's no connection.

This is just a standalone system for the bathroom.

Yeah, the straight so that well, yeah, they're already connected to it.

Yes.

I think sound century would continue to be connected.

The two public bathrooms would be downtown and benefit Niles Canyon as well.

And then there would be some additional capacity created by the upgrading of the leech field that could be sort of rented out as like a pump and hall program, and that would allow downtown businesses that have operations beyond their septic capacity to direct some of their effluent to the leach field.

Um, so that would be a small benefit as well to the commercial properties, but they wouldn't be directly tied in here.

Any other thoughts?

Nope, not on this.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, that's good.

And the next, what is the there's memo?

This is memo four that you've completed for our contract.

There's a memo five, I believe.

And what is that going to entail?

So that one gets into management questions.

How could these programs be managed?

And then what financial avenues could be pursued for funding?

Uh, and then we get everything that we've done so far gets wrapped into a final report, which is just all the memos together with whatever updates need to happen at that point.

So if we were to have the money to identify the source of money or sources of money, um, and we wanted to move ahead with alternative four and build the restrooms and work on the leech field.

Could that be done in time to provide parking for the school?

Because when the school construction is going on, they're losing their parking lot.

When does that happen next fall?

Or this fall, fall of 26.

I don't know, Norm, what do you think?

It's gonna last for a couple years, probably.

Right.

Yeah, that would that would mean um that yeah, that the money would have to come together.

Um, and I guess the determination by the board of supervisors to support that project, probably and finance that work.

Uh, would require some planning approvals and then engineering design and then bidding of the project and construction.

So I think it's uh probably a little overly optimistic to think that that could be done before the fall, but possibly late in the year.

But I think it would within the timeline of the school being closed, yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, thank you very much.

Do we have any other comments?

No online comments.

Okay, uh, Dylan, did you want to weigh in at all?

Um, no, I think you all did a great job.

I think, you know, this is your community and um the options that you guys want to look at.

I think um, I think the phasing um and the benefit uh to the downtown read revitalization, right?

And getting parking, uh getting public restrooms, having some ability for uh businesses to do pumpkin hall uh without connection at some point in the future.

I I think it gives you a lot of flexibility and uh gives you options to think about uh from from a greater perspective if you ever want to pursue it, but in uh sense of you know what I'm hearing the community wanting to do with downtown.

I think I think that they really have there are really some good options here for you guys to consider, and then again it's uh I want to just chime in on the timeline for approvals.

Um you know we're we're I'm not clear what kind of planning approvals would be required, so you know that'd be a thing to engage the planning department in this.

I don't think anybody from the planning department is here tonight, are they?

Tonight, no.

So I think uh probably it'd be good Connie for us to get uh, you know, get this in front of them ASAP, uh just to get a sense of what that kind of timing looks like and what do they need to do as far as CEQA goes, because they might have to do some kind of mitigated neg deck, but I think that's probably the most important thing to nail down in that in the sequel in the timing of how fast could this get implemented, and then also then there would be the questions and and this because uh you know this is a county, so counties have process, right?

So then the other piece is uh a bid and a construction bid.

And I'm not sure how that would get bid out, uh what that process is.

That could be lengthy.

And so I'm not sure who would be doing that.

Who would uh would it be public works that would be uh you know issuing a contract?

So I think we should start that conversation just to inform some of this for timelines, at least get people engaged in that.

Okay, thank you very much.

Sure.

Who is that?

That's chief of environmental health water and land division, correct?

That is correct.

Okay, thank you very much.

I appreciate you coming all the way from Richmond, putting that together for us, okay.

So let's go on to 4C update regarding the Royal Day Laguna Bridge replacement project.

We're gonna meet KB SAN2.

And I've you told me your name and I've already forgotten.

That's awesome.

Scott, you know, I think we all know.

Oh, I think you're just on the reading.

Oh, you can done.

Oh, it's all any and all.

Good evening, everybody.

Um, give you some little project manager on the upcoming project.

And uh with me Mr.

Scott, he will be the resident engineer in charge of the construction for the project.

So uh we have prepared some um presentation slides just to describe the upcoming project and uh to see uh show you guys the staging and uh some of the aspects of the project.

So as we know the project is in um, it's gonna be off uh any four on the uh, yeah.

All right, uh, all right, next slide.

Oh, next slide, all right, so the project uh back.

Yeah.

So the project was uh initially advertised in September of 2025 with the brid opening that happened in uh November of 2025, and it got the approval in January last month, and now we have contactor on board, Geradi Construction Company, and we are expecting the contractor to put foot on the ground in April in the coming months.

So they're gonna start some initial work at that time, and we have some timeline restrictions to go in the creek.

Also, we'll talk more on them.

So basically, we are expecting uh some work to start on uh in April.

Next, so the reason we needed this project uh the bridge was a scar critical, it has some issues uh that we are anticipating uh for the erosion for the footings, and uh to meet the new seismic standards.

We have to do the replacement of the bridge.

The project uh we are talking is uh three seasons about 625 working days, plus 250 additional days that will happen after the completion of the project for the plant establishment period.

There will be some pre-removal work that will happen to facilitate the new bridge, and uh that will be compensated with the uh plant establishment uh work that will happen.

Uh, there is a restriction of work window to work in the creek typical window to work that allowed is uh from June 1st to October 15th.

After that time uh there will be uh no work in the creek itself.

All the bridge work for the foundation will be happening through the creek, so that's the time period that has been given to us from the environmental agencies.

So, a little bit about the bridge work.

Uh so that this is uh accelerated bridge construction where uh most of the work uh most of the most of the stuff the girders and uh some other parts of the bridge will be pre-castered somewhere else to minimize the time frame that will happen uh for the work on the site.

So those those girders will be built somewhere else, and they will be brought in and placed here.

Uh like I said, there will be three stages and three seasons for the bridge.

The existing bridge is a six-span bridge, and uh the new bridge will be three span uh more longer spans means less interference of the piers in the creek.

Currently, we are looking at about four set of tiers in the creek, and the new bridge will have two.

I'll show you the some rendering and other pictures in the next slides.

So, um, one step back.

So, in the end, we will have we'll get uh two 13 foot lanes on the deck with a two feet median, two nine feet shoulders, plus a 17 feet bike and pedestrian uh walkway along the bridge, which will be on the south side of the bridge to take care of the safety that uh 17 feet sidewalk and bike uh path will be separated with the help of a barrier, and it will go to the south side of the bridge.

So during this full during this full construction period, we will we will have uh sometimes we will need full closures, so there's a provision in the project for the full closures, uh especially on the main street, uh traffic going from the main street towards 84.

So we don't want uh people to be coming on to the 84 from the main street side.

Very short, very short portion of that, and uh also we will have uh opportunity to use if needed, uh, three 55 hour closures, three 355 hour long-term closures.

Uh, we thought when we need to uh install the girders, do a big term demolition of the bridge.

We might need a long-term uh closure of the area, and that's when we will uh use that 55 hour closure window.

Again, it is set up in the project to facilitate, and uh the contactor just came on board.

We'll keep you guys updated if we are using it or not, but it is there.

Uh one more item is we we also have a have the SFUC waterline relocation project uh north of our bridge, and somehow we were hoping that uh either they would be done first or we will come late, or but now it happens to be that um for it will start this summer, this uh May or June.

We will see them also.

So we will have to do a Scott.

We'll have to do a good coordination uh for them also to accommodate work the contactors at the same time, and uh we'll work we'll work it out.

Next slide.

So, couple of pictures of uh what we are looking at.

This is the existing bridge, everybody knows this uh piers in the middle of the creek, and this is the top of the deck looking at the west side.

Next slide, so this is a rendering picture of uh future uh bridge after it is completed.

We will remove the piers and it will be replaced with the columns.

The main main channel will have this uh one set of um columns, and then uh instead of four different piers, we will only have one more.

It's on the right hand side, it's not visible here, but it's uh away from the channel, a little bit on the right hand side on the west side of the bridge.

So we hope in the end we'll get this product.

Next one, and this is how the top of the bridge top of the deck will look like.

So we are looking at the westbound, looking towards the west toward the fremont side, and on the left hand side.

As you see, this is the extra railing and bike and pedestrian walkway on the left-hand side, two lanes 13 feet with the me with the nine-foot shoulders, and a little bit wider bridge than what we have currently right now.

This couple of slides are for the stage construction.

This is our uh main page title sheet of the plan.

Uh, if you can go to the next one, I have zoomed in the area, so this is just show the map of the construction limits.

Uh, about uh starting from Plasdown Sonor Road to the Union Pacific Railroad Bridge Crossing.

Um very light work after main street toward the west of the main street, very light work on the roadway.

Most of the work will be concentrated near the bridge and uh before the main street.

Besides the beside this bridge to accommodate the wider span of the bridge, we will be compensating it with the retaining walls on the side to accommodate the wider portion of the bridge and the roadway and the roadway from the from the bridge, it will be tapered down towards the main street on the south side mainly to accommodate that wide width.

Next slide.

So, couple of slides I have for the stage construction.

Uh, this is the stage one, which will begin this summer.

Uh, exact amount of exact work will happen on the starting from June 1st, and starting on the north side of the bridge.

Uh, there will be a bridge removal on the north side, and the traffic will be shifted towards the rest of the bridge, and uh going to the next stage now.

Now, this stage will happen next year again, starting from June 1st onward, uh, when we have the creek working window.

Similar to the north side, this time we'll go to the south side.

Devolution demolition on the south side and shifting the traffic to the north side and the center, and going to the next season.

This is the third and the last season, which will happen in the summer of 2028, June of 2028.

And in this season, we'll be working on the uh middle section of the bridge, which is left over now, and the traffic will be shifted to the north and south of the newly constructed bridge.

And uh we'll complete the stage three removal of the center portion of the older bridge, and uh construct the central portion.

Next slide is stage four.

It will it is just uh the stage four is uh nothing just the connections to the uh stage three uh and the middle sections and everything.

Uh it will just take a few weeks to complete that within the same uh same year, same uh same time frame, and this is how the final configuration looks like uh from the project plans point of view, and uh I think that's pretty much it.

Um for now.

And um before I get to the questions, I just want to add a few more things.

Um we will have our PIO team.

Um, very collaborative, hopefully, with the with the community and uh with you.

That will we'll try to set up uh we are trying to set up a web portal web page where we will have the lane closure information and uh schedules and any upcoming changes or uh communication basically will be set up on that uh web page web EIU.

They're working on it, and so this is so far the schedule that we have developed.

Calbrand has developed with our design team before the contact went to the construction, and uh now it has gone to construction and contactor is looking into it, and um, if they have any schedule changes to be aggressive, means to do more work in less time sometimes.

They do if they can, or uh, however, it fits in their schedule.

We'll come to know if there's any changes and we'll keep you posted.

Uh during this whole process uh right now we get we are doing some relocation work as you can see.

Um, even I think uh the gas line gas line relocation work is still in progress, and we are waiting for PGE on one of the poles up there on the eastern side to relocate, and uh we were hoping their work to be that work would have been done before the contactor is on board, but somehow uh there were some delays, and PGNE is working closely with the SFPUC to uh mutually complete that task, and we are really hoping that work to be completed soon.

Um, but I want to bring it up that we have this uh a little constraint.

I will not say it a constraint, but this is something that is pending, and we really wanted them to be out of the way, especially before June.

Uh so that's pretty much it.

Um, a lot of effort from uh Catrans, years of effort to bring this project to this stage and uh ready to go.

Thank you.

So starting only four months away.

The bridge will start.

June first, yeah.

Start June 1st.

Oh, there'll be some there'll be some uh pre-activities, uh, because we'll have the jog the lanes out to meet the new configuration when we're stage in that side.

So there'll be some pre-activities, but we can't uh from the fish and wildlife Service, we can't touch anything below the creek that's or June first.

And you anticipate completion when uh every summer.

How long do you put it June first?

2030.

So 2028.

So three construction seasons over three summers.

So like you said, the first stage will be this summer, and uh second stage will be next summer, and then the middle section will be the third summer on the 55 hour close downs.

Is that broken up, like from midnight or to six or something?

Because obviously that's the main thoroughfare into it'd be 9 p.m.

on Friday to 5 a.m.

on Monday.

And then did you mention you said you see the bids been awarded?

Yes, you said you get the regular situation construction.

Yes, okay.

So we just we just you know it happened in uh mid middle of January, they're just getting on board work having meetings all the time trying to get ramp up for restart.

Thank you so much.

So a few people start like in April with a staging area by the nursery across the main street.

Oh, yeah, the staging area given to getting by SFUC.

So they'll start coming and preparing it, and uh, some more light work like Scott mentioned will start to happen.

They want us to do some prepared operation work, some signs will start coming up.

Uh you say there's gonna be some uh periods of time when it's a single lane, or will it always be dual length?

Um there will always be dual lane.

Uh there we do have some options to do reverse traffic uh at night time or on the weekends, uh, never be any lane closures during the day except for maybe a reverse traffic from um my memory, it off school peak hours, so during the middle of the day.

Um, but no, it always have two lanes.

Okay, the entire time.

Night time we have a full closures available at the night time.

Yeah, so the nighttime closures, what you can expect is from the railroad bridge, so you come off into Synol, and then at uh four corners.

That's what you can expect for most of the time.

Is that I'm shutting off that from there and there and at Main Street, um, and then overroute you around on foothill.

But we think there's a full full closure on the weekend from Main Street to 84.

Uh, there is there's a from bond here to to Highway 84.

We do have some options in our lane closure charts to do that, you know.

And looking at it, I don't know if we'll really be utilizing all that often, but that is a possibility.

Obviously, we'll communicate that well in advance.

Um, you know, as we get further along in the process of getting to know, you know, we just got the schedule and we're trying to figure that out.

So as we move along, um, you'll know more.

And that that website we're working with the PIO to update, make nice graphics for you guys, and so it's it's easily digestible.

Connie, do you know who would coordinate the coordination or the uh any complications with the school um work?

Well, um the EIR said there'd be a community liaison directly for the school, which I asked them about before the meeting, and they said it was the public information office.

So that's what their immediate plan is for that.

There is gonna be a retaining wall and a fence built between the school and the bridge, right?

The on ramp the up ramp for the bridge, so and they will be removing some trees, so you know that the people are gonna be concerned about all that, yeah.

Yeah, just construction going on in two places close by.

Oh, yeah, that's yeah.

That's that's the concern.

It's gonna be a real struggle and the bathrooms.

Yeah.

Well, we mean the SF SFUC's project is uh short, the pipeline I think they're anticipating.

Maybe I don't want to speak for them, but it should be going quick.

It's that pipeline is nothing compared to what they're doing at school for in the summertime.

It they're gonna have it all closed off, and they're gonna have a staging area.

They're gonna be putting in new steel pillars in the walls, new foundations, and a new roof.

So it's gonna be a massive project at the same time.

Just for the school only, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, well, we have our staging yard over there, um, as you said, by the nursery or contained there on the highway or in the creek.

Won't be, you know, anywhere.

It's just yeah, yeah, no, no, no, I know.

I just want to make sure, you know.

So the bridge is gonna be three feet higher, I understand.

The new bridge will be three feet higher than the existing bridge.

I don't think it's a three feet, it's higher than the old one.

Yeah, I don't know.

No, not three feet.

Because you gotta you gotta match.

So we'll have a pro side, there might be a little bit of a bump, right?

Currently, there's no approach to departure slides.

It is higher, it is a little bit higher, but uh not three feet, but the existing bridge, the current bridge has the bottom.

The girders are flared, so the flared section is pretty deep sometimes, but this is gonna be straight.

So we'll have a good better opening part that's up.

We'll have a better opening for the flow of the channel.

Okay, so part of our revitalization plan is to have a sidewalk, a pathway from the school to the base of the bridge, so that school kids can walk there over to the water temple.

Um there will be the that sidewalk will be on there, and we're constructing ADA ramps at this corner over here.

Um, like I said, I'm we're getting ramped up trying to finish other projects.

So I haven't looked in detail into the sidewalk portion of it, but I know we will be constructing some ADA sidewalks and having it so you're able to get to that.

Uh so the like the three scott.

So the current sidewalk is on the north side.

So there will be a crossing at the main street, um, crosswalk and the main street, and we'll lead to the south side of the bridge where we have this dedicated separated sidewalk and a bike rail, like a bike path going all the way down toward that uh temple gate.

Okay, will the construction affect main street at all?

Uh that it possibly will.

Um, that's the we have the ability to close from main street to Bond uh during the night time and during the weekends.

Um, it shouldn't affect it much.

That's very minimal compared to all the bridge work we have to do and all this stuff, but if it does, you know, if and when it does, we'll be sure to let you know.

Um but like I said, it's just from 84 to this corner right here.

Okay, I think I had read somewhere in the one of the EIRs that that part of Main Street that connects to 84 was going to be redone, just for some reason, but that's not the case anymore.

I don't think it's we are we are repaving from the the bridge, the railroad bridge, all the way through the project limits at the end.

But uh, as far as that part, I think we're I don't believe we're touching in the pavement in here right away.

Yeah, it's all within our state right away.

Or SFPUCs.

Yes, a lot of players.

Yes, okay.

You have a comment about anything?

There's some questions on that.

Okay, so um wait a minute.

I have a few questions.

Yes, oh I have a few questions about the footpath from the old bridge or the footage from the old bridge and the new bridge.

Are they gonna be on the same footers?

The girders are they gonna be on the same footers or is it gonna be moved more south or more north?

Can you explain a little bit more about that?

There'll be a brand new bridge, brand new bridge uh during the stage construction.

I understand that, but my point my question is more exactly where will you be locating?

You know, where the bridge is now on foothill, right?

Like where that is, and then the new bridge, is it gonna be in the exact same spot, or is it moving a little to the right or to the left of that?

I'm gonna answer that.

So, it'll be widened on both sides, north side and south side.

But you'll keep the same alignment on 84.

It'll be wider.

So in other words, the descent from west to east on 84 will change the roadway a little bit.

There won't be the swerve, it'll be more straight.

Yes.

The bridge, for example, when we widen on the south side, uh, we'll have a draining wall to contain the dirt, and it'll conform, it will taper down all the way down towards the main street.

Uh ticket uh wider section and then coming down toward the main street, becoming smaller and smaller, and uh merging toward the uh normal configuration, but during the but during the stage construction, the alignments will be temporarily shifted to facilitate the construction.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

But finally, that final uh configuration should be the same.

Will be the same.

So, like in general, the center line will be the same, so you can imagine center lane same and bridge.

Okay, okay.

So then I'm wondering if um so about after the bridge on the east side, will you be adding another lane?

No, two lines.

So where the light where the stoplight is, it would be really nice to have a second lane there so that we don't tie up traffic so much for people who are wanting to make that right turn onto uh 680.

It would be nice, but uh the configuration is not allowing us.

We'll have the same forward and down lane.

Uh yeah, because then we have to move them on the way, then they then it'll affect 84 highway 84, basically on the west side.

Okay, yeah, I was wondering if that was at all possible, but okay, okay, got it, got it, got it.

Andrew, you have a slip for this one too.

Um, I liked about the presentation was the picture, oh I'm sorry, okay.

The picture up on the wall looked better than the one that we saw before.

I was really freaked out that you guys were gonna have this thing looking really industrial.

Um one of the things I wanted to ask is in that design, is it fixed in stone?

Because I will give personal feedback and others can their mileage may vary, but um, I actually like the bridge that you guys built in the center of Mavs Canyon.

It felt it feels pretty nice.

It didn't feel industrial, it didn't feel like I'm on some freaking LA freeway.

It felt more like Niles Canyon.

And so, is it possible that when you decide how to do the the sides of the bridge that that influence might that they'll have a textured uh like rock pattern on the sides?

Uh I believe I wasn't on that bridge, but it's uh, answer the question.

Because this is the this is I get to finish my time.

Thank you.

Um, one of the things that you did really well, Caltrans, was when you did the freeway.

You brought in a group of people and they listened, and they said, here, what kind of feedback do you have?

Um, and I think the look of the feel of this bridge is an issue that ought to be addressed.

The other one is I have questions about the trail.

Um, class one trails are nice because you can have a um a bicycle, you can have a horse, and you can have a walker on that all at the same time.

And so I think that um we should have questions uh answered somewhere about the configuration of how that trail will work.

Um you've answered some of the questions about access to Synol in downtown.

But to some extent, it feels like just feels, and I hope I'm wrong, that you know, Sunol, this is what we're doing, and thank you very much.

And you know, I told you, but I think that it would I much liked Caltrans better when it came and said, hey, community, um, we'd like to have a little bit of your feedback and and the given feel matters.

Thank you.

And you did that.

Caltrans did that with the EIR, had multiple hearings, and I appreciate you spending the time with us over the years, the last six years.

Okay, okay.

Any last thing?

No.

Okay, I really appreciate you coming.

Okay, thank you very much.

I just like to understand.

Okay, last presentation is on the flooding issues.

And Andrew has been working with a group of technical people, some of whom are here, um, talk about what they've done.

Everybody, I'm addressing you as an independent citizen.

I don't know if the door shut.

Okay.

I'm addressing you as an independent citizen because um we continue to be really concerned about how um flooding is going to be addressed in Sinnol.

And so we have a program, a team together, we call it Journey into Sinnol flood control.

And if you go to the next slide, um, I want to talk about why.

So on this slide, this represents what happened on New Year's Eve 2022 and New Year's Eve and New Year's Day 2023, and it was a disaster for lots of Sinnol.

Uh the school flooded, and uh I don't I think most people in the room here remember that really bad things happen in Kilcare uh canyon, and the school is still facing wondering how to pay a one and a half million dollars in fixes.

Um, so if you look at it, there is the Arrayal de la Laguna flood disaster, the Sinnoll Glenn School itself disaster and the Kilcare flood disaster, and we don't want to forget any of those three areas, okay next.

I'm gonna be going pretty quick through the slides.

The next one was that we had four multi-agency meetings over a period of three years.

Uh we representatives from Caltrans, we had representatives from uh the San Francisco, we had zone seven here, and uh I want to be thankful to District One and uh David Howard and um and Sean for doing the best they could to bring all kinds of people in to talk about the solutions.

Um, probably the best meeting, the most effective meeting was when David Howard and State Senator Jerry McNerney sat together and and we started to really feel like there was some kind of progress.

However, we we just still feel like we kind of have to take matters a little bit into our own hands to make sure something happens, and that's why we've got this journey into flood control team.

Next slide, please.

So looking at that team, I'm kind of proud of the fact that we have 130 years of agency experience on our team, and that's just in three people.

Um, our chief technical officer is the guy with the cowboy hair, the the hat, the leather hat, there he is over there.

In this town, he's still young.

You got to be 100 before you've arrived.

He's 90, and he's our guy.

His experience goes back before I was born, 65 years in flood uh specific projects.

The gentleman that's two over from him, uh David Lund, uh, probably around 25, 30 years of experience.

And then there's another gentleman on our team who is spent 16 years on the um, he was on the board of uh zone seven, and all of these people are volunteering because they know that Sinnol uh really does need to have a flood control uh solution.

Next up, so this is a picture of a recent event where um zone seven had three meetings, public meetings where we all got to.

Can we go back to my two two slides back?

I thought we were on.

The next one.

Thank you.

We had the chance to look at what is zone seven service area.

Okay, zone seven service area.

People used to say, is Sinnol even in the service area?

There's no question about it now.

We are in the zone seven service area, and at the night where we were there, the three nights, each night they said, would you put a star in an area that you're interested in?

There are more stars than any other place in the county in Sinnol.

Synol was well represented.

Thank you to everybody from Sinnol who went to that meeting because we made it clear we're concerned, and we know uh we're in trouble if we don't get some help.

Uh zone seven theoretically is the lead agency, but we'll see.

Uh we're asking for their help.

Next up.

So, what this describes because we're doing a lot of work, and it turns out, you guys okay?

All right, we're doing a lot of work online.

This is really pretty darn technical thing.

Sometimes I've sat for an hour or two hours with these guys and watching them work together.

Sometimes they're interacting with me, pouring over all kinds of technical details, and and you can see that this is complex.

Um, and we know that we're gonna need uh support to uh to get a solution, but what I'm really pleased about is that meetings are happening.

There's a picture of Rodney right there.

And in because there was a uh we had a meeting at the school, uh Mr.

Um Ken Hedeman has given us uh preliminary ideas on solutions.

Uh we've gotten Caltrans report, we're going over and pouring over that.

Uh, and there's gonna be needing some funding, and so far we're really appreciative of the original funding that um David Halbert has committed to help uh put some uh juice into uh our journey.

And we were working with the school, Shea Galletti is making uh a request for money because ultimately the school is one of the key areas that is a constituent to flood control.

Next up.

I'm I'm gonna hand this out to the to the group, and anybody afterwards I can I can give it to you.

We're not gonna go over in detail, but essentially what it says is uh there are five factors on Synol uh flooding, um floodwater levels, the channel hydraulics, flood level, water level frequency, rainstorms, water levels, and models, uh prevention fixes, and financing.

Of course, you got to pay for it.

But in the end, uh once again, my our chief technical officer, Mr.

of our team, journey into flood control.

In the end, the last thing says is the cheapest way to fix the flooding problem requires some construction changes during the bridge construction.

A quickie study is needed because um it would be really great to have a strong understanding about the approach, and uh we're talking about a quickie study that was be not super expensive and hopefully within the realm of um the the help that we're getting from Alameda County uh through district one office.

I leave that to you to review uh as instead of this being a place where we discuss technical details.

I mean, we have the expert in the room, but this is not uh appropriate for this.

We are happy to conduct any kind of uh this is a this is a citizen run, all volunteer group, and we'll meet with anybody who wants to meet with us.

Okay, next one up.

So, in conclusion, the journey into snow flood control really involves a lot of complexity because we have the school, we have Kilker Woods, uh, top of Kilcare, we have uh bridges that are costing at least the estimates now are as much as a quarter million dollars for one of our Sinoleans to get the bridge fixed, and this school itself, and we know we got multi-agencies.

We're open seven.

We're hoping we'll get some seven to step up and be the lead agency.

Um, Caltrans has got to participate, we have to have help with them.

We hope that we don't have any more meetings where everybody sits in the room going like this and doesn't say anything.

I think that one of my concerns is that whether the legal authorities are telling people not to talk because there are very, very articulate people who when they come to Synol and sit in these town, these meetings don't say much.

Uh, the good news is we got district one, David Howard's on our side.

We got uh Sean on our side, but we also have a lot of volunteers on our side of some tremendously experienced people.

In the Hammond in the excuse me, in the steak and eggs breakfast, there are two contributors.

There's the steer and there's the hen.

The hen leaves the eggs and they move on to the next project.

The stake or this the steer is fully committed.

Those of us who live in Sinnol are fully committed because we are at the funnel of all the water and it comes down through Synol.

And so on your behalf, I'm committed to work on this until either Sinnol flood control is in place or I die, whichever comes first on your behalf.

Thank you.

Um, did you give this electronically to the clerk?

She has it electronically.

I'll give it, I'll I gave it to you.

Do you need it again?

Oh, just that paper that you just had to hand it out.

I haven't given it to her.

I will give it to you however you want it.

Yeah.

Because she has to repost it.

Yeah, sure.

I'll give it to you.

I just don't have it here.

Okay, yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Any comments here?

We have one person that uh wanted to comment on it, and that was Rod who actually asked for the presentation.

I'm gonna go back to originally from a long time ago.

I don't like to kiss us, I like if you do a good job of give me an advocate.

Well, Sean, Supervisor Hubbard, and you guys kicked ass.

Thank you.

Um, it's just straight up.

Um, you deserve an out of it, I'll give it to you.

If not, I'll let you know.

Um, I was thoroughly happy.

I mean, they brought in senators, congress people.

Um, they really led us to this point.

The biggest thing to me is is I want to make sure that we follow through.

They're doing their job, they've done a lot of work for us, but we now make sure that we can also there support it them and their work that they've done it so far.

My fears long term is we forget about it.

We've had this incident before, years and years and years ago.

We've had the same type of situation occur on different issues.

So I was hoping maybe that we would have a work group like you do on your um agendas.

You have work groups for trees, maybe have it as a work group come in, and then also let people know what you're doing, and to help any way they can, and so that way if it's on a work group, we're discussing it, comes up and may not have a discussion this meeting, maybe the next meeting, but that way we ensure that we in the future that the progress we make doesn't go back and moves forward.

Great presentation.

Thank you.

Yeah, that's it.

Thank you.

You can check the box.

Your committee have something to report each month.

What's that?

Would your work group have something to report to each month?

Um progress, I'd be delighted to report out any time as an independent citizen, uh, without any uh of the uh, you know, we're we're not we're we are not a sub group of this of this group, we're an independent group, and we'd be happy upon request to report out.

Okay, so um any hands up in that okay, I just don't know what makes a work group technically.

Um if we formally designate it and it's subject to the Brown Act, you have to have open meetings, okay?

If they're reporting on it for a regular panel, yes, they make progress, and it's just keeping us informed.

So, we need a committee.

Okay, I can answer my concern, and I'll be I'll be real.

I think that there's a lot of mute buttons being put on some really powerful people who can make things happen, tremendous amounts of skill in rooms where nothing happens, and so if my group gets put into the to where somebody could have put a mute button on us, I don't want to play that.

I'm an independent journalist, I'm a Synolian, and I'm gonna be here for the people of Synol.

I would love to partner with anybody who wants to be helpful, but I won't have a mute button put on me.

So that's why I want to remain independent.

Okay, okay, okay.

Can I ask a question?

Get the question in the back.

I ask a question.

I'm just gonna curious.

Um, are work groups like you have an in that section?

My question is do you guys have any three of them, or is there just people that the work groups like the tree?

They're not controlled by anyone, are they?

Yeah, they're the separate group, and the biggest things I and this one I want to point out.

I don't want your work to get lost.

Oh no, I do not, and I've and I can see unfortunately what's happened in the past.

So we've had people, ROES at the hall, we can my dad, um, the other members of the, you know, Dimitri, they passed away and they had knowledge that we lost, and that's why I want to make sure, and that's I do not want us to lose the knowledge we've had from all these people in the past, and that's why I would like to have it.

Just consider it, please.

Um, no, I'm not I'm not resisting you at all.

I mean, I completely we're we're on the same team here.

It's just uh, like I said, this project is looking pretty sticky to me.

Yeah, what I'm hearing is and you're you're under Brown Act, he's under Brown Act, they're all under Brown Act.

I'm not yes, why not?

So I'm just gonna if the work group allows me to be a free and journalist and independent citizen, I'm not against reporting in, but the moment somebody is gonna restrict what I can do, or what I can say what I can argue.

As an independent citizen, I'm out.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Let's go on to item four e approval of the minutes.

We have minutes from three meetings here.

Did anybody have any comments or changes on it?

Um we approve them at a lump.

We're gonna have to approve them separately.

I think we can approve them.

I do want to have to abstain for two of them, right?

Yeah, I can approve one.

Okay, um there's a new there have been some changes that the um clerk's office is making in the minutes.

Um one of them is at the end of each of the items that says the reports.

Uh, they did not take any action, the council did not take any action.

The reports were informational only and required no action um or no action is request required, so I don't know what all that means and what it uh refers to, and so I think I want to follow up on that and understand what that is better.

Um, because there are times when we will want to take action of our own choice.

Um, I can see the word expected, but I don't know why required is is used in here, required action.

Is that enough to not approve the minutes?

I don't think so.

Okay.

I think we need to look at it and understand.

Um, what are we what are we getting boxed into there?

Okay, I got it.

So I would move to approve the November 19th, 2025 minutes.

One second.

I can't hear.

So I couldn't I uh move to we want to vote.

Do we want to vote on that one first?

They have to joke separately because yeah, it wasn't here.

He wasn't here.

No, yeah, no, no, no.

No, I was looking at island, so now we need a roll call, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so McLean.

Stay council member start, approved, council member Harrison, Chair De Green, approved.

Okay, I mean there is no I what am I saying?

You're you want a motion to approve the minutes.

Motion approved the January 15th 2026 minutes, and I'll second.

Council member Conan approved, Council Member McLean.

Approved.

Well, this is the fifth.

This is January, right?

January, January 15th.

Yeah, approved.

But you weren't there for this.

Okay, we were sitting in the audience, you were behind the table.

Yeah, you have to January 15.

You have to abstain.

Okay, I'm abstain.

Council member start, council member Harrison.

Approved.

Chair the grain.

Okay.

All right.

So I'm gonna move that we approve the January 21st, 2026.

Second.

There you go.

Council Member Connor approved.

Council Member McLean.

Approved.

Council member start.

Council member Harrison.

Approved.

Chair DeGrange.

Okay.

Okay.

Right on.

Meeting in the church.

No, I'm not sure