All right, this is called this meeting to order the Sacramento City Council.

Please call the roll. Thank you council member Kaplan.

Council member Dickinson is expected momentarily. Vice Mayor Talamantes, council member Plycki

council member Maple, Mayor Prattam-Garris, expected momentarily. Council member Jennings, council member Vang, Mayor Ricardi, you have a quorum.

Council member Vang, will you do the land acknowledgement and then Mr. Jennings the pledge?

Yes. Please grind your vehicle.

Land, the Nissan on people, the Southern Maidu, Valigan planes me walk, put win and win two peoples and the people of Vultin Rancheria.

Sacramento's only federally recognized tribe. May we acknowledge and honor that it native people who came before us and still walk besides us today on these ancestral land by choosing to gather today in the active practice of acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous peoples, history, contributions and lives. Thank you.

Would you please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands.

Or a nation under God in the physical, but there's an interest as well.

Thank you. So Madam City Attorney, do you ever report out from closed session?

Mayor and councilman closed session to discuss one item related to the initiation litigation and also to meet with their labor negotiators and there's nothing to report at this time.

Thank you. So, Mayor, we have one item on tonight's agenda, which is Trucksville Bridge concept and feasibility study.

There we go.

Good evening, Mayor and council. My name is Fudolia Harris with your public works department, better known as Sparky and I am very happy to come to you today to talk a little bit more about the Trucksville Bridge concept and feasibility study.

I'm going to try to stick to my notes so I can stay on track. But I'm here today seeking your approval for the concept and feasibility study that staff is prepared as well as staff's recommendation for preferred alternative.

This effort was funded by a Cal Trans Grant awarded to the Sacramento area council of governments on our behalf in partnership with the Sacramento Regional Transit District.

We work closely with several resource agencies to set the design parameters before developing for alternative concepts, which are analyzed for constructability, potential environmental effects, hydraulic impacts and traffic impacts.

Pamela from Dockin Engineering is here to answer questions. She managed the consultant team and will be available after the presentation.

So I'll walk you through our process, but to spoil the ending, staff's recommendation is alternative 3B. So I just wanted to make that clear off the bat.

It's important for us to understand the direction that staff was given in 2013, which was to further the implementation of an all modes crossing following the adoption of the American River Crossings Alternative Study.

This direction was included in our General Plan in 2015, Seikoks Metropolitan Transportation Plan in 2017, and our General Plan again in 2024.

The concepts developed for this study were intended to satisfy the purpose statement adopted by council in 2013, which was to provide local connectivity for local trips.

To add capacity for multiple modes with an eye towards reducing vehicle miles traveled and emissions.

To minimize cut through traffic.

And to improve access to the parkway below.

So let me walk you through the four alternative concepts that were developed.

We weren't starting from scratch. Sacramento Regional Transit District had already started preliminary design for a Truxel Bridge crossing for the green line to the airport.

And our first alternative concept was based on that design with the addition of cars to satisfy the purpose statement.

This concept is an 84 foot standard cross section with right of way for pedestrians, cyclists, cars, and transit grouped by direction on either side of the bridge.

This alternative concept follows the original horizontal alignment developed by regional transit, which is shown in red.

The requirement requires a building take at the end of Sequoia Pacific Boulevard.

A new intersection and the relocation of a high voltage PG&E tower.

The rest of the alternatives follow the black alignment, which avoids these issues.

The second concept was our attempt to design the narrow west cross section by running cars and transit in the same right of way and combining pedestrians and cyclists on a class one trail off to one side.

Shoulders were required to accommodate breakdowns in a center turn lane, sorry, a center lane was required for emergency service vehicles.

This concept came in at 69 feet.

The third concept started with our attempt to group each mode by directionally as shown at the top of the slide.

This concept was shared through our community engagement process and feedback received drove us to rearrange the concept placing transit in between the cyclists and cars to create a buffer.

That's how we came up with alternative 3A.

The result was a 90 foot cross section as you see here.

The previous concept also was designed to keep pedestrians and cyclists on the west side of the bridge to accommodate a west side connection down to the Jetsmith trail in the parkway.

A fourth concept was developed to mirror that cross section to address a few issues and is being presented as staff's recommendation.

One of our goals was to avoid property takes.

So shifting the pedestrians and cyclists to the east side of the bridge made it easier to peel the right of way off of the bridge to connect to the two river trail and Fitz Street as an alternative to continuing down Sequoia Pacific Boulevard where we were attempting to squeeze between two existing buildings.

The thinking was that Fitz Street is transforming into a low stress two lane facility that will stretch from the American River all the way into Upper Land Park.

And the conversion of Fitz Street from one way to two way was recently completed through the Central City Mobility Project leaving short segments in the river district and the rail yards to complete this corridor.

Shifting cars to the west of the bridge also allowed us to accommodate regional transit's desire to reduce the number of times that transit has to cross over vehicle lanes.

With this configuration light rail can be extended from township nine along Richard's Boulevard and turn north onto Sequoia Pacific Boulevard without crossing over car lanes.

A crossover would still be necessary near the intersection of Truxel and Garden Highway to shift the tracks into the middle of the road going north but there's already an existing signalized intersection versus creating a new one.

These concepts were developed with a great deal of community engagement over the last year.

We began by meeting people where they were attending community events presenting at neighborhood associations union headquarters board meetings and commission meetings.

Our first formal presentation was a community conversation to drive awareness to clarify the purpose of the study we're in the early stages of developing the concepts.

Over 40 people attended this meeting and provided valuable input on the early concepts and I'd like to point out that many of those folks are here today.

Some of the questions we started with were who are you and how do you use the bridge?

That meeting was followed by an online survey to gather feedback from folks that couldn't join us in person and that survey generated over a thousand comments that also helped us improve the concepts.

The revised concepts were shared with a small focus group of advocates, community-based organizations and other partners to review the changes that were made based on community feedback to see if we're going in the right direction.

Additional revisions were made before the concepts and analysis were shared with the public at a community open house to gather thoughts regarding the final products before we came before council.

Over 140 people attended the open house and hard questions asked hard questions and provided feedback.

Some of the hard questions received from all of the engagement efforts are addressed in the next few slides.

Concerns were expressed that a new bridge with cars would increase vehicles miles travel.

But our consultant team ran the regional traffic model with and without the project and concluded that implementing the project would create a slight decrease in citywide VMT.

As we suspected since the existing trips between South and Thomas and the central city would be shortened with a more direct route.

Traffic impacts were another concern.

The project will generate additional trips on Trucksle Road but our consultant team concluded that the project does not contribute to cut through traffic.

The project changes local traffic patterns by providing more direct access to and from the downtown for many Natomas residents and businesses.

Protecting cyclists was another concern. All of the alternatives were assumed to have a design speed of 30 miles per hour which would warrant bike lanes but anticipated traffic volumes of just over 17,000.

80T would warrant buffered bike lanes. The recommended alternative provides a step higher than that.

It would separate bikeway buffered by dedicated transit lanes.

And finally, concerns were expressed by many regarding the inclusion of cars and the concepts.

While a bridge for transit, pedestrians and cyclists only is feasible, staff did not analyze a concept along these lines because it would not conform to the direction provided by city council and adopted into our general plan which anticipates a two lane arterial crossing of the lower American river along the Trucksle Road alignment.

Cost is obviously a factor as we move forward. Staffs recommended alternative is 27% higher than the cheapest alternative and 23% lower than the most expensive.

But given the tradeoffs and the functionality of the concept, we believe that alternative 3B is in the city's best interest to pursue.

Based on your action tonight, the next step for the project could be to begin the environmental clearance and preliminary engineering phase this year.

Council approved staff's request to pursue federal grant funding for the next phase and we should have an answer by this summer.

That concludes my presentation and I'd be happy to take you any questions.

So, Mayor, it does not appear that council members have punched up to speak.

I have 58 public commenters on this item.

Yes.

Actually, Mayor, can I make a comment real quick before we get started?

Yes, Vice Mayor.

So, if you're in the audience and you're signing up for public comment, thank you so much.

Regardless of whether you support this project or you oppose this project, Sparky here has been working on it for 12 years.

So, can we just give him a round of applause for his hard work?

Thank you.

Yes, and just we have 50 plus speakers who want to speak.

That's certainly what we're here for to hear everybody out both sides and we ask you to be respectful.

If you can, if you heard an amazing speech and they said your exact words just before you spoke, you could go up there and say me too.

So, just a potential suggestion.

Please begin.

Thank you, Mayor.

I have my call off a few names.

Feel free to line up in the middle aisle too.

Kurt Fierra, Arlet Hodell, Dan Allison, Chris Valencia.

Please proceed.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, City Council Members.

My name is Kurt Ferrer.

I'm a business agent for North Carolina Carpenter's Union.

I know the staff recommended option 3B in their report.

We are in favor of the staff recommendation.

But whichever option is selected, we as Carpenter's have our bags on and are ready to build the Trucksville Bridge.

I'd like to see this project built tomorrow, but I understand there is a process.

Whenever we get the green light, we will be ready to build.

Most folks don't know it, but we don't only build buildings, but we also build bridges.

When I worked in the field, I built plenty of bridges.

We are looking for the opportunity where our local members can work on a project close to home.

This would be a great opportunity.

I can't wait for this bridge to be built.

I will make my commute from work to downtown a lot shorter.

I am sure everyone can appreciate a more accessible, shorter downtown commute.

The North Carolina Carpenter's Union is particularly excited about the community benefits this project will bring.

Additionally, the project provides a framework for future development,

such as the ongoing construction of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Facility south of the river.

This project is an investment to our community's future, promoting sustainable development,

enhancing quality of life and fostering economic growth.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments, Arlette.

Good evening.

Last Saturday, I led a group of 18 cyclists to Land Park and the Sacramento Zoo starting in North of Thomas.

The purpose was to show cyclists how to get to a downtown destination

when Discovery Park is closed due to flooding and to showcase the city's cycleways.

At upcoming ride in March, we'll show North Notoma cyclists the best route to the downtown Saturday,

Farmers Market.

In North and South Notomas, we are growing a community of cyclists who prefer to drive less and ride more,

who seek a healthy lifestyle and a cleaner planet,

and who want the ability to access downtown destination safely on a bike,

adding fuel-burning vehicles to the proposed Truxel Bridge does not meet these goals.

I oppose the selection of option 3B and ask the city to provide us with the Truxel Bridge designed it does not include fuel-burning vehicles.

And just to thank you, a couple of thank yous here, to the City of Sacramento.

The Pipe's Bridge is a great way to get downtown.

In the past, it was avoided by many cyclists.

Thank you for cleaning out the vast homeless encampment there.

This has had a positive impact on our cycling route choices, especially when Discovery Park is closed.

Also, thank you for the infrastructure improvements to 1921st P and Cue Streets and other streets.

Creating these cycleways allows cyclists to make safer choices when navigating downtown streets.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, Dan Ellison.

Good evening.

Dan Ellison representing Sacramento Transit Advocates and Writers' Star.

You'll hear many things about a desire to reject the staff proposal.

So I'm not really speaking to that.

What I want to talk about is the transit aspect of the bridge.

The council members north of the river have said that they want BRT.

SacrT is reconsidering BRT instead of light rail.

And if there is not light rail across the river, then BRT can be served by running on the freeway.

It's a small jog.

It doesn't significantly delay BRT and saves the money of building a bridge at all.

I completely understand that a safe, flood-free crossing of the river is desired and necessary.

And though Discovery Park floods easily, the other route across the river sometimes floods, sometimes does not.

I understand the need for that and I'm not discounting that.

But there is an option to think about this as maybe we don't need the bridge.

Maybe BRT is going to go on the freeway.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Chris Valencia, then Isaac Gonzalez.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the city council.

My name is Chris Valencia and I'm here on behalf of the North State Building Industry Association.

I'm here to express our support for the staff recommendation for the Trussel Bridge project.

This bridge will enhance access to the central city including the rail, the rail yard development and revitalize waterfront,

benefiting residents with easier routes to central services.

The bridge will strengthen access to job, healthcare and other critical services, improving quality of life across both sides of the river.

Importantly, this project will also open the door for increased development and promote economic investment in the area.

BIA continues to support investments that benefit all of our efforts to address the housing needs in the region.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Isaac Gonzalez, then Lambert.

Good evening, Mayor and council members.

My name is Isaac Gonzalez and I serve as the vice chair of the Act of Transportation Commission.

Tonight's decision is the culmination of a process to begin a decade ago.

Time when our city's priorities and our understanding of the street safety were very different.

Since then, we've seen hundreds of lives lost of vehicular violence on our streets.

A painful reminder would happen when we design infrastructure with inherent conflicts between the most vulnerable road users and fast moving vehicles.

I believe this bridge was an opportunity to build the city of tomorrow.

A city that prioritizes safety, sustainability, and a future where people, not just cars, shape our public spaces.

But I believe tonight will be an opportunity lost.

Not just because of the vote I think you'll take, but because we never even got the chance to have the debate we should have had.

We were never given the chance to seriously compare a car free option.

It was never on the table.

And while I thank Sparky for all of his hard work and have nothing but respect for him, that is the failure of this process tonight.

So while tonight's vote may feel final, I ask you then to instead see it as a lesson for the future.

That we must never again deprive ourselves of the ability to consider bold, transformative ideas.

The next time that a major piece of infrastructure is proposed, or whenever we are rehabilitating an existing piece of infrastructure, we should have a real conversation about the kind of city that we are building.

Not just for today, but for generations to come. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Lambert, Kevin Fierra, James Torres, Randy Rojas, Joe Contreras, and then Macworthy.

Fascinating highway in many ways is a matter of fact.

I would like to send a shout out to a business that's off of garden highway and also are in fair they're called box brothers, B-O-X, B-R-O-S.

And the reason I've dealt with business with them, they should get a multi-million dollar contracts without bidding.

There wouldn't be any conflicts that way.

And also I want to thank City Councilwoman Mai Vane because they told me that she ordered a virgin pinion collada cheesecake from us, which is garden way and garden.

And I wanted to thank you because box brothers personally went out of their way to deliver that to you because I was out of town.

And I would like to end by saying that to since we don't have public comments and I did address garden highway, I wanted to say to district two Mr. Dickerson and also the mayor and everyone else that during the Super Bowl and Valentine's,

you now have a company in Sacramento that has gone viral in California and it was very difficult to do that not getting any money from City Hall.

Very few money and we have had no scandals on us.

We have had no scandals. You may not like me but you cannot say that company is not clean.

Thank you for your comments. Kevin, then hi, May Torres.

Good evening, Mayor and City Councilmembers. Kevin Flair, the executive director of the Sacramento Sierra Building Construction Trades Council.

I am the shorter for rarer here tonight.

So the building trades council, we strongly support the staff recommendation for this bridge.

It will continue to partnership we have with the city and creating career opportunities into our apprenticeship programs and transforming lives and careers in construction.

So we strongly urge your yes vote for the staff recommendation. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your comments. Hi, May Torres. Randy Rojas, Joe Contravers.

Oh, Mayor and City Council. So my name is Hamilton, business representative with Labor's Local 185.

I am a resident of Northgate. If the city still calls it that, some minor changes calling it in the Thomas.

Have 491 members that I actually represent that live in that neighborhood.

Their drive, the air quality would improve if this project went through, not only for that project itself, but for the future projects that were currently engaged within downtown Sacramento.

Some of these members actually have a difficult time with traffic actually backing up because of the flooding on 160 or the, you know, everyday traffic of I-5.

And this could actually just reduce field missions, be it safe for town to be in.

We have an augmentation of hospitals going into downtown area.

And we're going to need this public safety to access this area.

I've been side by side right next to somebody as paradise was burning down.

And there was one only one outlet to actually exit the town.

And the safety concerns of my coworker were severe as his family had to walk out and abandon the car and all their belongings.

Because that situation. So we need these alternative routes to actually have the public safety and have a situation where we can enjoy the city collectively.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments. Randy and Joe.

Good evening, Mayor of City Council members. I am Randy Wilhaas, business representative from IUPAT District Council 16, carpet, linole, misalc, tile workers, local union 1237.

And I'm also here as a board member on behalf of the Sacramento Central Labor Council who represents over 100 union and 180,000 workers.

This bridge, the central labor council supports a staff recommendation for the Truxel Bridge Project including option 3B.

The project will create hundreds of good paying union jobs for local workers.

This is an investment in Sacramento's workforce providing a family sustaining wages, benefits, and apprenticeship opportunities for the next generation of skilled workers.

It also include infrastructure projects like this strength in our local economy and ensure that taxpayer dollar support workers rights here in our community.

Thousands of workers who live in the north of the river but work downtown are stuck in traffic on I-5 and the Northgate Bridge every day.

The Truxel Bridge will provide a direct reliable route and that reduces congestion, shortens commute times, meaning workers can spend less time in traffic and more time with their families.

And by improving transportation options, whether by car, transit, bike, or foot, we're making it easier and safer for workers to get to their jobs.

The bridge is just about mobility, it's about creating opportunity, it connects people's jobs, businesses, to customers, and communities to each other.

It will support the future economic growth including developments like the Kaiser Medical Facility which will bring even more jobs to our region.

In closing, the Sacramento Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, urges the City Council to approve the Truxel Bridge Project staff recommendation.

It's a win for workers, it's a win for economic growth, and it's a win for Sacramento's future. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Joe Contreras, MacWorthy, then Kay Crumb.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Joe Contreras. I'm an activist for the Garland-Northgate area.

I'm also a board member for the Garland-Northgate neighborhood association and a newly appointed commissioner for District 3.

And I'm in favor of the staff recommendation on Northgate because in 2005, we passed, the City Council passed, the Northgate Master Plan which we never got built.

And also in 2023, we passed the Northgate mobility plan which never got hasn't been built yet.

And all this was created for traffic safety and comments on Northgate Boulevard.

And with this bridge, that would highly change everything on Northgate Boulevard for traffic calming and a safety for community and our children and our neighborhood.

And we really need this bridge. And I think that it would be something that would really help the neighborhood of Northgate, Garland and the community for slowing down the traffic and keeping it safe. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. MacWorthy, then Kay Crumb, Michael Bevens, Troy Wilkinson.

It's a thing you got to think about how you're going to get here to work on the bridge if you're not in a highway.

We want to see what you spent to an audit for studying this. We like to see an audit going to study of this and who got the money.

And you've got to quit lying people.

Thank you for your comments. Kay Crumb, then Michael Bevens.

Hi, my name is Kay Crumb. I'm a member of Strong Sack Town, a resident of District 6, and I frequently find myself in District 4.

I want to start with saying thank you very much, Sparky, and your team for working on this and putting everything together.

I wanted to look at this financially. So the cost of a transit and active transportation option is estimated about 135 million, but including cars on that bridge would raise that to the 228 million.

So that's almost double the price for adding two lanes. And what do we get for that extra money?

Like you have to make sure that you're getting your money's worth.

The proposed bridge estimates that there's going to be less than a 1% change in vehicle miles traveled.

And it's going to save less than or about five minutes of travel time for people.

And that just seems like a lot of cash for very little payout.

Plus, we lock ourselves into spending 15 million every 25 years just to resurface those lanes in future years.

So if my house is falling apart, why would I spend the money to just add another room?

If our roads are falling apart, why would we spend the money on a bridge that includes more road maintenance?

The projected budget deficits make it clear that our city needs to start living within its means instead of relying on big projects and federal funds to make our city world class.

What makes our city world class is our heart, our hustle, and our community.

I don't want to leave without providing some sort of solutions though.

So here's some small steps that maybe could help.

I love transit. I'm a frequent rider.

But I want to see if light rail to the airport actually works.

We need actual ridership on bus 142.

And that means more frequent and later service.

If that works, then we can scale up.

And if it doesn't, then we didn't spend millions on a project that doesn't pan out.

I also want to suggest that every transportation project should include an accurate maintenance evaluation.

We're only presented with the price tag at the beginning when the roads are built and they have to be maintained.

And we deserve to hear what that's going to be at the beginning.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Paul Bevin's, and Troy Wilkinson, and Eric D'Shenko.

There's Michael Bevin's, right?

Who's next?

Okay. Hello, Michael Bevin's.

I'm district two.

So nearby this proposed area.

I think this project was kind of doing from the start.

The City Council directed Sparky to come up with a plan without cars as an option from the start.

This was kind of dumb.

There are no need for cars on this bridge.

It's right next door to I-5, which again is a freeway, but I drove the other days to make sure you have your own Pacific lane.

You get off on, get on, get on, get on highway, cross the river.

You do not have to merge on the I-5.

You take the next exit, Richard's Boulevard.

You have your own lane, basically.

And same way on the other direction.

So there's, and whatever cars would benefit by going 500 feet further is minimal at best.

If you're in Chuxo Road and you're in a car and you want to get over the bridge,

A, if you came from someplace off the freeway to get to Chuxo Road, you made a wrong turn.

But if you're in the neighborhood of the area, Natomas, or North or South Natomas,

if you're going down Chuxo and you want to get over the bridge, you got I-5 right there.

It's a short little jog.

Or better yet, get out of your car and take the train that we built for you to go right to downtown.

Better yet than that, leave your car at home, get on the new light rail train if it ever gets built.

That'll take you to downtown.

That's our corridor to connect downtown to the neighborhood's north.

If you can avoid I-5, avoid the 160, take the train.

That's what we're building it for.

Also, if you want transportation dollars to fix what's already there,

that's fixed, garden highway, that's fixed north gate where it meets 160.

So the existing car structure can get improved.

So the car's drivers can be happy too.

Thank you.

Troy Wilkinson, then Eric D'Shenko.

Hello.

My name is Troy Wilkinson.

I'm a district four constituent and member.

I just think that a car accessible, Chuxo bridge, the recommended one, 3B, is unnecessary.

It's way too costly when compared to a car free version of the road of the bridge.

And honestly, I just think construction, there's so much construction.

It takes so long.

There are so many projects underway running out of money.

The budget, I don't think, will be able to handle a car accessible version of this bridge.

Let's build something for transit.

Let's build something for bikes and people.

And let's build it in an efficient way where we can actually see this completed in a feasible manner economically.

And it's a very, very, very, very, very important vehicle.

It's a very, very important vehicle.

And we have to build it in a very, very, very, very important way.

That's all I have to say.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you for your comments.

Eric, then Jason Weitech.

Good afternoon.

I'm Eric.

I'm a real friend of mine.

I'm a real friend of mine.

I'm a real friend of mine.

I'm a real friend of mine.

I'm a real friend of mine.

I'm a real friend of mine.

I'm a real friend of mine.

I'm a real friend of mine.

I'm a real friend of mine.

I'm a real friend of mine.

I'm a real friend of mine.

I'm a real friend of mine.

I'm a real friend of mine.

We'll walk over to the South Until

11.

We'll walk over to the South Until 12.

12.

So today I still like to be able to

be able to bike to South Until 12.

But there's a lot traffic.

But there's a lot traffic.

support for the proposed trucks with a big project. We feel that this is something that

is long overdue and certainly much needed. We feel that it is a key component of the

transportation demand management plan in the Greater Sacramento region. We support it.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. But Joey Suza, Noah Mimane, Deb Banks, and

that Emory?

Hello, B. Joey Suza here. I'm a resident of College, Glen District 6. I'm really concerned

about the maintenance costs that will be incurred for the city going forward when an RFA car

option is available on the Truxel Bridge. Building it would be our other speakers have

spoken to how much more expensive it will be to build this bridge with cars on it and

how it would be more expensive to maintain it. It's really frustrating. There's a lot

of amazing projects that have been done for improvements in our neighborhoods and in

redoing our roadways. If you look at the recommendations that we're given and the

goals of the project that Sparky presented, which is a really good thank you, Sparky.

It's hard to picture that the goals are in better met with an active transport only

project. I think that we deserve to have that recommendation part of here. I'm calling

on the council to ask for an active transport only version of the Truxel Bridge to be evaluated.

Thank you.

Thank you. Noah and Deb Banks.

My name is Noah Mebbin. I'm an active member of the Boulevard Park Neighborhood Association

although I'm not speaking on the behalf and I'm a district for constituent. I'd like

to speak to oppose the recommendation for alternative 3B and the reason is because

in the recommendation as it was written, they outlined 10 priorities that came out of

the general plan. I'm going to list an abbreviated version of them which is that they want

to prioritize pedestrian and bicycle transit over driving, foster active transportation

and alternatives to automobiles, a finer grain network of streets and walking and bicycle

connections, engage the community and decisions that affect mobility. They want to increase

bike cycling and walking, city wide, prioritize designs that strengthen the protection of people

bicycling, collaborate with SACRT to facilitate high frequency transit, coordinate with SACRT

to plan for the extension of transit service, support implementation of transit only lanes

and seek funding for new bridges to improve multi-motor connectivity and provide for

emergency evacuation routes. These are the all 10 of the items from the general plan

that were listed in a recommendation and I believe that all 10 of those can be served

better by a bridge that either by a bridge that only serves active transportation instead

of vehicle transit or by having no bridge at all, especially if we're spending $250

for a reduction of only 0.01 vehicle miles traveled as was in the presentation described.

And also given that, my understanding is that the bridge as recommended relies on federal

funding that has been reduced by 90% with the current administration, therefore it's much

less feasible to actually happen at all. I believe that the active transportation commission

recommendation to at least explore an alternative bridge that does not have vehicle transit is

the best option for it. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Deb Banks.

Hi everybody, I'm Deb Banks. I'm the Executive Director of Saba and I'm also on the Active

Transportation Commission. Mayor, I'm going to take you up on some Me-2s. But first, Sparky,

you are a rock star. You have done an enormous job on all of this work and has come before

as time and time again. However, that said, and it's fantastic, Saba does not support

the 3B alternative because, of course, we are all in on a bridge that doesn't include

vehicles for all the reasons. Me-2 to Isaac, Gonzalez, Me-2 to Kay, Chrome, here to Me-2s.

And here's something else I would love to add that we haven't talked about yet and that

is the American River Parkway. The parkway will undergo some severe damage with the creation

of this bridge and not just during the building of the bridge, but long term habitat damage

to all the species, animals, wildlife, and then the people that make their time and love

the parkway. So a better use of funds might be to look at that Northgate 160, Elevate

and rebuild the bridge over the parkway that's already there and needs significant help.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Annette Emory, then Eric Webb.

Hi, I'm Annette Emory. I live in Northgate, but I'm here on my own. We've always heard

that term if you build it, they will come, which is very aspirational. So when it comes

to cars, it's a fact. You build it, cars will come. And part of my concern is that you're

saying be more trafficked on trucks, but I'm also concerned about other side streets.

The cars will start using those side streets to get over there. That's just the way it

is. Part of the state of goals is to reduce VMT and pollution. I just don't see it. I would

really like to go and I'm going to mirror what the actor transportation commission said.

It's like looking at this, it'd be cheaper and faster. I know in Portland, they built a

bridge and they found a lot cheaper, a lot faster. I was just reading a story about Denver

where they're having so much, they're putting a lot of vouchers off from bikes. They've actually

reducing about 400 cars on the road when it comes to pollution. The traffic is going

faster and buses are going fast because there's just fewer people using cars. If we want

to have aspirations of having clean air, a city that really welcomes actor transportation

users transit, we need to go and put those infrastructures in place to do it. As a bike

route of myself who rode the bus down here today, it's cars, I'm afraid of people. I'm

afraid of the home. No, it is the cars that are the danger. So I understand federal funds

are what they are, but I'm just one of the people. I would love to see a non-car option.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Eric Webb, then Jeff

Fred Peterson, then Alex Bink.

Air, vice mayor and city council. My name is Eric Webb. I'm a 50-year resident of Sacramento.

Last 25 years I lived and worked in South Atomas. Recently I retired from the Sacramento Public

Library and I was in fact on staff when we moved the library to the new building where

it stands now. I love Sparky. Very much. Good guy. I'm here to say that my family and

many of my friends in Sacramento strongly oppose the Churchill Bridge project. While other

cities' hardscape are river fronts, they're river fronts. The American River Parkway

sets us apart. The preservation of our unique natural assets should be top of mind when

considering any such project. Numerous studies substantiate the fact that building automotive

infrastructure gets more car trips and traffic and certainly disincentivizes alternative

transportation, including public transportation. We have learned a lot in recent years as a

city. Aside from the increase in pedestrian fatalities, my colleagues in our local historical

community, especially the center of Sacramento history, done a remarkable job bringing the

to life the consequences of post-World War II redevelopment, most notably the displacements

of our Japanese-American, African-American communities from the West End. During that era

in the early 60s, the new trajectory of Interstate 5 was a controversial topic. Eleanor

McClatchy famously opposed the current route through downtown and although she lost

that battle, her conversations with President Candy resulted in the curve in the highway that

preserved Old Sacramento. Let's honor her heroism by not compounding the mistake of I-5 with

the parallel artery of automobile congestion. I strongly support public transportation and

I believe we have a- Thank you if your comments your time is complete. Jeffrey Peterson,

Alec Binks, and Morgan Murphy.

Yes, I don't really have much to- Well, I'm from District 1, so I'd be great to have

that transit right by me. I've supported an alternative transportation route through there.

That really helps to have a lot more options than the automobile and so it just- It might

be better like be nice to have a shaded area on the way there too.

Thank you for comments. Alex Binks, we have 36 more speakers after Alex is Morgan Murphy.

Hello, thank you. I'm here representing myself, Strong Sack Town and Rewild Sacramento. I'm

a resident of Midtown. I would like to ask the council to direct city staff to study

a car-free option for the proposed Truxel Bridge as unanimously requested by the Active

Transportation Commission. I previously worked in South Natomas and drove for my job all

over the city and crossed the lower American river in this area multiple times daily.

Existing bridges easily and rapidly accommodated vehicle travel between these two regions. It

is not worth hundreds of millions of dollars and millions more in ongoing maintenance as

well as the destruction of one of the last remaining natural areas near the central city

to provide a negligible improvement to commute times between these neighborhoods. Finally,

I would like to echo the concerns that others have raised about inducing more vehicle travel

into downtown by adding and locking us into more vehicle infrastructure. It is those cars

in our city streets that make us unsafe and the only way to make us safer is to promote and

put cyclists and pedestrians first as our plan directs us to do. Finally, I do want to emphasize

that the numbers and the plan that's being sold to us assumes that the green line to the airport

is going to be built. Well, let's be realistic right now. There's no plan. There's no funding

to build that line and while I would love if we did, we don't want to build this massive

bridge for cars being sold that it's going to be a light rail bridge if that doesn't end up

happening. So if the bridge cannot be built in a way that clearly and demonstrably improve safety,

connectivity and environmental well-being, then funds and staff time are better spent on the

numerous proposed and existing projects that do provide such benefits. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Next speaker is Morgan, then Andrew Pembinska.

Morgan? Hi, my name is Morgan. I'm a member of Strong Sack Town. I live in West Sack, but I spend

a lot of time in Sacramento as well. I want to say thank you to Sparky and everyone who put so

much time and effort into this project. That being said, I am here because I am in favor of a

car-free bridge option to kind of piggyback on what Alex was saying, pedestrian safety is of the

most importance. More vehicles just ends up being a hazard to our community. Also, I moved here

a few years ago from Boston and I wanted to note that there I saw firsthand that if the community

is provided with the infrastructure that promotes active transportation, they will use it. There

were many pedestrian foot bridges and they were always full of walkers and bikers. A majority of

my colleagues either walked or biked to work. As a registered nurse in the community, I deeply

care about public health and as someone who wants to raise a family here, I deeply care about our

future as a city. I think a pedestrian bridge would promote a healthier and safer Sacramento for

community. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Andrew, then LC Hellwig.

Hello. And thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak. I began driving

at age 26 and when I began to be able to have the opportunity to grow up

to that age, to be able to do so because I have disabilities, or disabilities, general cognitive

disabilities. And so it was scary for me to even consider driving. So for me, I was able to

live most of my life without the need to drive and with the bridge being built with the

intention to support the driving means that for pedestrians and transit user, it makes it harder

for them to commit to this lifestyle and it makes the city less safe for all of us and it makes

it harder for everyone with disabilities to commute. For me, I still try and avoid driving as much

as possible, mostly for financial reasons, but I still feel like I am asked most times the not

to drive and that is in part because driving has been promoted more so than public transit.

Despite the fact that history has shown that there is no benefits to necessarily promoting

this driving lifestyle that weakens our cities and makes our community more susceptible to outward

pressures. If I may ask, please consider a public transit option. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments. Elsie Helwig, then Eve Abrahams, and Troy Sankie, Alyssa Lee.

Hi, my name is Elise Helwig. I live in District 4 and I am here today to weigh in on the

options we are evaluating for the Truxel Bridge. I would like to thank Sparky for putting together

that wonderful and informative presentation. However, I think unfortunately it did not include

one of the options and definitely the least expensive option which is a car-free option.

I am not saying that we have to have a car-free option but I find it very

disingenuous that that wasn't even considered. I would hope that especially given the current state

of both the federal budget and the climate concerns going forward that we would in future times

can always have a car-free option when considering these types of infrastructure investments,

especially when we know that they are going to saddle us with ongoing costs for years into the

future when there won't be public funding necessarily to provide the maintenance for those costs.

Or to cover the cost of the maintenance. Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Eve following Eve is Troy Sankie, then Alyssa Lee. Hi, my name is Eve Abrahams. I live in South

Natomas and have since 2003. I have been opposed to this bridge prior to the one to put cars up

there even the light rail makes absolutely no sense when a couple blocks down in this direction

we have north gate that runs directly to the light rail. Now they are putting a light rail station

on 12th so it will run directly into 12th. That bridge should be improved anyway and north gate

itself is a lane wider than Truxill. None of the homes along north gate even face the street

along Truxill they all face the street. We have businesses along north gate and apartment buildings

who could definitely use the additional business. It will improve that community substantially whereas

having traffic come up Truxill will reduce the value of the properties there and increase the

value of the properties of north gate because the small homes there have some of them have no cars

garages and others have one car garages. The homes on north of Truxill have three car garages.

We are not going to be using the light rail. It is interesting how the same project in two

different areas will either improve or decrease the value of the properties. As a realtor that

makes a difference to me and the extra cars coming up Truxill is just going to be crazy with all

that traffic because people will move off of the freeway and come up Truxill. We will no longer

be able to walk across the street to the park and to the library. Thank you for your time. I hope

you reconsider this whole project and just improve the north gate area for light rail. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Troy Sankie, Alyssa Lee, Ethan Kisak, Armon.

Hi, my name is Troy. I just want to start by saying thanks to everyone involved in this project.

It has been a long time coming and thanks also Sparky and staff for always being cooperative

and transparent. Some of the council members here as well. It has only been one year since I have

been civic engaged on this bridge but I know others have been engaged much longer.

It has been such a long time as far as I can tell that a state law has been passed that dictates

what this bridge carries and that there have been countless commission and council meetings about

this bridge over the last decade and a half. But after all this community engagement, I feel like

staff haven't really thrown us a bone. To evaluate a no-car bridge was all that we have been asking for

this past year not to mandate it. How can we know the cost difference if it isn't considered?

How can we know that the relative environmental impact? How can we know the relative VMT change?

How can we know what it will look like aesthetically? Why are we afraid of even considering it?

Is it really due to a lack of federal funding for a car-free bridge? What if a cheaper bridge

didn't need that funding? How can we know if it isn't evaluated? If given a chance, a no-car bridge

alternative would have easily achieved all of the stated goals of the project and the goals

and indicators in the 2040 general plan that feels like such a loss. I'm here also to bring a

strong-town's perspective. The suburban experiment is a major root cause of our billion-dollar

unfunded maintenance liabilities and our structural deficit. If we keep building suburban

serving infrastructure, we're going to keep incentivizing building new fiscally-insolvent

suburban development. There's a vicious cycle, but this feedback loop is longer than an

elected term. So it's hard to see. We're here to help you see. Thank you for your comments.

On the Salih and Ethan Kisak.

Hello, my name is Alisa Lee. I live in District 4 and I'm representing strong

downtown. And again, yes, so much thanks to everyone who's done work on this. I've never worked

on anything for 12 years. I think there's so many reasons to say yes and just make this vote happen

tonight. It's clearly a project that has a lot of benefits. And I think as people sitting in

those chairs, making decisions, we have to think about what is this aspirational dream we have

that we can spend money, that we don't have, that we can keep putting off maintenance and not

consider it into the cost of the decision that we're making. Clearly, the outcomes of decades of

that kind of decision-making are catching up to us. We cut $66 million in services last year.

We're facing $77 million of cuts this year. And I think about probably all the challenges you

face as council members that you hear from your constituents. We want bike infrastructure.

Infrastructure. There's no money for it. We want to reduce the width of this road. We can't do that

because there's a certain amount of traffic already using this road and we can't do that.

We want more funding for bus benches and all this stuff. Well, we don't have the money for it.

And when we walk through places that are not enjoyable, that feel like a blight on the environment

around us. It's because of planning decisions that were made in rooms like this. You know, you might

not see out when those costs committed in this room catch up, but they are going to catch up because

we cannot, I think just point blank. We cannot afford to build more car-saving infrastructure

because it is just too expensive. And it's not even the best option available to us. And I think

there's really no loss here to really consider that and to do things differently. I just want to,

you know, add that we have of a $971 million that we have to spend over the next 10 years to get

our pavements up to good from where they currently are. So just please keep that in your mind

because that's thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Ethan. And Armon, Jordan Boff.

Thank you. My name is Ethan Kisik. I'm a resident of District 4. And I would like to speak about

a study to see if we can do this bridge without the traffic, without the cars.

I love Sacramento. There is so much to be proud of. And one of the things that I'm just most

proud of is the American River Parkway. Almost every single day you will see me at the American

River Parkway, either riding my bike or running. And one of the reasons that I just love it so much

is it's one of the few places where I feel like I can ride safely. I have been hit by a car while

running. And there are not a lot of places around that are truly accessible for anyone and everyone

even if you are not a driver. And the American River is one of those. It's also just such an

incredibly beautiful place. Just the other day I counted three sea lions up in Sacramento. You see

coyotes, you see deer, you see all of these incredible ecosystems, this great ecosystem. And so I see

we're going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build more car-dependent infrastructure

on a place less than half a mile from a 10-lane car bridge. What about the bridges for people

who don't want to drive, who want to just get out and enjoy the city, enjoy what makes Sacramento

so great. I want to stay in this city for a long time. I want this to be my home. And I encourage you

to, at the very least, you don't have to make up your mind today. Just look at what it would mean

if we built this, if we've built this without cars. If we tried to make it easier to hit climate

goals in the future. If we tried to protect our ecosystems, that's all we're asking today.

Just take a look at it. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is

Armand. Following Armand is Michael Hutnik, then Armando Burnett. Good evening. My name is

Armand Zarinimoff, executive assistant for the Sacramento Hospital Alliance. We are here on

behalf of supporting the staff recommendation for the Trucksville Bridge project.

Re-inforcing has perspectives on bridging both the communities in North Nautilus and Sacramento.

Re-inforcing the idea that those who simply can out for the car are unable to have a car

or simply prefer alternative methods or transportation. Such myself deserves to have access to

essential services, healthcare, businesses throughout the city of Sacramento.

Us at the Sacramento Housing Alliance believe that transit oriented development is the

forefront of both affordable housing and opening up the floor for new developments that

encourage transit orientedness as well as reinforcing the idea that both environmental

mitigation for pollution as well as bridging the cities together is the forefront. Equity and

accessibility should be at the forefront of our communities and should be taken into consideration

over the future. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Michael Hutnik, Armando,

Armando Burnett, then Devon Strecker.

Hello, Councillor Emmeyer. I wanted to set the context for the comments that

me and some of my friends and colleagues have given that we're in the middle of a climate

emergency. We've just watched LA Burn. That was amazing. That was like Hollywood level insanity

and we just watched it happen. We had 27 disasters over a billion dollars last year or no, actually,

that was, yeah, 2024 numbers. And I think it was higher, slightly higher the previous year,

for a total of 182 billion dollars. And that's nationwide. But Sacramento is absolutely not

immune from climate disasters. We have built the city on top of an old city that used to flood,

but it is very likely to flood again. And so we need to be doing absolutely everything that we can

to make sure that we're not putting ourselves in a worse place when we're talking about the

climate. We don't want to make ourselves our own victims. Please don't build a bridge with cars

on it. Please build a city. Follow Paris's lead. Paris has closed down the city to cars.

Sacramento can do something like this. Make it serviceable from the outside by transit,

make parking garages on the outside, and then put jump bikes there. Put bike lanes through

there. Put light rail. Put trolleys back through Oak Park. Please give us alternatives. Build a city

of the future that's going to safeguard us against climate disasters and guess what? It's cheaper.

Because as you saw, Sparky said he wasn't allowed to study a car-free bridge. But the ones that he

was allowed to study were over $200 million. And the projection for a car-free bridge was $100

and something million. It's cheaper. It has less of an immediate environmental impact. It has

less of a long-term environmental impact. Please consider a car-free option. Thank you for your

comments. Amanda. Hello, Mayor and City Council. My name is Amanda Burnett. I am

a South Natomas District 3 representative representing myself. So a lot of people, me too, me too,

me too, what he said, me too. What I want to talk about is an idea that we haven't yet discovered.

It's similar to the New York City Highline. The New York City Highline is a bridge that is a park.

It is for people. It is not for cars. It brings in 8 million visitors to New York every year.

And that was in 2019. It has increased the medium household income of the surrounding area by 23%

and overall New York City 7%. It has brought over $900 million in revenue. We can't afford that

bridge with the cars. We could afford a bridge that was a park here in Sacramento that covers the

most beautiful part of our city where the two red verse converge. People want to come, people come

to Discovery Park for concerts. They could use the parkway as additional concert space. We could

have this beautiful parkway that people could cross and that would bring money, people to us.

Save us money and long run, not have vehicles. And all we want is for you to oppose this plan

so that we can research if that's even a possibility and if it's a better possibility.

Obviously a lot of us have opinions on it. But think about the money. You can make more money.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good comments. Devon Stracker, then Luz Lim, then Steve Hansen.

Good evening, Mayor Council. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm the executive director of the

River District and a resident of District 4. In fact, I live about two blocks away from where this

bridge would be built. We are here to support staff recommendation. Having said that, our number

one priority is the extension of the Green Line light rail to the airport and bike and pedestrian

safe connection between the River District and the communities to the north.

But the one thing I want to say about cars and the whole question of whether there should be

cars, we're thinking about cars right now. What cars are right now. But I think 10 years ago,

it would have been hard for a lot of us to predict the proliferation of electric bikes,

electric scooters, electric cars, autonomous vehicles. So when you're thinking about 50 years from

now, are we saying that we want any type of vehicle, whether it's electric or not, to not be able

to use this bridge? I think that would be short-sighted and we should consider the fact that we don't

know what cars are going to look like in the future. And so this needs to be studied further.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Luz Lim and Steve Hansen.

Following Mr. Hansen is Aaron Leslie and Robert Cux.

Good evening everyone. My name is Lou Slim and on behalf of the Environmental Council of Sacramento,

I'd like to thank the staff for their work and efforts to move Sacramento away from car

dependency and to develop transit-friendly infrastructure. Intentional planning and development

will be necessary to achieve our regional climate and air quality goals. To that end,

Ecos urges the mayor and council to strongly consider pursuing the Northgate Boulevard

Improvement Alternative for this project. There are many reasons why this alternative makes more

sense for development or redevelopment. For starters, Northgate Boulevard is known to have

safety concerns and it is already a focus area for redesign. The 2023 Northgate Boulevard

Transportation Plan is a result of voiced community concern and promised to redevelop Northgate

Boulevard into a multimodal corridor, although we did hear earlier from the gentleman that that

has not yet planned, panned out as promised. There is demonstrated community support and investment

there and the web page for this project actually mentions that the staff for this project are

considering the reconfiguration of the Northgate intersection in addition to the recommended

Truxel Bridge. So efforts are already aligned. I echo the concerns of many others who have spoken

regarding the impacts to the American River Parkway, doubts regarding the reduction of VMTs,

and the impacts to traffic patterns in South Natomas. I respect the staff's work and know that we

need multimodal transportation for the future of Sacramento. I just ask that you please vote for

the project that will best address the region's transit needs. Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Steve Hansen. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I am Steve. I'm a recovering politician and I'm

here tonight to welcome you to Groundhog Day because in August of 2013, Mr. Harris gave a

similar presentation to me when I sat where Council Member Pluckybaum is and I believe

then Council Member McCarty was also here just sitting where Mr. Garrow would be. And we had a

similar conversation. We looked at three alternatives, putting bike lanes and pad access next to the I-5,

redoing the 160 bridge which are way past their useful life and adding this. Since then, and I

am a little bit interested just to say help I created the Active Transportation Commission.

I did the parking protected bike lane in Midtown. I created the Vision Zero Plan that we adopted.

I did the Complete Streets Plan but we always want to give people a choice. We want to give people

a choice about how they're going to get from A to B. That might be from home to school with

their kids and might be from work to church. It might be anywhere else. But when we close off

options, we limit the city's economic mobility. We limit our residents' opportunities and we

force choices on them that are false choices. Now, after living in South Natomas for the last two

years, an area I represented in a community I helped design, I see that when I-5 is shut down,

you cannot get to downtown. I-5 has flooded before and it has a risk of flooding again. If you

have an emergency like the West Al-Communal Bridge was shut down this weekend because yes, a car

went off the bridge and closed the freeway, you could not get somewhere. Yeah, you can go to

Garden Highway and some other workarounds but we need emergency access from South Natomas to

downtown. If we want the rail yards to flourish, we need that local access. But cities, great cities

like ours have bridges. Portland, Pittsburgh, the Romans built bridges. This is what people do.

I encourage you to- Thank you for your comments. Aaron Leslie, Robert Cux, and Ontario.

My name is Aaron Leslie. I'm with the Sheewell workers, local 104. The proposed Truxel bridge will

create a vital new connection between North and South, sides of the American river. Currently,

residents living in the north of the river are only two options across the river. The new

infrastructure will provide much needed alternative and significantly enhance the accessibility for our

community. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Robert Cux, then Ontario, River Splatja.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council members and City staff. I'd like to thank Sparky for his work

on the project. I'm Robert Cux with the Sheewell workers union, local 104. I appreciate the time

here tonight. I'm going to meet two all of the comments for agreeing with the proposal.

I'd like to say that it's going to improve the opportunities for construction in the area.

I'm also on the Sacramento Central Labor Council and the Sacramento Building trades. I represent

over 100,000 members in being in those two bodies. This is going to be great for our city.

It's going to be great for transportation. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments. Ontario, then Lori, Tenhoop.

Mayor and Council, I'm Ontario, River Splata. I live in District 7, so I guess I'm the first 7 up.

I'd like to thank the staff for all the work they did on this. However, I would suggest that it

make a better approach to set aside the city's recommendation, city staff's recommendation,

instead go with what other people have spoken. I'd like to echo all of the people who have been

in opposition to the staff's recommendation. I think it makes a good idea. It's a very good idea

to take a look at either another route for this crossing, as they've talked about Northgate,

or to look at a pedestrian and transit only bridge, rather than one that includes automobiles.

I think there's good reasons to do both. For one, the VMT will go down if we look at a pedestrian

and transit bridge. Definitely go down because it will provide another alternative for people

going north south who are not using cars. And then secondarily, it's a good idea to do it because

it will come up if you do the environmental impact report for this bridge, if indeed you go forward

with the bridge. The environmental impact report is going to have to look at a variety of different

alternatives and an alternative that cuts out cars that would be narrower, that would have a

better opportunity to avoid the environmental damage to the parkway, would certainly be a good

alternative to take a look at in the environmental impact report. I think also the no auto alternative

would also perhaps reduce some of the opposition that you're seeing here tonight to what's been

proposed. So in conclusion, I support the people who have been here in opposition, and I would

suggest taking a look at either no cars or another route. Thanks very much.

Thank you for your comments. Laurie Tenho, the NAMI Casarini, then Theresa Ortega.

Hi, good evening. I'm Laurie Tenho, I'm a resident of District One, and I wanted to first

thank staff for having some really good open forums that made it really clear what these different

proposals were and allowed citizens to really understand the options and be able to participate

in this process. I'm asking the City Council also to pursue a car-free alternative, take a look

at that option for the reasons that various people have stated. I think a car-free option would

achieve several objectives that a car-oriented option will not. A car-free option could encourage

increased cycling and pedestrian use for both recreation and commuting to the rail yards in

downtown. It has the potential to decrease risk to cyclists and pedestrians and help Sacramento

reduce the far-too-frequent accidents and deaths to bikers and walkers. I've become an enthusiastic

cyclist in North Atomas and South Atomas. We have great trails, but when you try to connect into

downtown, you're really challenged if we have severe flooding and then accessing the river

parkway is a real challenge. Decreased traffic congestion downtown could be encouraged by having

other modes of travel into the city so that there's less need for parking. Car-orient, the car-free

options could also facilitate the increased use of the American River Parkway as several people

have stated. I also think that a car-free option has the potential to better highlight our wonderful

river assets and showcase the river as a beautiful destination and not simply something to cross over.

It's finally a car-free option has the potential to help the city meet its climate goals.

Thank you for your consideration. Thank you for your comments, Nami, Ben Teresa.

Hi, I'm Nami and I'm a constituent of District 4 and a representative of strong

sack towns. This meeting began with a land acknowledgement and I'm really hoping those words

weren't empty words because Discovery Park, which the Truxel Bridge would cut through, is a site

of a Nissan on village that was destroyed by the growing community at Sutter's Fort during the

gold rush. I'm saying this because first and foremost, we need to remember the history of the land

we are on and the violence that has led to the collapse of most of the repairing ecosystem around

the city of Sacramento. It's well documented that protecting green spaces is one of the most

effective strategies at combating climate change, much more so than the infinitesimal decrease in

emissions that the current plan is projecting. As the effects of climate change worsen, these

ecosystems become our last line of defense. To compromise them is to compromise the safety of

its inhabitants, including us. I'd also like to point out that keeping the bridge transit only

would ensure that taking transit across the river would be faster than driving, thereby reducing

greenhouse gas emissions. We have neglected our responsibility to the ecosystem we belong to,

the indigenous stewards we have displaced and to future generations for too long. I'm asking

that the city of Sacramento considers any of the alternatives presented by previous speakers.

Thank you. Here are comments. Theresa Ortega, then Pory Brown.

Hi, I'm Trey Sward-Ega from District 6. I like all of the active transportation commission

would like to ask council to direct staff to study a trucks old bridge plan that's free of personal

motor vehicles. Not everything needs cars. There is already a 10 lane freeway intersection a half

a mile from the proposed bridge. Building a bridge with cars would be fiscally irresponsible.

It would cost much more up front and much much much more in the long run. When the maintenance bills

come due, we would be saddled with the debt of the maintenance costs. A car option would also

result in immediate greater environmental impacts, threatening our wild and scenic American river

and surrounding ecosystems and endangered species which we must protect and cherish.

Worse still, expanding major roads for cars would incentivize suburban development in one of the

highest-risk flood areas of the region which would be terrible for our city's economy,

environment, beauty, public health and public safety. We need to end sprawl and instead invest

in infill development. We can have nice things. We can protect our rivers and ecosystems and

encourage active transportation and invest in bus rapid transit or light rail expansion on a

trucks old bridge. But we cannot afford nice things if we keep falling into the debt trap of

car-centric infrastructure and insolvence suburban development. I know some believe that we can't

afford not to put cars on the bridge, but I'd like to ask for you to please take a longer view.

We need to account for the full balance of what a car bridge would cost. Fiscal insolvency

is hardwired into car-centric infrastructure and further sprawl. Please protect our city's

economic and environmental future and vote no to personal motor vehicles on trucks old bridge.

And last thing, electric cars are still dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists and way worse for

the environment than walking by queen or mass transit. Thank you.

Corey Brown, then Stefan Green.

Corey Brown, then Stefan Green.

Mr. Mayor, members of City Council, thank you for the opportunity to talk about the

trucks old river bridge. I want to cover some of the points that weren't in your presentation today

from Sparky Love, enjoyed conversations with and were not made during the public presentations

at the community meetings which I attended a few of. The first is that the city actually

considered eight different alternatives in the 2013 American River Crossing study. If you look

at this chart that was attached to my letter and passed out to you, you'll see that number three,

the trucks old river bridge, was the most environmentally destructive of all the alternatives considered.

I kind of akin it to the type of projects that used to be proposed in the 1950s before

municipalities began caring about the environment. Number eight is one of the least environmentally

damaging alternatives. That's raising Northgate Boulevard so it doesn't flood to make sure you've

got access to downtown year round. It also potentially has some flood control benefits,

but have greater benefits to communities to the east of Northgate and it would avoid almost all

the environmental impacts. If you combine that with fixing the 160 bridge, you could provide access

to both North and towards downtown on Highway 160. CalTrans has determined that the 160 bridge has

to be repaired because it doesn't meet current standards. That's explicitly stated in your 2013

American River Crossing report. The cost-effective thing to do is to fix it first. Raise Northgate

so it doesn't flood and then you get the benefits out of that. If later you have the funding,

you fix the SR 160 bridge because it has to be repaired anyhow because that's money you're

going to have to spend some time in the future. Why waste your money on a new bridge for cars

when you've got a fixed existing infrastructure that has very similar benefits and creates jobs

to bring people to North Atomis? I want to discuss some additional reasons why the

Truxel bridge is a bad idea. First, as other speakers have... Thank you for your comments. Your time

is complete. Our next speaker is Stefan Green, then Jesse Cohn. Thank you.

You're doing Mr. Mayor and members of Council. My name is Steven Green. Since the

or American River Insurvency program was established under legislation by then Assembly Member

Kevin McCarty, I have been the Senate's appointee to the advisory committee for that.

It's very notable that the American River Parkway Plan does not allow a new motor vehicle bridge

across the river between Interstate 5 and SR 160. The American River Parkway Plan has been put

into state law the Urban American River Preservation Act. That act says that actions of state

and local agencies with regard to land use decisions shall be consistent with the American

River Parkway Plan. Therefore, there's going to be no motor vehicle bridge in this area.

It's very important, I think, that the focus of your public works agencies should be the deteriorating

infrastructure here before we start building new projects. Telltrans has said that SR 160 needs to be

upgraded or replaced and that should be the focus. It will be very easy then to have light rail

through 160 and better and safer transportation areas for bikers and pedestrians. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Jesse Cohn, then chance chambers.

Hello, I'm Jesse Cohn, resident of District 7. Good evening, City Council. I believe many of you support

public transit and light rail expansion, but this bridge is not it. There's no guarantee that this bridge

will ever give us light rail. It says so plainly in the proposal that Sparky is presented here.

And I want to speak to the unions here. The fastest way to get any bridge is a car free option.

As the previous speaker mentioned, the American River Parkway Plan only authorized a car free bridge.

We would have to amend that parkway plan, which is state law that would require county approval and

federal approval. There's no guarantee the county will approve this. I was out of recent county

transportation meeting and they said fix it first. We're going to fix new stuff before building new

bridges. That's what the county's policy on. So the county is not going to support this. And we

don't have a money for this bridge. Trump reduced federal grant money by 90% so there's no guarantee

that we'll ever get any sort of federal money for this at least for the next four years. The county

currently spends $30 million just to maintain our roads in poor conditions. They're asking for

$85 million to get them to good conditions. And so how is this project that costs $250 million

is going to cross tens of millions dollars every 25 years to maintain where we're going to get that

money. We have a deficit in our city budget every year. So why are we going to set us up in the

future to have even more deferred maintenance? This project will cost $250 million to construct.

A car free bridge will be almost half of that. And so do the unions here that want jobs. I support

that. But the best way to do this is for a car free option because we can actually get the money

to build it instead of waiting for federal grant money that's never going to come. And also this

project is only going to reduce vehicle miles traveled by less than 1%. I mean that's negligible.

It's insanity. Like LA is on fire right now. We're in a climate emergency. Electric cars kill people.

Like how many people have to die before we consider alternatives. So please consider a new car option.

Thank you for your comments. Chance Chambers. Then Halley German.

Chance then Halley German. Then Simon Hyatt.

Hello. My name is Chance Chambers. I'm from District 5. If the city of Sacramento wants to

actually pride itself on being a more walkable and bikeable city quote from you guys' website,

I'd like it says on your website. Cars cannot be an option for this bridge. The presence of cars

is not only harmful to the environment and the people walking alongside it but also as a reputation

as a city. What kind of standard are we setting while holding onto cars being on this bridge while

being known as the city with bad drivers and terrible traffic? It says that we're a city that cares

more about saving space for traffic lawyer billboards than it actually cares about the safety of

its own citizens. When your own study says that there is quote no popularity or room within the

budget to use eco-friendly options, then it should be clear that cars are the main glaring problem.

But yet we continue to barrel through an ignore public opinion and even the comment of our own

public transportation committee while our own mayor is on his phone while all of these people

are talking. Adding more lanes is all to an already high injury network with a 10 lane freeway

only a half a mile away is exactly what creates more traffic, accidents and car related fatalities

that we have a city have to deal with while the crumbling streets and highways that were already

stuck on get ignored. The only solution to traffic is viable alternatives to driving and having

a bridge that prioritizes transit and pedestrians over cars is a step in the right direction.

We need to stop the expansion of car-centric infrastructure in Sacramento because I for one

and sick and tired of seeing the city choose cars over its own citizens and the nature that we

built ourselves upon while running itself further into the ground with more debt making a bad

problem even worse. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. I'd like to remind members of the

audience to please be respectful of the speakers and refrain from calling out from the audience so

they do have their time. I have 12 more speakers so Halle then Simon. Hi good evening my name's

Haley Gohmann. I am a restoration biologist specifically in riparian areas. I'm not here to

formally represent my organization but I am a resident of district one. I am here to talk about

my opposition of this project specifically about the environmental impacts that are associated with

this according to the environmental memo. This is supposed to take out about seven and a half

or yeah seven and a half acres of riparian forest. Additionally that would be the removal of 800 to

1000 trees. Those trees act as habitat for the federal or the state threatened Swanson's

Hawk, the federally protected bald eagle. Additionally what was failed to be mentioned was the

2015 record of the yellow-billed cuckoo which is a federally and state endangered species.

So taking in consideration with just the the amount of money that would take in permitting

alone it would need an incidental take permit which are very expensive. I do not support the

project itself as far as environmental impacts. Yeah that's just what I'd like to say.

Thank you for your comments. Simon Hyatt, then Rickal Corrin.

Greetings, council, Mr. Mayor. My name is Simon Hyatt. I'm a 20 year resident of Sacramento. I chose to

settle here when I went to community college of Sacramento City College and the thing that enticed me

about Sac City after I had done a year of travel abroad was that there was a light rail stop on campus.

I thought that that was really cool and was going to be able to save me a lot of money and gas

to be able to just ride my bike to the light rail and get to get to campus that way. Later I went

to Sac State and nine and a half years ago as I was riding my bike home from work at the East

Sacramento Trader Joe's I was hit by a car. I broke my left patella, was hospitalized, lost my job,

and now at only 39 years old I have arthritis in my left knee. So it's something that you continue

to deal with. Years later from that first surgery had an additional surgery when the medical

implants failed in my knee. I wanted to share that story because of how important the actual

safety of our roads are. This is a public safety crisis. It's a public health crisis.

You're more likely to get killed by a car in Sacramento than you are by homicide. I don't know

if that's good or bad thing. Good thing that homicides are getting lower but also really bad that

it's so dangerous for us to ride our bikes or walk. Today I was just I rode my bike from my home

in River Park to Sac State to catch the 30 to come here. A cyclist had been hit on Carlson

today at 430. This weekend a scuderist in right across the river there was also hit and run

over in campus commons and then I'll just wrap it up there. Thank you. Please do not include cars

on. Thank you for your comments. Raquel Korea Sally and Raid Arcadia Larson Keon Bliss

Ali Durr Westrick Ali Raquel I don't see Raquel Sally and Raid

following Sally's Arcadia Larson Keon Bliss Ali Durr Westbrook.

Hi I'm Arcadia I live by Marshall School. I'm here to encourage the council to

consider alternatives to consider the car free options. I'd like to ditto what everybody else said

and one of the things that I'm here to speak about you know that I particularly care about is

I love the American River Parkway. I love walking there I volunteer there. This is it is one of

those places that I find refuge in and I think a lot of other people do and I want when I think

about the future I think about the places that I want to be in the decisions that I want

to make. I hope people make and I hope the council makes a decision to think about the people of the city

and I want to be able in like 30 years and 40 years what I live here and I'm hanging out with my

friends and their kids and all of them and you'd be like yeah we made the right decision here

you know because we chose people over cars so yeah that's my piece thank you for listening.

Thank you for your comments. Is Sally Andre here? I don't see Sally Keon Bliss.

Ali Durr Westbrook, Nikolai, Antoneer, Robin Kalsbeck.

Do you want to thank staff for the dedicated work as well as for the active transportation

commission and members of the community who have come out and actually participated in this work

largely for free because that's the majority of us can't afford to actually come in here and

advocate as fiercely as many people do and I know most of the commissioners do not make any money

doing this work. Unfortunately I don't believe that you all are actually listening to them not a

majority of you. I'll give some of you that are new to the council benefit of doubt but the vast

majority of you I don't believe that it has anything to do with cars over people or even the climate

or like you're even just the uncertainty of business it has everything to do with money.

Namely money that goes into your campaign accounts when it comes time for election and I count

it the written and public statements that were coming here tonight with at least 60 people opposing

this 60 comments opposing this council or cars being on this bridge there's not only about 30

unique comments supporting it most of whom came from moneyed interest or business interest

which total have given the majority of this council over 222,225 dollars and majority

of that has actually been coming in from some of the speakers tonight. Namely members of the

Sacramento Central Labor Council who have given over $50,000 to at least six of you and of the

Northern California Carpenter's Union as well over $45,000 the sheet metal workers local union $33,000

and also the Sacramento Metro Chamber which is very much in support of majority of you are

giving at least $38,000 to this. That's just the taste of the amount that I can see from public

records on this so I don't really think that it has anything to do with public comment or what is

actually better for the community it's really- Thank you for your comments your time is complete.

Thank you for your comments your time is complete our next speaker is Ali the Nikolai then Robin

please take your seat your time is complete. Thank you for your comments.

Ali.

All right good evening mayor and council members my name is Ali Dar Westbrook I'm a resident of

District 4 in past year of the Active Transportation Commission which you've heard of this evening was

in full support of a car free option and I'm here today to encourage you all to be bold and

imagine a Sacramento that doesn't continue to put us down an irreversible path of car dependency

for far too long we've invested millions of dollars expanding our network of roads and bridges

with devastating impacts on the environment health and safety of our community I appreciate the

gears of work and engagement that sparking in particular and city staff have put into this project

but I found it really frustrating that we weren't even given an opportunity to analyze a

car free option us as a community weren't given the option you as council members weren't given

that opportunity and I really think that we all deserve that so please reject the staff

recommendations for option 3b and bring this decision back for a vote when a sorry a vote not a

vote when a car free option has been studied thank you for your time thank you for your comments

liquefied and robin and Nicole

good evening city council members as someone who sold their car within a few months of

arriving arriving in Sacramento and thriving car free for a year now I'm here to join strong

sacked town and the community in demanding a trucksal bridge alternative that is free of

personal vehicles there are so many salient regions to reject the recommended alternative

fiscal perhaps being the easiest for you to get behind alternative 3b is the widest of the

bridge layouts due to the space required by private vehicles increasing construction costs by

over a hundred million dollars in the estimates that we heard roadways are constantly deteriorating

deteriorating requiring frequent maintenance which only grows exponentially as vehicles increase

in size year over year or significantly increase in weight due to electrification Sacramento is

already egregiously behind in roadway maintenance with worse roads road conditions than our

pier california cities because doubling down on car dependence is absurdly expensive

according to the city's pavement condition report we already have a growing backlog of

unfunded repairs and ever worsening roadway conditions maintaining our below average streets at

their current conditions is expected to cost 58 million dollars per year and to repair them to

good condition would cost 97 million dollars per year for a decade now is the time for Sacramento

to be funding repairs to our existing street wet network non investing an extra hundred million

into an unnecessary car component rather than prioritizing active transportation and transit crossing

best case scenario this bridge is going to open in about 15 years what kind of city do you envision

for your constituents more than a decade from now what kind of city are you building for our children

in descendants one with more parking lots and more traffic with works roads and more potholes

where we continue to just hope for zero traffic deaths every time we cross the street of our city

instead of investing in vision zero as a vital priority or do you like me envision a beautiful

and green city with vibrant and bustling local shops with the robust transit and bike network

with the unique connections to nature that we are so lucky to enjoy i hope we share that

vision of a beautiful and strong Sacramento a car free thank you for your comments your time is

complete i have four more speakers robin have four more speakers robin calls back

Nicole Porter Marbella Salah and Z

good evening my name is robin calzbyk i'm a resident of fair oaks and a board member of family

free ride i'm representing family free ride myself and my one year old son family free ride is a

not for profit organization with a mission of getting more kids on bikes we maintain mountain bike

park lead youth cycling classes and events and advocate for bicycling infrastructure

we are frequent users of the american bike trail and parkway and the parts that line it

i urge you to reconsider the development of trucks will bridge or at the very late least

planet as a pedestrian and cycling bridge only as an advocate for protecting natural areas

particularly for future generations i am in fear i fear the long term negative impacts of yet

another massive auto-centric infrastructure project and not just from the financial aspect

i'm confident that our children as they look around at our built up and and concrete environment

will not regret the pause and discontinuation of a auto-centric bridge instead they will regret

that we continue to destroy natural green areas that inspire awe and still curiosity teach

community and respect and allow for wonderment and play they will regret that we didn't do

everything we can today to protect the natural areas we still have please reconsider the

need for another bridge i oppose the alternative 3b and request city council to conduct a study

on a cyclist and pedestrian only bridge thank you a cold quarter

you know

Nicole the marbaya and z

good evening mayor and council i'm Nicole i'm a resident and recent homeowner here in sacrameno

and today i'm urging you to please oppose the trucksel bridge design being considered

i'd like to ask that you direct city staff instead to develop a bridge design alternative

that serves only public transit pedestrians and bicyclists for those of you that have traveled

to other cities states are likely enough other countries i'd like to ask that you think back and

think back to those trips and consider what made those places so special was it the sound of cars

and trucks honking on the freeway was it the smog coming from traffic congestion was it the polluted

rivers and trails that you traveled through i'm guessing probably not so why would we wish to

continue this pattern of poor urban planning here in sacrameno our city has a very unique opportunity

to design a bridge that contributes to a safe walkable and very vibrant public realm so please

don't waste it you can design a car free bridge to accommodate emergency vehicle access and evacuation

routes that are activated only when needed and a bridge does not have to allow for continuous

car traffic to meet these specific safety needs documents can be easily amended bridges not so much

once they're built in april of 2019 at a general plan community meeting south natomas community

members specifically asked for more frequent transit service safety improvements for bikes and

pedestrians less emphasis on car travel more accessible transit systems and less pollution along

the american river parkway so i'll conclude with this the overall cost of this trucksel bridge is

posted on the city's website to be expected to exceed five hundred million dollars yet we are

still waiting for the final funding necessary to construct the i street bridge which was finalized more

than six years ago there has been no federal funding allocated to the next phase of this project

so what is the rush please direct staff to take a few more months to develop a car free bridge design

and see what differences in cost vehicle miles traveled and emissions reductions and improved mobility

come from it this is a chance to truly rethink how we approach planning for the best version of our city

thank you good comments marbaya good evening mayor and council i'm my baya salam president of

garland northgate neighborhood association and i am literally the minority in this room so

most of the people speaking and supporting no cars on this bridge don't live in our community

garland northgate i live in this community and there were several people that live in this community

that a couple of them that left because it was the first time coming to speak and i think it

may have been intimidated by all of what was being said and what i want to just argue is our

community is a working class hard working brown and black community they they will need to travel

they do travel by car it is a luxury to say okay i'm going to use my bike and i'm going to walk

across and i'm going to have to work and on the weekends our people don't have time most of the

people that live in garland northgate work two jobs they don't have time to be walking and using

bikes and what i want to ask everyone that saying exclude cars is why are you excluding

our hard working community why the bridge has everyone included bikes walking bus and cars

that's inclusive of everyone's needs and where everyone is at our community is not at the place

to ride bikes and walk they're not there the reality is that they they need cars to get to work

mainly to support all of everything that's going to happen here that all of the people want to

enjoy our people are going to be working doing that and they're going to need a car and our people

are going to need to get to the hospital and they're not going to ride a bike and walk across to

get to the hospital or emergency room so and northgate please stop picking on northgate we are

one of the last we were redlined and we are the last one of the last community that has limited

thank you for your comments your time is complete our final speaker is Z

good evening council i work for climate plan an organization that can be in the state wide

network of transportation advocates around climate public health and equity i can appreciate

what marbeque was saying i'm also an organizer with sunrise movement sacrameno and here to echo

the comments made by strong sacked town made by your own active transportation commission

more importantly i'm a life long sacrament in who grew up in district six along the american

river parkway but rather than making use of that parkway and bike trail i spent my weekends as a child

visiting my cousins in atomas the only way that my family felt was safe by getting on the freeway

drivers in atomas in the central city already have in a adjacent way to cross the river and back

walkers and bikers do not staff did not consider or analyze an option with no cars because it wasn't

within the direction that council provided to staff direct quote so please provide direction

to analyze a no car option let's practice government responsibly by acting informed by evidence

and analysis thank you

marie have no more speakers on the site thank you thank you lit let's first of all

let's give you all around of a plaza for a very civil debate there

yes and i will say i think this is my uh ten council meeting and i keep saying one of these council

meetings is going to be a big debate with fifty plus speakers and uh and uh tonight's tonight so

thank you so much for coming out and uh sharing your perspective we all heard you they're two

different views i know our council members are going to have uh wady discussion right now led by

the people that represent these districts but this is a citywide issue it impacts every district

in the city of sacrameno and and of course being uh the citywide leader i want to start tonight by

just maybe asking uh sparky our lead staff to come back up to the podium and enlightened us on

some key issues that i heard over and over so i had some questions myself so i have you know five

or so questions that maybe you can help us and frame the rest of the debate tonight amongst the

council uh so first this this as mr. Hanson did note this was uh fifteen years ago and i don't

remember the details like then councilor Hanson did by do you remember you coming up here and

then councilman racone helping lead the discussion on basically do we need to cross the american

remember again and what would that look like so maybe you can start with this first question

and in 2013 it was alluded that the set in motion only this option a uh a car and bike

pet bridge so at this point why are we not pursuing uh two options a car free bridge and a

complete street bridge with cars bikes and pedestrians i will try my best um

the american river crossing study actually started with a long series of meetings with our

what we called it at the time um community planning team i believe it was almost 30

individuals and organizations that got together to develop the purpose and need statement

if i were called it was at least five meetings just to come up with that need and purpose statement

um those debates are really what framed what the potential future crossing was going to accomplish

there was plenty of opportunity in those meetings for people to say all we need this bridge to

to do is get people over the bridge or over the river on bike or on foot or on transit

that group decided to move forward with a purpose and need statement that called for all modes

over this bridge so when that was formalized in the resolution in 2013 the decision that council

made was to actually go with three of the alternatives number one number three and number eight

number one was improvements to i5 which would include some kind of bike and pet facilities on a

state highway um troughsle bridge all modes and also an all-weather northgate that would connect

aerially to um state route 160 um those two options on the end are both state facilities so we

haven't progressed on either one of those yet they're still in the works but we haven't done it yet

the reason why we moved forward on this one is this is the only option that was a completely

city-led effort and i mean just frankly council gave us direction to pursue funding to move

this one forward so that's why we're only looking at all modes options because that was the direction

from council based on the purpose and need statement that was put together by this collective group

okay thank you so the next issue that um we hear is that if you pursue a car free bridge

versus having a complete street bridge that would limit us on applying for and obtaining federal

and state money so in your view it is it viable to proceed with a car free bridge and still have a

realistic expectation of receiving state or federal money for such bridge um that's a difficult

question as well uh bridge of this magnitude that didn't have cars on it but kept transit

would be a transit bridge with ancillary uses including bicycles and pedestrians the city doesn't

build transit bridges so that responsibility would fall to Sacramento Regional Transit to lead that

effort and partnership with the city obviously we work very closely with them and we would do what we

could but it would be a regional transit bridge with our help um there's obviously state and

federal funding that's available to transit districts um actually some pots that aren't even

available to us but again that would be something that would be led by the transit district and not by

the city of Sacramento in staff's opinion come back yeah can we go now to the issue with the

American River Parkway so it was alluded that any additional crossing over the American river

would be in violation of law of the American of the Parkway Act whether it's uh and I'm kind of

confused because there's some advocates here that just want a bike and ped bridge over the river

and if that's the case it potentially still would be in violation of the idea that set forth that

no bridge is over the river is lawful so can you um engage us here about your understanding

of any additional crossings over American river? Sure to make it perfectly clear the American

River Parkway plan in the Discovery Park section includes a transit bridge over the American river

that includes bikes and pets it also includes language that says if car bridges are ever considered

the preference is to add the car capacity to an existing bridge rather than build a new bridge

so our thinking moving forward with this Truxel bridge was if the transit bridge is already coming

in this is how we satisfy the requirements of that Parkway plan is by putting the cars on

that bridge versus trying to build something else next to it which is exactly the direction in the

American River Parkway plan we still have to go back and amend the Parkway plan in order to allow

cars on that facility but staff is currently working on that right now and then you briefly

address this in question number one but the the Northgate option and it was alluded to that's already

a bridge and has some opportunity to have increased bike pedestrian access and there's some need

a need for an improvements on the Northgate section I think you said that that those are two

state highway still and there's and there's and that the Northgate where it gets to 160 correct

Northgate is not a state highway Northgate gets to 160 it gets to 160 it gets to 160 it would actually

connect up in the based on the concept plans that we did 10 years ago yes it would connect into a

state highway in the air it was one of the I think it was the most expensive alternative of the eight

but it did accomplish a lot of the same goals that we were trying to get here but maybe just

explain why Northgate was Northgate slash 160 in your view is not a viable option I don't believe

it's not a viable option I believe that council direction 10 years ago was to focus on all three

staff asked for permission to move forward with funding for one of them which is the

Truxel Bridge option that we're talking about right now the other two are still on the table to seek

funding for with the caveat that we have to have a partnership with CalTrans on either one of those

because they are not our facilities yeah we don't we can't control it like we could control

no we can't Truxel Bridge is the only one that's completely under our control and then lastly

can you can you help me understand and lighten that can you bring your your visual up again is that

possible thanks oh that has the 8b the preferred route with the loop 3b yeah so essentially

while it's coming up we heard from many people that it's not safe writing your bike in Sacramento

which I concur Calcimer and Blockebom and I wrote our bikes this weekend and crossed Carl's

fit in J and it was dicey and I saw it firsthand that like it's a real thing that we hear from people

out there I get it that that that being said one of the issues was that that people wouldn't feel

safe crossing this bridge that has cars on it but as the bridge is designed aren't the car aren't

the bikes and pedestrians completely separate from where the cars and transit would be so in

essence it is a bike-pred bridge bike-ped bridge because you're nowhere near where the cars and

light rail would be is that accurate based upon this image here I would agree with you my primary

mode of transportation is bike as well and this is exactly the type of facility that I would want

to see because I would write on it so again just to clarify this is a completely separate bike

and pedestrian route from the cars there's in between them is the two light rail route path

to transit lanes that would have anywhere between 15 and 30-minute service so majority of the time

yeah there's gonna be nothing yeah I think this makes a compelling case and I'm inclined to be

open to what you're hearing you're outlining you're outlining tonight's only here from my course

or other Calcimer's as well and it's a you know we focus extensively on let's fix our streets we

talked earlier about fruit rich road we want to make these complete streets so this would be it's

a complete bridge so it's it's automobile transit and a separate area for bike and pedestrian

sin I agree that was the goal yeah I think we hit it and then the the last question before I get

to the others is on on this is is this accurate that the trucks will route was the most

questions most far as environmental impact for that study yes we have to keep in mind that that

was a high level environmental analysis that was a qualitative comparison of the eight alternatives

there was no sequel level analysis it was really an opportunity for us to get in front of council

and basically say this one's a little bit better this one's a little bit worse the real the real

analysis gets done when we launch sequin depa which would be the follow-up to this action so

essentially if you had a bridge at Truxel if it was complete bike and pad and just bike and pad car

free or a complete street bridge which is automobile bike pad and transit you had the same environmental

impact next to that bridge I'm not asking anybody else because if you're if you're building a bridge

yes I mean the width would be different with would be you're still having the same footings yes

so so how is that how is the environmental impact different if it's still the construction impacts

will be virtually the same yeah because you're building the bridge not just for cars but also for

the light rail trains across right so you need the same footings underneath the water you need the

same impacts on each side of the bridge as well all that would be very comparable I know that

several have mentioned a bike and pad only bridge that might have a construction profile that's

you know a little bit different but as soon as you put transit on it it's going to be very

comparable to anything that we've put here now the ongoing environmental impacts are going to be

a little bit different based on you know 24 hour car service on it light glare shade all of those

things but again those are the things that will be analyzed in a sequinipa study and if there are

significant impacts appropriate mitigation measures will be implemented okay thank you thank you

for entertaining that I think that helps at the stage vice mayor Tallah Montes thank you so much mayor

you took a lot of my questions so I want to find my little script I just want to thank all the

speakers that that came out tonight I also want to thank all the people that have participated in

the community conversations people that submitted e-comment the letters support and support or

against the project I think mayor McCarty said the best like it's so important to have these healthy

conversations as a city and I love to see some of the people engaged this project has been such a

long time in the making I watched the August 8th 2013 city council meeting just a few nights ago to

understand the sentiment now versus then and honestly it remains pretty the same it's frickey

was there 12 years ago which but I made that point earlier I have more here right

one of the speakers there at that meeting was the former president of June and A who had a

business on Northgate and he said hey we're finally here in 2013 this idea originated in 1990s

when we bought our home and at that time council former council member Steve Cone who was here earlier

of district three made the motion and our now senator angelic ashby the only council member at

that time living north of the river seconded it so what was the reasoning behind this logic in 2013

public safety for ambulance services flood control emergencies connectivity to downtown

and building more bridges was a priority for the council like sparky said there was eight options at

the time and it got narrowed and it got not narrowed down to three and now we're here with the

truck so bridge so what was most important to the people at that time was four modes of transportation

for the community so 12 years later we're here and we're picking the design of the bridge is

taken a long time and you're probably asking g's 12 years why it's a take it so long

and it's and I asked for Archaeus earlier it's because staff has to continue to apply for grants

to be able to continue doing the work that they're doing so keep in mind that as we move forward we might

you know there might be questions about like will do you start over yes you'd be starting all over

and I don't know what year that would take us to even our bridge now takes us to 2039

and we still have to secure federal funding and everything else that comes with it

what's important to me as a council member representing the communities living north of the river

is connectivity to downtown and our rail yards I feel like my community always feels excluded

or they feel like we're not part of Sacramento and honestly we're making so many investments in

downtown in our rail yards the new kais are coming in the concert soccer so many investments

in downtown and I want my community to be able to take part of that right now I'm part of the

rail yards EIFD and I asked the staff okay tell me they were talking about transportation plans

for downtown and east sack and you know the different places in downtown of how people are going

to get to the stadium and I asked what the plan was for my community and they said well right now

it's getting on the i5 getting our Richards and parking and parking structure in the rail yards

that's not acceptable when I'm like a rock still in a way and I can hear the noise from the

rail yard concerts my community deserves to be connected to downtown and the investments that

we're doing here in downtown so a community survey showed that people travel downtown for healthcare

services since all our hospitals are downtown people travel downtown for work and for entertainment

this bridge is going to connect it's going to help us with connectivity and access it's also

going to produce high wage jobs quality jobs and I've read the e-commerce I've got an emails

and tonight we've heard a lot of comment about the desire to have an option that doesn't include cars

and Sparky mentioned it a little bit one of the main reasons why we need to include cars because

it expands a number of funding sources available to us so my question to RT I think RT is here

okay RT can I please have you come up and introduce yourself because I want to piggyback off of

a question that Mayor McCarty had what does the capacity sorry actually I wait for you to introduce

yourself give me everyone Kevin Schroder I'm the senior planner for SEC RT I'm also the

Green Line Manager project manager wonderful so for RT what does your capacity look like to

construct and move this bridge forward what some funding sources you have allocated to it and

where does it fall on your list of priorities so as to piggyback on what Sparky said is if we

were to take out this project on ourselves it wouldn't have to be a no-car bridge it how other

funding sources one of them would be new starts for example that would allow us the ability to do

that however that comes with a major caveat that we do have to pick a locally preferred alternative

which is why we're here tonight to try to figure that out the funding plan would be required for

this and that doesn't just mean how to build it that means how to operate the bridge and then

you would need a local funding measure so the city the county would have to step up and create a

funding measure that we could use for going after state federal funds and again operation of the

system and then lastly it would require the city the county and say coag to make this almost your

number one priority moving forward so that we could access these funds project priority thank you

so much appreciate it so former councilmember Steve Hanson who bit gave public comment earlier

was said don't let the perfect be a land of me the good and for me it's important to have this bridge

because if we don't allow to put cars on it I don't know where it's going to fall on the priority

list for other agencies right now the city of Sacramento can continue to apply for grants to be able

to move forward with funding and I as a councilmember just can't have that especially right now with

all the natural disasters happening around us many of you alluded to that earlier and I think

about evacuation plans for my community living north of the river over 130,000 people live north of

the river and we're continuing to grow as a city and I remember two years ago we had a major thunderstorm

and Northgate and I 60 was flooded so you couldn't get through and there was a big rig that had

overturned on the i5 so emergency vehicles had to go all the way around all our major hospitals

including our UC Davis emergency room that does trauma level one trauma

is on the side town my working class community deserves an evacuation route and we deserve to

get to the hospital quickly especially in emergencies and invacuations fires floods you just never

know in my community deserves that we're continuing to grow as a city and for me it's also important

to have a connection to the airport to be a major class city when you go visit other cities you take

public transit to downtown where typically you're staying in your hotel room and we don't have that

right now I mean I was at the airport during golden sky weekend and there was a line of people ready to

you know to get to downtown and for me this is like one step in the right direction and I do

want to know that many of our transit agencies support this project including jib who's our north

of Thomas TMA our south of Thomas TMA regional transit Sacramento area council of governments

and our city of Sacramento general plan as we move forward on this project I want to make sure

that there's a road diet on trucks all which reduces the number of lanes to be able to slow down

traffic do a subcommittee for the design and the name of the bridge and ask my colleagues to humbly

vote yes on trucks of bridge 3b to be able to move my community forward allow us to be connected

and honestly for emergency reasons thank you

Councillor Perri Placquillac

thank you mayor bridges are more than just technology to overcome obstacles there's symbols

there are commitment between communities that the chair common values and economic opportunities

and lives and as our values change and as our our modes of transportation change these bridges

are going to need to change to reflect those those those different values spark if we build the

bridges currently designed in the future is there anything that would prohibit us from repurposing

the car lanes for some other purpose the first constraint that comes to mind is the color of

money that's used to build it I could see some constraints in terms of useful life if federal

funds were used you know there may be a certain number of years where you just have to stick with

whatever they they funded I don't know exactly what that time frame could be but other than that

functionally no I don't but I do think the funding would be a huge concern however this vote

goes tonight I hope the folks that are here tonight advocating for active transportation for pedestrian

and bike use will continue to work with us work with RT and advocate for a source of funds for

the kinds of of transportation access that we're I think we're all seeking the principal's

points of conflict here are I think can be summarized by the location and the modalities and the

location of the bridge made up be perfect but it is the one that we control and it's the

opportunity that that presents itself to us as the nearest term solution for us to create another

crossing north of the river the modalities I think is an interesting discussion that isn't a one

and done I think we'll have an opportunity to you know seek federal funds for this bridge is

currently designed in the future if we want to come back and you know reevaluate the use of some

of this or all this capacity we can have that discussion and debate as we move forward but today

as as we sit here you know to let the as council member Talima to said let the perfect be the

enemy of the good I think it would be a mistake and a disservice to the the councils and the

folks that have come before us and to the future that is expecting us to provide something rather

than nothing so I'll be supporting staff's recommendation. Councillor Cappellan.

Thank you mayor want to thank Sparky and city staff this is decades in the works you know whatever

council decides tonight and if by some miracle federal funding is received if a federal government

still exists in a couple years I'm supportive of its construction by our union brothers and

sisters without a doubt that is the only way we should do public infrastructure. With that I want

to ask a couple of questions which my staff give you heads up on on a couple of these so when was

the last time that council made a decision publicly in a direction on this bridge?

Directly 2013 indirectly 2024 by approving the general plan that included this

two-lane arterial bridge over the American River. So but it didn't include all eight options

that were included in the 2020 10 2013 analysis that came to council I just want to call that out

while our mayor was was a council member at that time none of us sat here and while I respect

those that have come before us you know it is something I don't just stand on principle of what

was decided 12 years ago when there are eight of us who can look differently and see things

differently even though it may not be the best decision as everybody agrees or disagrees on it

when the American River Crossing Alternative Study was completed in 2013 has that data been

updated that was used in that study since 2013 only with the information for this bridge itself

okay so no additional analysis has been done on the other seven options so the 160 or anything else

there is no other not to the best of my knowledge so I know that we are looking for this to be

constructed estimated by 2039 but it took 13 years almost to get to this point and this is just

the planning stages have we identified where federal funding will come from it's an ongoing process

we we did submit a grant application for the next phase which would be the preliminary

sorry environmental determination and preliminary engineering that is a federal grant

well here by this summer whether we got that or not but we do these things in stages the

concept and feasibility report includes a financing strategy in it that lists all of the programs

that we knew about at the time about a month or two ago all of those may be completely different

by the time we get to those next phases but yeah once you finish one are you getting towards the

end you start to strategize about what are the other pots both federal state well add regional

available and then you start to chase those funds as well but at least for the next phase

we've got a pretty solid plan for moving forward and just is this considered part of our what we're

looking at for future transportation needs with the city of Sacramento for our unfunded liabilities

with infrastructure or is this a separate so it would be on top of the you know potential five

billion dollars in projects that the city has identified in our transit transit priority plan

that's a good question I mean since the bridge is in the general plan I would assume that our

unfunded needs would include future things that we've already planned for but I can't answer that

with certainty then that brings into mind if we have a transportation priority plan where does this

bridge fall and what projects will get moved up or down that's something that council you know

should decide as as we look at this of where do we apply for federal funding again as you've said

if federal funding even exists the next couple of years will be will be interesting and we just

heard which I appreciate regional transit being here I had to go refresh my memory the discussion

began in 1991 when Anne Routin was mayor with the green line of how do we get the green line

from downtown to to the airport I moved to south natomas in 2001 and that discussion was going

on and houses were going to be bought up and here we are 24 years later and still wondering when

the green line is is coming any update from me I'd have to defer to second original transit on that

coming soon okay curiosity is are we waiting for the EIR for an updated traffic study of the

impact of the bridge on trucks or do we have an impact study on the impact this bridge will have

on trucks in the surrounding area in quality everything else traffic analysis yes we've done

we've run the the regional traffic model within without this project so we know all of the

impacts it's hard to summarize on paper because it's it covers the entire region so yes we do know

the impacts and I did summarize some of those in my in my presentation when it comes to air quality

no we haven't gotten there yet because that will be analyzed in the sequin nipa process

and then as the vice mayor talked about and this has been a discussion for a while when is the

plan to do the road diet on trucks all I just checked just checked the mtpses and it did say it

was scheduled to be completed between or before 2035 I mean I would defer to our engineers internally

but my understanding just based on that is that road diet at least in the mtp is scheduled to be

completed before the bridge is scheduled to be completed and again it's dependent on how many

grants and federal funding we get because Sacramento has turned down transportation funding correct

separate transportation funding outside of federal turn down of the voters did not

the voters yes the voters yeah that's not really my area of expertise but yes additional funding

would be required and then I just want to bring back up on the urban American Parkway Preservation

Act is there any additional feedback or information available regarding the concerns that the

community has received that the bridge does not align with the policies on the American river

Parkway we've been in conversation with Sacramento County for at least nine months on this project

I've presented to the American River Parkway Foundation I've presented to the counties parks

and recreation commission we are currently working with county staff to do the environmental

analysis to determine what level of Sequa analysis is necessary to amend the American River Parkway

plan and the only amendment that we need to make is what's called a map amendment and if you

actually read the Parkway plan and the county staff agrees with us as well what's needed to make

that change is a vote at the county supervisors level only um we know the EIR is coming um and then

the EIR will look at the uh environmental impact to the protected species Swanson Hawk Cooper Hawks

egrids and others absolutely and our we've started to do some of that analysis with this concept

and feasibility study just to have an idea of the magnitude of those impacts once we get into the

Sequa NEPA document we'll really dig into it but we at least wanted to know so that we could

start early conversations about mitigation we didn't want to leave this to the Sequa NEPA process

and that I mean to go a step further you would do outreach to any existing Native American tribes

in the Sequa NEPA study we've started that now we've already had conversations with the United

Auburn Indian Council to let them know this is coming talk to them about what mitigations they could

potentially ask for so that we could put that into our cost analysis and not get a surprise later

that they wanted all of these things that we haven't budgeted for so yes and that's good to hear um

I think the most part those are there's my questions um so

last is council decision was in 2013 um I'm always open that council can can change directions so

even if council moves moves forward with this if there's a possibility of partnering with

CalTrans and raising Northgate uh that could still move forward correct absolutely that's still

council direction thank you I appreciate your questions um so I come from this from a slightly

different point of view my first house that I was lucky enough to buy was a couple of blocks from

garden highway and less than half a mile from where this new bridge is being proposed south

Natomas is an amazing majority minority community a majority whom are a lower income and live in

apartments that attend our south natoma schools where approximately 80% of the students qualify for

free and reduced lunch somebody talked about biking as a luxury and I do take offense to that

from 2001 to 2004 I scrimped and saved because while I went to law school I decided to inter public

service and that doesn't necessarily afford you a lot of extra money and so when I worked in the

capital from 2001 to 2004 I rode my bike downtown through discovery park when it was not flooded

and over 160 risking my life when it was however I will tell you some days I felt like I was snowy

singing to the deer's the birds the quails the coaties the skunks the foxes the geese the eagrets

and other animals I consistently rode by six o'clock in the morning five o'clock at night at

some time at night I did that because I didn't have a luxury I had no ability to pay for car parking

and when I did have to park I'd figured out a couple places can't park through now but I did

wear a park to mile from the capital because I could park there for free and I walked a mile in

so I could afford that I did this out of necessity and now 20 years later I still look

fondly at that time as to how easy it was to access discovery park bike lanes and just ride my

bike three miles to my job hit 24 hour fitness shower change go in um you could also earn very

little money and buy a house back then still a goal that we can that our younger generation

deserves to have that I had in my 20s my husband and I chose our house in North Natomas which is

on the very edge of the city because guess what I get a walk out and I still get to go see coyotes foxes

eagrets swanson hawk because I live on the very edge of the city in the county next to open space

that is important to me and my family my girls ride their bikes but guess what our trails don't

fully connect so they ride on the sidewalks because my child's safety is more important and I've

taught them to pull over for pedestrians walking on the sidewalks because our streets are not safe to

ride your bike north natomas was master plan to connect we need safe bike lanes and we need

increased transit options when I was on Sacramento RT that is something I've then emptied argued for

I did get a promise whether it's followed through or not that the executive director would put

in a grant to look at the green line to change it from light rail to bus rapid transit we've been

talking about light rail for decades for too long I do not know where the billions of dollars

are going to come from and it would be full hearted to continue discuss the green line

when we've been discussing this since 1991 some people have passed away we've been discussing it so

long the only way to meet our climate goals is to remove vehicles from the road we know that

studies know that Sacramento study that we passed reports here at city council that is what our own

climate action plan that we passed with our 20 general 2040 general plan last year says we saw

this was possible do you all remember when covid hit and cars were not on the road and the air in

Sacramento is the cleanest it had been in decades that happens when we get cars off the road and it

happens when people see other options that are viable bus rapid transit when we build bridges cars

will come and that will not get us where we need to go because when we think of our communities and

what they need we think of affordable homes good schools grocery stores parks safe streets not

wide towering highways not bridges over our parkways in the past 70 years nationally highways have

dictated community development in urban centers they've torn through low income communities of color

displacing families homes and businesses we know that my eyes were opened and changed if you've

not read city limits infrastructure inequality and the future of America's highways by Megan

Kimball and what it did to Texas and to communities of colors read it racism underlay the highway

development in i5 through downtown dividing Japan town we've had it here in Sacramento in 2019 the

city council adopted the 2040 general plan vision and guiding principles and the guiding principles

reaffirm the city's commitment to take bold action to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 and

becoming a leading voice in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate

change we've watched what Paris has done what other cities across the world have done a removing

vehicles and increasing the ability for bikes and safe bike routes we've started that downtown

my community in north natuomas deserves safe routes dedicated bike lanes I would ride my bike down here

if it was safe thank you are let my transportation commissioner i'm glad she does it i've i've been

one too many close calls in accidents and i guess is a mom of young kids i look at things a little

differently so we need more public transportation options we need more biking options i don't see

how this aligns with our streets for people i agree with our vice mayor we need access to emergency

and hospitals in north natuomas we deserve those things in north natuomas 2039 is still a long ways

away and in the meantime we should be supporting and fast-tracking the development of hospitals north

of the river and access that and building bike lanes and safeways for people to get to and from

and remember that riding a bike isn't a luxury sometimes it's a necessity for those that have

no other option and cannot pay for vehicles so i can support additional bike lanes upgrades to 160

maybe a dedicated bike lane over i5 for when discovery park floods i'm pretty sure this is

going to pass by my council members i'm okay with that i have to stand on principle what i

believe is for the betterment of what 20 30 40 years um we want our city to be and i just can't

support another bridge with vehicles but you've done great works parking thank you

council member gara thank you mayor i appreciate that first let me let me just think i think a

tremendous new organization that's over the last few years has really grown a movement and that's

a sack strong you know strong sack strong sack rameo sorry about that and strong Sacramento yes

sorry and um it is oh my gosh it is terrible terrible but uh but but in more so to say that i've

never seen in this time frame and maybe sparkly like have you in your career how many how many

folks professional folks are involved in transportation policy and i started my career in the

transportation laboratory and and to see this is is actually uplifting so i think they deserve a

big round of applause because you know let's give them a big round of applause because they've

they've actually done a lot of this hard work and particularly you know i want to recognize

Ali Westbrook who's also a commissioner and and she's actually been our lead chair in our

in our california clean air day and making sure that we're looking at every option to improve our

air so you know one of those i do appreciate that the the level of engagement and activity um i also

want to thank you know our our Sacramento engineering staff and sparkly you in particular because um

when we started this conversation um i i was not happy with the with the options that were

presented and and i appreciate you uh going back and forth and bantering with me and and and getting

straight down to the the the numbers and the facts and the engineering on this design uh because it

it is my as my colleague mentioned fundamental belief that that there are certain infrastructure

projects that have been created over the years that have caused significant harm and i i look at some

of those such as like you know hazel avenue you know or what avenue the way that they had to come

in with multi-million dollars to fix it to make it viable for for biking afterwards and let alone

the 99 and the what what had the way that it affected Oak Park and other roadway projects and so

those are those are real true facts um and going through this debate you know i appreciate you giving

me some of these numbers to think about and still you know uh having me on on on the fence um but i

will tell you i think that the the to me the the two individuals most recently that that made it

clear for me one was a constituent of mine Melissa Meng from jive whose motto is walkbike and bus

okay and the fact that um that they were looking that she commutes at times has tried to commute from

her bike in district six south of the river uh to north natomas and even today if you if you're

if you're driving out out there right now the you know the the discovery park is flooded so

there are very few options in the times that i've tried to cross the river you know

geysers bridge is one of the few options that are in the city that are uh safe to cross i've gone

on the bike on how i have a new to try to cross over on that sidewalk it's it's pretty it's pretty

gnarly so um i think the the the fact that the jive has looked at this and said you know we are

looking for a way that addresses the multiple needs and i think about the issues that about

paratransit and the shuttle services and we're not building in this this consideration of this

the this bridge um we're not looking at building another hazel avenue we're not looking at creating

another what avenue we're not looking at another how i would do and and you know definitely another i5

you know so this is trying to produce an option and if this is to scale of i doubt it's to scale but

if it's to scale it's it's slightly over predominantly active transportation and what it really has

at least the conversation between you know the comments made by jive and then those by marvella salas

who i've been working actively and you know for those who criticize her she's been one of our leads

on the outreach on the e-bike program and the e-bike voucher program to be able to encourage more

people to actually use bicycle transportation and as evolution goes yes there will be i think more

people who will be looking at that at that as a viable transportation option and to looking at

cycling as that in the future and one of the things that you know this the the documents don't do

adjust this but i appreciate you know spark you walking me through how the end the the ends of the

bridge intersect and how these bike routes actually connect and mend with the neighborhood because

that's not the same that's not the case in most of our city many times our bike lanes end up in

in no place if you're going down stock in bulwark you might have a bike lane class two bike lane when

someone's going 40 miles an hour next to you and then it disappears once you cross Broadway you know so

i do appreciate the caretaking and i think it's only happened because i want people in this

public to know that we have traffic engineers here in the city who believe in the same concepts i

mean you heard today like our traffic engineers are cycling all the time you know they are in the

streets they are seeing this physically they're not behind just some officers some cubicle or some

laptop working on things they're they're actually engaged in this and i i believe that that's come

about in this analysis after this presentation the last thing that that i will say is that

that one point that madaeus ala is mentioned is that you know particularly lake if you're using

pair of trans or you or you want or you're trying to get from south metomas to the other side of

the river it just takes you longer and why is it that with low income families we never value their

time okay that to me i've always found you know very frustrating where we where we don't look at okay

how do we address their issues with time and and if it and if i five's close or another areas close

i do think that the shuttle service issue is a problem and and this is where the turning point

was in thinking about does this you know too late option address that point there are this

bridge is attempting to do a lot of things come a couple comments were made about you know

you know should we build this because it it's the way to get federal funding well i you know i

think one we should never never chase the money and build a project based on how we look at money

now i do disagree with the characterization for this project then that because i think there was

some forethought with vision about what their components are but that's an important piece

and then the second piece that i've heard is that you know well this is just a rubber stamp from 2013

well as you know as a recovering engineer i would say one thing that we must always do and i

think we're doing it tonight and i appreciate the extra amount of time we took together

is that we should always continue to evaluate and challenge you know the the the fundamentals

of why we're doing something that will continue and come again because what we're voting on today

is not the the the funding of this project we're not voting on a contractor for this project

we're voting on the feasibility study that'll get us to a sequel in meepa where we're going to

look at the IR and then see if in fact it it achieves the the assumptions that you've made

and the assumptions that you made are changes in traffic pattern and more importantly an

induction that i would think and i would hope it would make a more active transportation

along with changes in traffic pattern that move people you know that need that access so

i will i will say that i want to thank everyone for there's so much engagement in this but more so

also for just those in the in the south and to amus community and an our engineers for for diving

into this and mr. mayor i'll be supporting the the motion to look at the feasibility study

and we will probably have the same debate as no one's made a motion yeah good yeah but i'll be

supporting motion made by vice-martre tala montes second by mr. garrick okay there oh Phil seconded

Phil seconded this is this report and and i will say we will probably be debating this again now

the question of whether it should be built at all i think that's a viable question but it but

whether it has cars or doesn't have cars i think those are you know the when i looked at the

analysis about whether whether the peer and pedestal were going to be the it's the impact you know

just that of a gut sense will be the same but we will get to decide that again when we have to

review the e-i-r report on the sequinie put documents and i look forward to that discussion mr.

thank you mr. Mayor thank you councilmember Dickinson thank you mayor let me start sparky

just with or maybe this is actually a question for the city attorney as well

with that extends on the point that councilmember garrick was just i think emphasizing and that

is that whatever we do tonight in terms of selecting an alternative that that really only serves as

an indication of a preferred alternative with respect to the environmental analysis the e-i-r and

e-i-s that will hopefully in the not instrumentable future follow is that correct that is correct and

given given the public comment and testimony and by the way i too want to join in thanking all

of those who've commented whether or tonight or online or otherwise not just over the last few weeks

or the last many years on this issue that analysis it seems to me would have to include an assessment of

a bridge without any motor vehicle available lanes or availability that a question yeah okay

i am not a sequin attorney i do i do know that you need to evaluate alternatives to your

preferred alternative within the sequinie put documents the extent of those alternatives i think

is determined during the notice of preparation if anybody from the city wants to chime in i believe

that is the process at least that's what i've experienced through my career yes councilmember dickinson

that would include that would be included in the sequo review that's done as this project progresses

further and so i think the point that councilmember ghetto was was making and that i would just

underscore in this regard is this won't be the last conversation about the the shape and nature

of of this bridge i suspect i have to confess that i'm in a position that i don't usually find

myself which which is significantly conflicted about what we're what we're considering tonight

and only to amend councilmember cappellan's statement about the earliest consideration of

of this of extending the green line wasn't called the green line in 1990 went to to

sacramometto airport at the at the time was actually more like in 18 1989 1990 and i i was

involved in that as a member of the of the regional transit board i am a staunch advocate

and have been for all those years and continue to be of our need to extend light rail to our

airport sacramometto international it may be that an interim use of something like a bus

rapid transit is what is required in an interim but my experience has shown me that if we want

transit to our airport to be successful and i hope we would all agree on on that that it needs to

be on rails because people will get on things that are on rails because they're pretty sure the

rails aren't going to move they get on things with rubber tires and they're not sure exactly where

it might go and that's that's why if you look at airports around this country and indeed the world

it's rail that runs to them and connects and connects those airports to city centers to regional

centers which is why the route that we have always considered and by the way going over the river

via north gate going over the river via i5 has been analyzed in past years the route that has

always been settled on because it provides the best connection the most direct connection and

the best alternative is the route that we're looking at which is the extension of the green line

to the river district and then across the river uptruxel across the i80 bridge which by the way the

the bridge at truxel and i80 is constructed to accommodate light rail that was that was one thing

we did along the way and of course securing the right away and the alignment availability through

north notomas and even green briar and metro air park green briar before was ever built out whatever

what they called today okay so this is not something that is particularly new to say to say the least

and i as i said a moment ago i'm remain absolutely committed to us seeing that we get light rail

to the airport in fact in the early 2000s former council member ray truthway and i pulled together a

group of community leaders to try to boost the project and give it a push along along the way

when both of us at that time we're also serving on the regional transit board and i believe it was

during the time when president president obama was in office we actually looked at submitting our

tea i should say when i say we in this in this context submitting a new starts proposal

but i'll tell you what the sticking point was we couldn't get over the river and make and make it

work to meet federal standards criteria we have got to get over the river we've got to get a bridge

built now i have always been one who has thought that bridge should be transit and active transportation

only i have felt that principally because i felt that way principally because i think we're likely

to see a significant use of trucks in the case that this bridge carries cars and trucks as a cut

through and there's some indication of that in the analysis there's some movement of vehicles

by the analysis as i as i read it off of off of i five and presumably on to on to trucks all

but it the analysis doesn't indicate necessarily that it's particularly significant but i'm not sure

the analysis in this respect gets that entirely right particularly with the development of the

rail yards in the river district that i i hope an expectable sea as as time goes by nonetheless

even with my my preferred alternative looking at what this this council has has chosen as as its

direction over the years i also feel if not an obligation at least some sense of responsibility

to honor that that direction as well and so as you can see i find myself in a bit of a quandary

it's why i thought actually the second preference or alternative to i guess i should say with

rail running in street which was less expensive and i thought actually could serve to some extent

as a form of a traffic calming in its way might might be actually a preferable alternative

understand that that's would not be the operational preference of regional transit

but then i go back to the days when we built light rail in this town and 60 percent of our

original light rail line was single track and somehow we managed to operate it on time on schedule

and pretty successfully so i know and we experience every day in this town yes we have our

interruptions with in streets running on on on twelve street but we are and some of the other

downtown streets but we operate pretty successfully overall regardless of what we do tonight

and i truthfully i'm still weighing that at this point we need to we need to have on my judgment

a full analysis of the no motor vehicle alternative we need to get a bridge built

and we need to work as aggressively as possible both through the city and with with regional transit

as well as all the other partners we have in the region including st a including say cog including

cal trans the whole list to accomplish this purpose of getting light rail to our airport

and the voters want it the voters may the may have rejected our recent attempts at at a tax

increased to finance transportation improvements but the polling has always shown that light rail to

the airport has been among the top of those projects that they support that the voters support

so there is strong public support i don't think that has diminished i think it not only makes sense

to people but it makes sense to increase and improve mobility in our region it makes sense

to provide it as a means of making our our town and our region more attractive to those who come

to visit us and we certainly want as many more of those folks as as we can get so the bottom line

for me is to move this on and i will vote as you will all figure out when i do as we get to that point

in time but it doesn't foreclose the point important points for me is it doesn't foreclose the

discussion of of alternatives and it serves the purpose of getting us to a point where we have to

reach and that's with a bridge over the river thanks thank you councilmember councilmember maple thank

you mayor and i can say you know at being not having been here for any of these previous discussions

and i thought that was a great point councilmember kaplan most of us have not but it's been really great

actually hearing some of the historical context my colleagues are mayor and councilmember Dickinson

and others i just really appreciate it because it's really helped me i came in with an open mind

still do but it's really helped me wrap my mind around all of the options that are on the table

and that's what we might do moving forward i think that one thing that we can all agree on though

that i heard from virtually everyone here is that spark you've done a really great job

and i and i you know at risk of saying it for the umpteenth time i just i think it's really important

when you put that much time and energy and work of you and your whole team into this that we

acknowledge that it's and it's not just the work of the actual planning and the documents and

everything that's gone into the green applications and but it's also working with the community right

that's what i heard when i when i listened to your presentation was it was his

impartnership with a lot of people over a long period of time um both through surveys and in-person

meetings um meetings with organizations to figure out that purpose statement and the need and so i

i i really want to acknowledge that work and everyone who's contributed to that because it may

we may be in the future now um but that work is led up to where we are um i do have a couple questions

one of the questions that i have um is around the process so for example um one of the things

that was brought up several times tonight is that there there there wasn't a consideration because

you weren't given direction to do so of course of a transient pedestrian only option if that's

something that the council wanted to move forward on what would go into that what would the steps

look like what would the timeline look like and to the best of your ability what would the cost look

like because obviously we've already spent money to date on what we've done in the past

i'll start with the with the latter i i have no idea what the cost would be um just to put in

perspective but the grant we received from cal trans to do this analysis was about five hundred

thousand dollars so we'd have to go back and spend some portion of that um to look at another option

i think that the actions that council would have to take would be to rescind the resolution from

2013 i believe since that's kind of the standing direction for um staff at this point

that would put us in kind of a quandary because now we'd be studying something that's inconsistent

with our adopted general plan so i would have to look to the city attorney's office to see

is that okay or do we need to amend the plan first or is since it's just an analysis is that okay

i don't i couldn't answer that

Adam city attorney i don't know if there's any thoughts

so the question is what would we have to amend our general plan i think the answer to that is yes

okay yeah and then and then on timeline of course there's a lot of ifs that go into this but

i'm assuming based on the fact that it's been you know 12 years to get here we're probably looking

at maybe something similar it's hard to say because i mean obviously we had covid in there um it

depends on what kinds of grant opportunities are out there how competitive we are in getting

those grant opportunities so i don't know if it's safe to say it's the same it's just you can't

predict you really can no that makes sense and i and i know that we're putting you on the spot

here tonight with um a lot of potentials and um and this also that would also assume that even

like obviously calchans uh a word is a grant to do that this feasibility study um but that doesn't

mean that they would at order to grant to do something else right that we could submit an application

and they could say now they said no to this one the first time yeah we actually had to apply twice

to get funding for this one and say cog actually applied on our behalf okay that that's actually

really helpful information um and then another question i have is i heard a few speakers say

mention an estimate for a potential cost for a pedestrian transit only bridge at

a hundred and something million i heard a few times is there anything like that that exists

that you're aware of? It's my knowledge um i mean i've heard that number i know what went into the

cost estimates that uh docker put together for us um i would love to get their performance so we

can figure out if they looked at all of the elements both soft and hard costs that go into building

a bridge because it's amazing how many details go in there especially when you start adding up

contingency on specific elements and then bottom line contingency on top of that it adds up very

quickly and i haven't dug into their numbers to know what they've used. Absolutely okay and then

one this might think will do my last question um is you know maintenance cost was brought up quite

a bit um and obviously i think that's top of mind for a lot of us given that we have so much

deferred maintenance it's a it's a huge problem you know that better than most of us right um is

has is there any analysis thus far about maintenance cost or is that something that happens later on

in the process? That'll definitely happen later on in the process but you know a finer point that

i want to put on that is any bridge that you build is going to need maintenance? Yeah. Planets

up a lot which makes sense right even that even if you had a transit and pedestrian bridge you'd

still need to maintain it. Even a bike ped bridge is going to need maintenance. Okay that's that's

really helpful thank you very much um for me i think a lot about our city and how we're at the

convergence of two rivers i think that's one of the most unique and wonderful things about Sacramento

i also know that i love the travel and one of the other speakers have mentioned this

if you and there have been studies on this as well if you look at cities our size

with less rivers than we have they have way more bridges it's just a fact um it is it is a reality

that we need ways for people to get around our city to get across our rivers and to connect our city

better and i think that especially you know sitting now on the say cog board being on our tea being

on the transportation authority i wear a lot of different hats um and that we really need something

that connects people in a real way um and for me that means that maybe it doesn't have to be

something perfect um and i know that's been said a lot tonight but um i want to just really acknowledge

the amount of work that's gone into the planning so far um this has been over a decade in the making

and that we still have opportunities one of the things that that actually compelled me the most

as i sat here today was um the comments by council member gira um about process and how we still have

a lot of opportunity to find it we don't even know what we don't know at this point right so we're

we're gonna need to complete that study to be able to of sequa and meet by and be able to say

is this something that we actually want to do it doesn't make sense is it going to impact

the wildlife does it actually do um you know the the things that we've seen in terms of unity that

we're guessing does it actually do that um so that we can make decisions so there's still

opportunities um but my my fear is that in this search of perfection and that we're going to stop

it from happening at all um and and that to me i think that would be um a disservice that would

be a disservice to community members that are living in the north lake gardenland community that

that i was really compelled by council and rtol and montaise comments um being able to to have

escape route is real um yeah it is very real and you know it's i look around i saw the the footage

of the wildfires of floods um it's it's very real um and i think that people need a way to get around

and that goes back to our need for more bridges i'd love to see more in general but i also really

want to acknowledge the concerns from the advocates around wanting a car free bridge like that is

a hundred percent i think the future that we should be hoping for but we also for me it doesn't

recognize the reality of where we are today too and all the planning that's gone into it um

and then the last thing i'll note is around um what council member Dickinson mentioned which is

the green line um i think it was mentioned that in 1991 was when it was envisioned at rt that was

the year i was born um and and so for me like that's that is very visceral but also i have hope

i very much have hope and i want to see i am and i'm also a staunch advocate that we have a

dedicated light rail to the airport and i'm going to dedicate my time and energy and resources

to making sure that we have a transportation measure that allows us to get there um because that's

what we're ultimately going to need and and so one last thing i wanted to note is i saw the support

letters here um i saw sac rt i saw say cog i saw and i saw count turns in the city working together

having all four of these entities working towards one mission and goal is pretty rare right um for

me i think that would be a missed opportunity to to not do this and um i was really compelled

also by by the sketches um showing that we're protected protected by clanes and people away from

cars and so um i'm going to be supporting the motion on the table today um but also

preserving the opportunity once we see the sequinepa studies to to reassess as needed and i just

thank you again for your work thank you council member vang thank you okay

oh my god it's 8 30 we're doing great okay hi everyone um sparky thank you so much for your

presentation and i echo all my colleagues on just mentioning the year's amount of work that you

put into this project um and very similar to a few of my council members you know the first time

council provided direction on this um i was in kindergarten and then when council provided

direction again in 2012 i was just returning back home from college so uh it's definitely been a

long time coming um so um you know first i i so i want to thank you sparky thank you just

just you know for the incredible work that you've done in the city and then um i i want to take

this moment to really think all the advocates um everyone who came uh to speak in support and

opposition i appreciate your continued advocacy um to make sure that you hold this uh council accountable

and also just sharing your lived experience and your insight so i really want to say thank you

um and then to our labor partners you know whether it's a bridge that prioritized our residents

and transit only or whether it's a bridge that allows for all modes i think for me no matter what

the bridge is ensuring that those jobs are union uh is important to me because we want to make sure

that our workers can afford to um live in the city so i just want to to share that as well i think i

find myself um very similar to council member Dickinson and being uh uh conflicted and i kind

of want to just share why because i think it's important because we're going to take our vote and

we have to explain to our voters why we're voting yes or no we're abstaining i don't know how i'm

going to vote on this yet i am still debating inside and i'm going to talk about my thought process

right now as i'm speaking so one big thing is that you know i often think about the policy decisions

that we make and how those decision informs public health and for me oh my god i'm wearing my

public health sweater actually how funny um public health for me is about changing the social

conditions so that people can make healthier choices and as policymakers that's kind of our

responsibility is to make to create policies that change those social conditions so that we can

help people make healthier behaviors right and so um you know so i just i just want to put that out

there and i think often time i find myself on every vote it could be this vote or any vote asking

myself do i want to be taking a vote that i'm going to regret 10 20 years from now um and i made a

decision that actually really harmed communities right i often think about that when i have to take

a controversial vote so i'm struggling with that right now and thinking that piece through

i also just want to uplift marbela's point and i want to say um to her point that she's absolutely

right but actually not but and i want to add to her comments um that yes marbela is right but i

also want to just hold another truth and that is there is a reason why communities of color are

disproportionately affected by these challenges why why many of them use cars instead my family

right many low income folks in district eight and i say that because our system is actually

intentionally designed this way right and the reason why we have to access like our our people

access have cars is because we have limited access to reliable transportation um there's systemic

barriers that often force communities um for us to rely on cars um actually it makes it more

difficult for us because we're already broke we still got to pay for car insurance we can't pay for

gasoline we got to pay for so if anything it actually adds a layer of inequities for our communities

so i just want to acknowledge that as well but unfortunately that's a system that we're in and so

black and brown folks do find ourselves having to take cars right because of time because time is

precious right and so i want to acknowledge that truth i think that's important to acknowledge

as we're having this conversation about race right and black and brown folks is to see the complexity of

how these outcomes these are the outcomes of a system that is constructed this way and so i want

to acknowledge that oftentimes and i'm struggling because i often defer to the council member of

the area she's done probably more work than all of us up here has and um you know because i'm not

in district three and she speaks to her residents every day and i'm sure she heard from many

constituents about tonight's item and i do want to make sure that her community is connected to

downtown because so many investment happens there i feel that in south sacramata as well and then

something that she brought up today which i appreciate here bringing it up is the ability to have

access to hospital in case of emergency right and so i'm i'm i'm grappling with that just speaking

my heart out loud at the same time though you know i want our council to have that option in front of us

that what if we went with only a pedestrian and transit a bridge what would that look like what

is the cost right i don't have that in front of me and so i think that's also something i want to

just name as well i also want to name that you spent over 12 years on this project right and that's

why we're here today um actually you know hearing the concerns from vice mayor tala mantis i'm

actually more concerned about not just this bridge but like we should be worried about like what are

the emergency routes for deep deep three residents now because i was thinking about that for all of our

residents like something we should consider um i want to make sure that like you know because

if we do vote this tonight and let's say we get the grant funding and it happens 2030 what are we

doing now to improve access to downtown for deep three residents right those are things that i'm

i'm thinking about as well like it shouldn't just be up to vice mayor tala mantis to be fighting for

for her for her communities but we all should be thinking about that for her district um and then

again even with this vote what i'm hearing is that we don't know if we're even going to get the

federal funding for right this is just to tee it up and so these are all the thoughts that i'm

thinking through i'm processing um still don't know how i'm going to vote tonight but i think

at the end of the day i have to ask myself like you know as policy makers we do hold the responsibility

of passing policies um you know passing items that have impacts and implications for years to come

and i often ask myself 20 years from now 30 years from now is that going to be a vote that we're

going to regret because we're actually causing more harm i think that's something that i just want

all of my colleagues to think through it i'm sure that we do this all the time but i think that's

really important and especially a city that um has you know our firm our firm our commitment

to addressing climate change to reducing vehicles miles travel you know projects like this will

continue to come to us and we are going to have to really take a bold position on how we move forward

and so with that i'll end my comments um we're really with sparkly thank you so much just for your

advocacy um and we'll see how everyone goes tonight thanks thank you councilmember vank uh

mr. Harris can you maybe enlighten us on on on where we go from here so we have a motion a second

i'm not sure how it's going to um to to play out but assuming that motion and a second does pass so

your staff report asks us to do three things except the chuckle bridge concept report

adopt alternative three as preferred alternative and three direct city manager or does

a need to identify a action plan moving forward so we were last year 12 years ago and this bridge

would be completed 12 years plus from now 14 years from now right so i'm not going to be here then

and i hope that you're not going to be here either sparkly i definitely will not yes

um so assuming and i think to maybe giving a clear direction if this past what it would look like

because there are some glimmers of hope of what would it look like to potentially think about

car-free by capet so if this passes what are this next steps because usually we're here we vote to

approve the development plan and a safe way and then 16 months from now you see a bulldozer moving

dirt around this is many many years and and so he can use walk through what this means for the big

picture for the city of Sacramento okay the way that i see it um some of those next steps are

already in process as i mentioned we're already working with the county of Sacramento to amend the

the American River Parkway plan if we were to get a yes vote on staff's recommendation today we

would continue that analysis we would finish that up go to the county board of supervisors to amend

that plan um hopefully get the federal funding that we pursued to do the next phase of um

of analysis i believe we have local funds to do that if that federal funding does not come through

so we could keep moving with that process knowing that that's going to take roughly three years

to get through and in that process get teed up to go after funding for the next phase so it would

really just be a progression of the process progress that we've made and i the one thing that i

really want to clarify is i haven't been working on this for 12 years straight there was there was a

a nice hiatus in there where we were trying to figure out how to fund it what to do with it um but

i i appreciate the sentiment hopefully we're not going to have another gap like that again i think

the way that we get this done is to keep the pressure on we've already gotten very good attention

from our federal representatives that want this move forward say cog has already listed this project

as the regional priority for um raise now build planning grant so this is the one the application

that we went after region wide for that funding so we've got the attention i think we need to

keep our foot on the gas sorry keep our feet on the pedals um to keep this project moving

and you know not lose momentum or else we could find ourselves in another gap so if the if the

if the next phase the environmental phase is three years how is how is 2039 that's the complete

that's the completion not the beginning of the construction that's the completion and when would

it when would the beginning of the construction start the beginning of the construction would be roughly

2034 35 that's still 10 years so i'm missing seven years now oh three years of planning this is

2025 three years of environmental analysis and preliminary engineering then right-of-way acquisition

and then three years of design and then three four or five years of construction instructions

okay it's a couple presidents from now exactly so that being said maybe some clarity on the

construction elements of this is it 100% federal or would there be a potential for state money as

well because the ice repraged for example is state money involved in that project so the best of

my knowledge the federal government doesn't fund anything 100% so it would have to be a mixture of

federal state regional local new measure whatever it is but yes okay thank you

for their questions or comments seeing none we have a motion by vice mayor talla montes a second by

council member plucky bomb please call the roll thank you council member kaplan council member Dickinson

I vice mayor tell them on days hi council member plucky bomb council member maple

I mayor pro tem gara hi council member Jennings yes council member vang I'm gonna have stain

because it'll have enough information and mayor McCarty hi that motion passes thank you

okay ideas announcements reports from council members council member Jennings there's no public

comment tonight's a special meeting so by council rules there there is no public comment we had

public comment at the two o'clock meeting should I wait a couple minutes they say yeah

yeah

Members of the audience, if you have conversations, please take them outside.

We do have some more city business to conduct this evening.

Thank you.

Okay, to my colleagues and anybody in the audience and

all those who are watching on television.

A couple of announcements for you to note.

I'm asking you to join us at the Elk's Lodge for an evening of delicious seafood and

great company at the Crack Crab and Seafood Broil.

Market calendars for February 22nd at 6 p.m.

Tickets must be purchased in advance and you can reserve your spot by calling 9116-422-6666.

Once again that number is 9116-422-6666.

And after you've gone to the Crack Crab and Seafood Broil, there'll be an opportunity for

you to get rid of some of those pounds and that'll be at the Del Real Trail cleanup.

We're asking you to join the Southland Park Neighborhood Association, the Zebert Park

Neighbors, the Del Real Trail, Enthusias, the pocket area churches together and the City

of Sacramento, youth, parks and community enrichment department and Parks Commission

to Joe Flores from my office and put in your sweat equity and clean up the lawn road

and pocket road sections of the Del Real Trail.

That's going to take place on Saturday, March 8th at 9 a.m.

More information about both of these announcements are on my Facebook and Instagram page.

That concludes our announcements.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Kaplan.

Thanks Mayor.

This Saturday from 10 to noon at Autumn Meadows Park.

We are planting a total of 29 trees.

You can sign up to help us plant 29 additional trees in North Natomas on my social media side.

And then very excited on Saturday, March 1st.

We are holding the official ribbon cutting for the new West Shore Park that has been constructed.

The grass is laid.

It is set.

I do know I think kids have broken through the gates and are playing basketball.

But the official time the gates are coming down our March 1st, so come out and join us.

Thank you.

I hope you have some of your thoughts.

Thanks.

I just wanted to take this moment to give a shout out to over 50 plus volunteers that came out this past weekend at our Steve Jones Park with hosted by ReWild Sacramento and Yopsey to plant trees along with Sacramento Tree Foundation.

So I really just want to give a shout out to all of the amazing volunteers.

So sad that I wasn't able to make it because I was at home sick.

But I really just want to give a shout out to all the volunteers that came out.

And then also just wanted to share that February 19th, that's actually tomorrow.

There's a revitalized South Sack Summit that is happening.

It's actually happening at the Green Haven Public Library off of Gloria Drive, 7335.

And that's from 9 to 5 p.m.

So encouraging folks who live in South Sacramento who come and join us.

And then also wanted to share that we are still in the midst of Black History Month.

And there is a Black History Month expo for freedom, a freedom festival at any art progressive church.

It's happening this Saturday from 11 to 5 o'clock.

That is at 2650 Amherst Street.

And so there will be vendors, exhibits, music, information, so encouraging folks to come out to that.

And then just wanted to share asking folks to save the date for our annual community conversation meeting.

Happening on March 15th from 10 to 1 p.m.

We usually change the location annually.

This year it's going to be at Union House Elementary.

That's at 7850 Dear Creek Way.

Please come join us.

You'll learn about all the progress happening in our neighborhoods across the district.

Ongoing projects, future projects.

Various city departments will be there as well to answer any questions.

So encouraging all of my residents to come out and do it will be provided.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

No more comments?

Well, we have an adjournment in memory.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'd ask that we adjourn this evening in memory of Grant High School football coach, truly a legend.

Throughout Sacramento, not just in North Sacramento, Mike Albergini, who we lost last week at the age of 78.

And I want to give you a little bit of a taste of just what this great, great coach had accomplished.

But also what he meant to the community.

Five state or area halls of fame inducted him.

He won seven CIF section championships.

Eight, ten and O, regular seasons during the course of his career.

Seventeen league championships.

Now, most people think it was a football coach, but he was a baseball player coming up, going up.

And coach baseball at Grant for, I think, 20 plus years.

He won 502 games as a baseball coach, head coach at Grant.

282 football wins, which is a record in the Sacramento region.

One that led Grant to the 2008 state open championship, this open championship.

Now, it's a division.

We have someone who will appreciate this different, the open championship.

And I certainly have a very sharp and fond memory of that celebration afterwards.

And his last best team was in 2014 at Grant, which the team went 14 and one.

Not a bad, not a bad little roster.

But more than the numbers, I want to share a little bit of the character of Coach Al.

Everyone knew him, simply as Coach Al.

And there's a street name for him.

And Del Paso and Oafo, there's a football field name for him at Grant.

He called the girls sweetie and the guy's brother.

And no one drove more kids home from school after practice.

He said once, in some ways, everyone's only father, figure, or reliable uncle.

Grant kids are my kids.

He urged his players to stop any bullying on campus.

He said to the kids, he said you're a grant pacer.

Take pride in that, be a leader everywhere.

A long time principal at Grant High School who has since retired, Craig Murray said in 2012,

Al is our school's godfather.

There's just one of him.

I don't think the school would still be standing if he wasn't here.

And I think in many ways, Coach Al summed it up best himself.

He said, it's why you coach to help out, to be there for young people.

When I think about it, I know I was really fortunate to be in the right place.

The right school for me, the right kind of kids.

I loved to coach and needed to coach.

A lot of great times and people and memories.

I'll remember that most.

I'll remember it until the day I die.

I know that he will be deeply missed, but forever appreciated, honored for all the contributions he made.

And we certainly expressed an extent of condolences to his family and all of Pacer Nation.

Yes. Well said, well, a journey in memory of Mr. Pacer for life.

Very journey.