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Alright

Welcome to this

11am meeting of the

Legislation Committee. I now call this

meeting to order. Madam Clerk will you please call the

Thank you. Council Member Dickinson, Council Member Pluckibong, Council Member Jennings, and Chair Maple.

Here. You have a quorum.

All right. Council Member Jennings, would you lead us in the land acknowledgement and the Pledge of Allegiance?

My pleasure. Please stand if you are able and rise for the acknowledgement in honor of Sacramento's indigenous people and tribal lands.

To the original people of this land, the Niseon people, the Southern Maidu, the Valley and Plains Miwok, and the Patton Witten peoples, and the people of the Wilton Rancheria, Sacramento's only federally recognized tribe, may we acknowledge and honor the Native people who came before us and still walk beside us on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather together today in active practice of acknowledgement, appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous people's history,

their contributions, and their lives.

Join me in the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

Salute.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America

and to the republic for which it stands,

one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Councilmember.

So, Madam Clerk, do you have a read to the record for us?

Yes, Chair.

I do have no members of the public signed up to speak on the consent calendar,

And item number three in the proposed amendment to the ordinance, I'd like to propose that we strike Fair Political Practices Commission from number two.

And so it will just say a copy of the large political committee's most current statement of organization recipient committee, California Form 410, filed pursuant to the act and regulations.

So we're just removing the FPPC.

Okay, so noted.

seeing that there's no public comment any members wish to speak on any items

pull them separate vote seeing that I'll accept a motion and all those in favor

please say aye any opposed or absent that passes unanimously with that we will

move on to our discussion calendar item number four related to agreements for

digital billboards

Welcome.

No, not that one.

There we go.

Good day, Chair Maple, committee members.

I'm Matt Seitz, senior architect with the Community Development Department.

Today I'm going to provide a brief update on Sacramento City Code Section 15148965,

which governs the agreements for digital billboards.

This update is minor in scope.

It relocates the provisions for outdoor stadiums into their own subsections of this chapter and formally incorporates the rail yard of Sub-District 3 for consistency across all digital billboard agreements with the city.

The proposed updates for the outdoor stadium billboards include reducing the minimum seating capacity from 15,000 to 12,000 seats, increasing the maximum number of billboards from six to seven, and establishing two of those seven as a 1,200 square foot billboard and not a 700 square foot billboard.

All remaining will be 700 square feet.

And then finally, the rail yards is now included in this,

just so we have a consistency of digital billboard agreements

with the framework and to ensure uniform application standards across the board.

Staff respectfully request that the committee review the ordinance

amending section 15148965 of the Sacramento City Code

related to signs in the rail yards

and pass a motion forwarding the ordinance

to City Council for consideration.

That is my presentation.

Thank you very much.

Madam Clark, do we have any public comment on this item?

I have no public comments on this item.

No public comments.

Any comments from my colleagues?

Questions?

Motions?

Council Member Pluckybaum.

Move to staff recommendation.

Second.

You have a motion and a second.

And a third, all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed or abstain?

That passes unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Okay, we are now moving on to item number five,

ministerial approval of development projects

of tent or fewer dwelling units on urban lots.

All right, good morning, chair and committee.

My name is Jamie Mosler, associate planner

in the community development department,

and I'll be providing today's presentation on an ordinance to implement Senate Bill 684.

As an overview of today's presentation, I'll provide some background on the legislative history

for this item, provide an overview of the ordinance, and then describe our next steps.

So SB 684 first became effective last summer and has been amended twice by SB 1123 and AB 130,

both effective this summer. We first presented this ordinance to the Planning and Design Commission

last October, and they continued the local ordinance requesting more information and for

for us to get input from stakeholders.

While this ordinance is primarily

implementing a statewide mandate,

there are a few limited options

that local jurisdictions can make with their implementation.

So we held a focus group meeting in April

to collect stakeholder input on those choices.

We then brought a revised ordinance

to the Planning and Design Commission last month

incorporating all the state law changes,

stakeholder input, and they forwarded the ordinance

to City Council for consideration.

To summarize, SB 684 requires all cities and counties

across the state to ministerially approve tentative maps

with up to 10 lots and housing developments with up to 10 units if they meet specified

requirements within 60 days. It also requires jurisdictions to issue a building permit once

the tentative map is approved if the applicant would like to begin construction before the

final map is recorded. There are several requirements the project has to meet to be eligible for

ministerial review. The site has to be zoned for residential, either multi-unit or single

unit dwellings. These are intended to be infill housing projects so the site must be surrounded

by urban uses. It also can't be located on any environmentally sensitive sites such as

farmland, wetlands, or hazard waste sites. It also can't alter any affordable housing

or housing occupied by tenants in the last five years.

The subdivision can create up to ten new parcels. They can designate a remainder parcel which

is a portion of land that is not currently being created to be sold and there's no new

development proposed on it at this time. The subdivision must also comply with all applicable

objective standards from the MAP Act and our local zoning. As mentioned there are a few

limited local options within the bill. So SB 684 says we have to allow lots as small

as 600 or 1200 square feet but gives local jurisdictions the ability to allow smaller

lot sizes. Our recommendation is to maintain these lot sizes as we didn't hear from our

stakeholders in need for smaller lot sizes. Another option is whether to allow further

subdivisions through SB 9. SB 9 is a law passed a few years ago that allows ministerial approval

of lot splits and duplexes in single family zones. We are recommending allowing this if

at least four lots are created in the original SB 684 subdivision. Stakeholders supported

having greater flexibility and limiting this option to subdivisions with at least four

lots helps prevent combined uses of state laws to bypass public improvement requirements

also known as quartering which is a violation of the subdivision map act.

SB 684 requires construction of dwelling units on lots before they can be sold but allow

cities to waive this requirement. Our recommendation in the ordinance is to only require planning

approval of the dwelling units not construction. It's not a requirement in the standard subdivision

process for applicants to build units before they can sell the lots and stakeholders really

emphasize wanting a process for SB 684 that mirrors the existing process.

Another local option jurisdictions have pertains to remainder parcels.

So as mentioned, a remainder parcel is an area that the subdivider can set aside for

now where they're not proposing development and they're not immediately selling it.

A remainder parcel can be sold later and jurisdictions can choose whether to require what's known

as a certificate of compliance.

This is a staff level application that's really just verifying the bounds of the lands up

there.

We are recommending to require a certificate of compliance prior to the sale of the remainder

parcel and after the map is recorded. This ensures we can review the area since it's

not reviewed as part of the original subdivision application.

Moving over to the housing development. So they can create up to 10 dwelling units. These

are intended to be smaller starter homes and so the average unit size cannot exceed 1750

square feet. Additionally the project must provide affordable units if the site is designated

in the housing element. One option the city has here is whether to allow accessory dwelling

units within these projects. The recommendation in the ordinance is to allow them. Our stakeholders

emphasize ADUs can be feasible on smaller lots and really provide benefits to homeowners

and if ADUs are provided they do not count towards the 10 unit cap. As mentioned these

applications have to be approved or denied within 60 days of receiving a complete application.

If denied written comments are provided to the applicant on ways to correct their application

to resubmit. We can also disapprove the project if it would have a specific adverse impact

upon public health and safety. On the building permit piece, so we have to issue the building

permit before the final map is recorded, if the applicant received tentative map approval

and if they have a complete and compliant application if they want to start building

the housing before the map is recorded and build sooner than the typical process. Additionally,

building official can deny this if flipping the order would have a specific adverse impact

on public health and safety. There are just two choices the city has here with this part

of the process. The first is while we must issue the building permit, we may withhold

final approval such as the certificate of occupancy or the final inspection until the

subdivision is recorded. Additionally, the city can require security if any public improvements

are required. We are recommending both of these choices in the local ordinance to ensure that

projects are completed and public improvements are made. Requiring security aligns with our

existing subdivision practices. And lastly, most stakeholders we heard from aren't interested in

building sooner, so this may not come that frequent. I have a quick question. So on the

previous slide, you said that it can be a specific public health or safety issue. Do you have an

of what something like that might be?

It's a good question.

I'm just curious where this, you know, if there's.

Yeah.

That's a hard one to imagine us actually invoking.

There could be perhaps a severe deficit

in a waste treatment facility

or the lines that feed to that system

where essentially the toilets couldn't drain.

So that might be a reason to say, no, this would create an unhealthful condition for us to allow the building permit to proceed.

Yeah, I was going to add Tom Pace with Community Development Department that this was, I think, included as an emergency relief valve in the state legislation.

But it is a provision that is not anticipated to be utilized very often.

So it would have to be an extraordinary circumstance.

some environmental issue perhaps

that wasn't already contemplated in the legislation

because there are certain environmental requirements

that have to be met.

But if there was some additional one that was known

that would imperil public health or safety,

then that would give us an out, I guess, basically.

Okay, that's really helpful.

Thank you.

I was just curious.

So it seems that the intent of the legislation

is to do this as often as possible,

but there needs to be obviously a provision

if there's something that's very serious.

Do you want to ask questions now before she finishes?

Just on this point.

Okay, Mr. Dickinson.

If I recall, this language actually goes back to SB 9.

It was incorporated in SB 9 during the legislative process

as a safety valve, really, for local governments

in what are expected to be extraordinary circumstances.

So it's made out to be a high bar quite intentionally, if I recall the discussions at the time.

Helpful context.

All right, Council Member Jennings.

Just a quick question on this point as well.

Once that situation is corrected, does it speak to what should happen at that point in time?

And does it give any indication as to how long you have to correct it or any of those

kind of things?

So I'm just trying to understand for, we understand what would happen if a health situation presented

itself once it's corrected, what should happen then?

I think I know, but I just want to know, does it say that in?

Yeah, if we make the finding for a specific adverse impact, they wouldn't be able to resubmit

for a year is what our ordinance has, but they would be able to resubmit if the situation

is corrected in that case.

All right, please continue.

Important clarification.

All right, so as mentioned, there's those two choices.

With the building permit issuance, we can withhold the final approval until the map is

recorded and we can require security.

We're recommending both of these options in our local ordinance.

It helps to ensure that projects are completed and that public improvements are made.

We already require security in our existing subdivision process so it aligns with that

and as mentioned stakeholders are more concerned with most of them don't want to flip the order

and build sooner so I don't anticipate that either of these will come up that often but

if they do these give us guardrails to make sure that projects are fulfilled.

Terms of next steps if the committee moves the ordinance today we would go to City Council

with pass for publication on December 2nd and a public hearing on December 9th.

Our recommendation today is to review the ordinance and move staff's recommendation.

concludes my presentation and we're available to answer any more questions. Thank you. Thank you.

And then so in terms of the stakeholders, can you tell us a little bit about who you

interacted with in the stakeholder process? Yes. So we invited anyone that had provided

public comment on the ordinance when it first went to the Planning and Design Commission last

fall and then anyone that was interested in pursuing SB 684 for a project ended up being a

lot of housing advocates and local developers that attended. Yeah. Great. I think what I'll

do now unless you have specific comments

is we'll go to public comment if there is

any. I have no speakers on this item.

All right. With that, Council Member Dickinson.

Thank you, Chair.

I had a

question with

respect to

ADUs and in

your presentation you said ADUs would

be allowed. So

does that mean that

potentially someone under this

ordinance could, if approved,

could have 10

10 primary units and 10 ADUs?

Yeah, that's correct.

The ADUs wouldn't count towards the 10 unit cap.

I'm sorry, would or would not?

Would not.

So they would be allowed in addition to those 10 primary.

Potentially on one of these qualifying properties, 20 units.

Potentially, yes.

And was there some discussion about that with the stakeholders?

Yeah.

So in our first draft of the ordinance from last year, we didn't recommend ADUs.

There's pretty small lot sizes under this process, and so we weren't sure if they'd even fit on the lots.

But our stakeholders really emphasized that not everyone's going to do a 600 square foot lot.

They might do a little bigger, and sometimes there are bases you can fit the ADU.

Maybe it's inside or attached to the primary dwelling.

And so they really advocated for those to be included in the process.

I understand that the ADU could be attached potentially, but have you as a staff sat down

and done some hypothetical plotting of what a property would look like potentially with,

say, an array of 10 primary units and 10 detached ADUs?

Yeah, of course, Council Member, if I were to use recent applications as an indication of what we have seen and that could resemble what this law would provide, we see this development activity in the midtown or in the grid area pretty frequently along alleys where lots have been split in two.

So you might have an existing dwelling that's older.

It's on the front facing the public street.

And then on the alley side, we'll see a lot that has sufficient width where you'll have essentially what you might call a townhome, a row home,

but essentially sufficiently wide to have two units side by side that could go up to two, three stories in height.

And so what we'll see are applications that have a very modestly sized accessory dwelling unit.

could be frequently on the ground floor

and then a stair that would lead to the second

and or a third floor, which is the primary dwelling.

They're also more modestly sized in terms of square footage

for both the primary and the ADU.

Okay, and I understand that in that setting.

By the way, can the ADUs be up to 1,750 square feet?

They have to be, what, 500 or 600 square feet?

For detached, up to 1,200 square feet

and then for attached it depends on the bedroom size, but generally 1,000.

Okay, so they could be roughly two-thirds the size of the primary unit potentially.

You know, I mean, obviously this is mandated by state law,

and so there's a limited amount of discretion we have in wiggle room to be sure.

But it would help me if for the council meeting on the second,

you could do some plotting of what it might look like.

And I'm not thinking so much about the central city.

I'm thinking about locations that are more suburban in character or nature.

And I think about the neighborhood I live in,

where just down the streets someone took a lot, split it,

proposed two primary units and four ADUs total.

And through discussions,

they decided to go with two primary units and two ADUs.

And I have to say now, watching this get built,

had they gone with their original idea,

it would have been not just inconsistent

with the neighborhood, and I'll leave that aside,

it would have been crammed onto the two lots that were created by the lot split.

And so when I start thinking about 10 units and 10 ADUs potentially,

I don't know that anyone would ever do that,

but as a potential, it makes me wonder whether,

and I'm a fan of ADUs,

but it makes me wonder whether it makes sense in this context or not.

So visualizing it, as I say, I think would help me.

and I think help some people who might have the same kind of questions I have.

Thanks.

Good comments.

May I ask one other question, a different point?

If I recall our discussion, there's no, when there's an application filed under this,

because it's administrative, there'd be no notice to any of the surrounding property owners

of the filing of the application.

Is that right?

Correct.

These are ministerial and by state law they would not be subject to notice requirements or hearing.

I would just say this is a conundrum because if you tell people and then say,

by the way, you have no hearing and no ability to affect this other than if they really don't meet the requirements,

that doesn't make people very happy.

if you don't tell them and all of a sudden something's getting built, that doesn't make them very happy.

So I'm inclined to think actually giving people notice that something's coming is better than not telling them at all.

But I just lay that issue on the table for consideration between now and the council hearing.

Thanks.

So I guess that leads to an interesting question.

So under the ministerial process, it's not required, but could that be something that we do anyway?

Could we say, hey, we've received an application and send out notices just to let the neighbors know,

or is that something that is precluded as part of the process?

I'll try not to get too in the weeds on this.

The short answer with regard to this ordinance as it's presented today, we could not add that.

State law precludes us from imposing unique requirements on different types of state housing projects.

So whether it's SB 9 or SB 684, the concept is that as a local government,

you shouldn't put a higher bar or a different bar than exists to housing in general.

So if we were to enact a notice requirement, we would have to do it universally for all projects that are ministerial.

And that can be quite costly.

Right, because you're sending out paper notifications.

Yeah, there are costs for running our city

that would be affected, yes.

Okay.

Pros and cons.

That's great.

Thank you.

Seeing no other comments right now,

I just want to say, you know,

I do, you know, have experience

what Councilor Dickinson is alluding to,

which is that, you know, it's kind of,

it's frustrating at times for neighbors

when they, you know, walk outside their door

and they're like, where did this project come from?

there's something being built next to my house or in my neighborhood or whatever it may be and I've

certainly received those complaints too but you know I also know that we are in a housing crisis

not just in our city but in our state and and beyond and we know that we have a desperate need

to build more and to get creative about how we do that which is what I believe the intent of

these state laws are is to I don't think that they're targeting us I know in Sacramento we are

very forward thinking and we do more than most other places in terms of creativity and missing

middle and getting things done on the housing front and so I'm actually really proud of us

as a city and our wonderful staff thank you for the work that you put into being creative but I

also know that there are some other places perhaps in the state where they are not as willing to

make those changes and that's why I think the state sees fit to require that statewide and

And so I'm hopeful. I don't think any one of these things is a panacea.

I don't think anyone is going to make massive changes that is going to overhaul our housing system.

I do think maybe all put together, plus our housing element changes and zoning and whatnot,

hopefully we'll start to see, I think we already are, an increase in housing production

and hopefully more places that people, especially young people and seniors

and folks who are struggling to find and keep housing that they can afford can live.

And so that is my hope, and that's why I'm very supportive of this.

and I'm happy to move the item if I can have a second.

All right, motion and a second.

Any other comments from my colleagues?

Okay, all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed or abstain?

That passes unanimously.

Thank you very much.

With that, we move on to solid waste management

and solid waste disposal regulations.

Hi, good afternoon.

I'm Erin Treadwell, the waste compliance manager with the recycling solid waste division with

public works here to go over the exciting world of waste with you all, residential and

commercial code changes we wish to make along with some of our construction and demolition

code.

This is a minor update to some code changes we've brought forward since 2020 and 2023.

A little bit of background.

Those were kind of seminal years for us.

A couple things happened.

A joint powers authority that regulated commercial waste, both in the city and county, called the Solid Waste Authority, dissolved.

And right at that same time, SB 1383, which is the short-lived climate pollution reduction law that we like to call the organics law, came on board.

And those were two huge things that we had to create code for, bring code in, because now the city, we regulate our own commercial waste.

And now that we have been living and breathing with this code for the last four years, there's some minor updates we need to make since we've been working with it.

And I'm just going to go over our highlights.

One of these changes we want to make is kind of procedural.

We franchise 21 haulers.

So the city is unique in the state.

We have only a couple other jurisdictions.

We have an open franchise system for commercial hauling.

It creates a great market competitiveness for our businesses to be able to choose a hauler that provides the services and for prices that they can negotiate.

We're not a sole franchise city.

So we do franchise 21 haulers.

Fifteen of those are what we would call construction and demolition haulers.

They're the small guys.

You mostly see their large boxes maybe in front of your neighbor's house when a roof is being removed or on construction sites.

But we also have our full service haulers. Those are going to be the folks who provide daily or weekly service to businesses, restaurants, et cetera.

Those are your atlases, your republics, waste management, and recology.

Our franchise agreement, as it is currently designed, is really for a full service hauler, which requires a lot of reporting that's mandated by the state.

what we want to do is have two separate agreements, one that is geared and streamlined for the C&D haulers

and then one that is for the full service haulers.

So that's just something we need to build into our code.

It will streamline the renewal process.

We have to do renewals every year for these haulers.

And all of these contracts or these franchises come before council every five years.

And, in fact, the next cycle where you will see all these agreements will be in June of 2026.

A couple of other changes we wanted to make.

One has to do with the noise ordinance.

The decibel levels that are set in our code were set in the 1970s.

And, you know, garbage trucks have changed a wee bit in the last 50 years.

But collection was manual, trucks were smaller, all of those things.

Most of the city's heavy-duty vehicles actually are exempted from decibel levels, and we are proposing that exemption apply to waste vehicles.

What will not be changing is the restrictions related to collection of hours, and that's where most of the concerns that we receive from the public are when the collection is occurring.

So that is not proposing to change that, but we are looking at exempting waste trucks from decibel levels because we are probably exceeding it just because those levels have not been updated in so long.

We are also looking to change a couple of definitions in construction and demolition debris.

We actually don't have that definition defined on our residential code, and we are seeing an uptick in construction debris being put in residential containers.

So we're simply going to mirror that definition in our residential code and it will clearly state you cannot be putting concrete and wood and metal and other things or any kind of construction debris in your residential containers.

Plastic bags now are also defined as not recyclable.

This aligns with what other jurisdictions are doing.

It also will dovetail with new state laws related to how they're now looking and treating plastic bags.

So those are just some updates.

We have two changes for generators.

And in our world, we call a generator, in your world, it's the businesses.

And one is that generators need to have active service.

This is closing kind of a loophole in our code.

We've always said that they must be subscribed to service.

But we have seen contracts where they are subscribed, but their service has been paused or is inactive.

And we do have flexibility in our code that allows for that.

Think of a seasonal business like your Little League Snack Shack.

They need to have active services during the Little League season, but they don't need it in the offseason.

However, we are seeing businesses who are, because they don't want a particular type of service or a particular type of frequency with the service, they're pausing it.

We're not stating you must have active service.

It's not just subscription.

It's active.

Also related to multifamily properties that they must have, if they have any tenancy, they must have active services as well.

It's not a, well, I only have three units out of my ten unit occupied.

No, you must have active services when you have tenancy of any type.

The other is container placement.

So it kind of goes back to the old SWA days, but in terms of we did not have time limits on when commercial containers can be put in the public right away.

We have it on the residential side.

You put your containers out the night before.

They have to be pulled in within 12 hours of service.

We're doing something similar on the commercial side to make sure that containers that businesses put out do get returned back to their storage locations.

We're also requiring that storage locations need to be, if they can't be in an enclosure

or service alley, they need to be out of view.

And if they can't be out of view, they need to be nearest to the business that they're

serving.

You know, we know we have, particularly in the downtown area, you know, the infrastructure

is old.

And so there's not a lot of space for all the things that we now need and use.

But we want to make sure that businesses are responsible for their containers and that

they are near their actual business when servicing and that they're pulled off of the public right

of way within a timely fashion. Okay. We have a couple of things we'd like to add to our toolbox

related to illegal dumping mitigation. One is related to if you are caught illegal dumping

or if your registered vehicle is proven to be part of an illegal dump, then you as a registered

owner can be signed, find and cited for that. We have several cases where we are able to identify

the vehicle, but we may not always be able to identify the person or persons who we're dumping.

And oftentimes when we're able to track down the owner of the vehicle, oh, I loaned it to

my friend. Or there's a lot of things that kind of can come out of that. But this time is if you

are the registered vehicle owner, regardless if you were there or not, knew about it or not,

you're now equally responsible for what we found.

Also on the multifamily side of things,

we currently have code that requires multifamily properties

to provide a once-of-year bulky item collection or removal

on an as-needed basis.

We are amending that code and we are going to require

that they need to do it at least once in a 12-month period

to provide an outlet for tenants to have their bulky items removed.

Tenants are not city customers per se because they contract with a private hauler.

They don't receive some of the same benefits that a city customer receives related to dump coupons,

our appointment-based pickup programs, those sorts of things.

but we do see there is a need to have some outlet for tenants to be able to have bulky items removed.

So, okay.

Alternative services, this is kind of an inside baseball or inside waste wall, if you will.

One, when we took in the SWACO, there's a lot of different ways that folks can handle mostly the recyclables,

and we're just codifying kind of the practices that have come up.

The best example I can give is in the commercial world, we do allow folks to share services,

particularly if there's space issues.

So if two or three small businesses are together and there's not enough room in the alley for all their containers,

if they were to each have their own garbage, recycle, and organics,

they can, with the right paperwork and agreement, share that service amongst the three businesses.

So those are the kinds of alternative services we look at and want to have flexibility with.

And those are things we're basically, again, codifying what we're kind of sort of already doing to accommodate some of those alternatives.

And the three last little ones, the special event code, we are reorganizing it.

It reads very weird.

And we know a lot of event producers are trying to figure it out.

So we've just kind of reorganized that.

We're also allowing mobile food vendors, so food trucks and such, to be able to use the on-site waste containers that are at a special event that was forbidden originally.

So we're kind of cleaning that up to allow for them to do that.

We do have a re-inspection fee in our code that we brought in when we took over commercial compliance.

But it's tied to a 30 to 90 day correction period.

and honestly most of the infractions or violations that we see and we get cures on are within

a seven to daytime period.

So what we're doing is removing just the time restriction that's in the code and if we have

to go out and do a re-inspection, and that means we have to physically go out and see

the correction has not occurred, then you get a re-inspection fee.

If we go out and inspect and the correction has happened, we're good to go.

Most corrections in our inspections that we do with SB 1383, the generators can send us an email with the photos showing,

yes, I got the organics container now or I've got the recycled container now and we're good to go.

So re-inspection fees really only get applied if we physically have to go out there

and if they have not complied with the notice of violation.

So we've rarely had to use it.

We're updating our procurement code.

this is a good one. When 1383 came online, we had to procure a certain amount of recyclable

materials. It's a lot. It's a pretty big lift for any jurisdiction. But what they didn't

allow for, they didn't give us any credit for things we were already doing related to

diverting primarily green waste. And so now they've updated the state law to allow us

to get credit for, like, we are the city of trees. We have a lot of trees in our parks.

those trees get mulched and ground when they are removed now we're going to get

credit for all of that as part of our ability to divert green waste from from

the system so those are those are good things the timeframe for where we are

right now we are in November and we're at lawn ledge we did do stakeholder

outreach in September and August with our haulers and also we sent letters out

out to all of the multifamily properties related to this code in September. And we are hoping

if this passes today, it will go on to a city council agenda December, January most likely

and then with full adoption later in January. The code will be enacted 30 days from adoption.

And that is my presentation. Thank you. I'm ready for questions.

Thank you so much. That was incredibly thorough, which is wonderful because I feel like I learned

so much about waste management and disposal just now. So with that I do know that we have one

public speaker so we'll take them and then we'll move on to questions from my colleagues. Thank

you Chair. Allison Lee. Welcome. Hi everybody my name is Allison Lee and I'm the legislative

Director for Region Business, a coalition of local business leaders dedicated to helping

Sacramento unlock its economic potential through bold policies and initiatives. The city's

action to update Chapter 13.24 which was explained subscribing to a service for removal of bulky

waste such as tenant's furniture and household belongings as needed but now at a minimum

of once every 12 months. For multifamily properties it's problematic because it places another

costs on renters and housing providers. Instead the city should require the landlord to offer

this service as a subscription for tenants allowing them to call in as needed. This change

will achieve the intended effect of mitigating illegal dumping while lowering the cost of

rental housing for multifamily properties. I respectfully urge the law and pledge committee

to revise this legislation before forwarding it to council. We need to pursue collaborative

policies that ensure landlords are responsible for providing the service for tenants as needed

instead of burdening renters and housing providers by forcing them to pay for a minimum of one service

per year when it's not needed. In doing so, we can build a stronger, more efficient Sacramento.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

There's no other public commenters. I will move on to Council Member Dickinson.

Thank you. I had a couple things I wanted to touch base on.

First of all, I'm interested in the noise issue.

And I didn't look back.

What is the current decibel limit for collection trucks?

Generally, it's between about 70 to 80, depending on the service.

But it's written in kind of old language.

But I would say it's 70 is the current decibel level.

And it also has to do with frequency, like how long is something occurring,

and then it's like a plus 5 decibel or less 5 decibel, depending on the length of time.

But that's the general decibel level.

And what is the decibel level of the trucks?

They can exceed 80.

Sometimes it depends.

The backing, beep, beep, beep, and some other things.

Also, if it's echoing in the alleys.

So it kind of depends on where the service is occurring.

And so that's, but our main concern, well, my main concern is we do not want to change the times of service.

Those still exist.

But we acknowledge that our trucks are probably exceeding, our trucks and all waste trucks really,

with commercial haulers as well, are probably exceeding the decibel levels in parts of town just because it's been 50 years.

the bigger trucks, more safety equipment that's on.

Those levels were set before the side loader services ever came online,

so we're just looking at it that way.

It strikes me as slightly of concern to eliminate the decibel limits entirely.

I mean, I'm thinking about what we each hear as we go through life and the collection trucks come along.

I don't know that anyone, maybe there are people out there who would object to the sound of the backup beeps.

They use their phones and record it and say, this is too loud for me.

But yes.

Do you get complaints?

We do.

We do.

They're safety issues, but they can't exceed the decibel level.

So it becomes this question of it's a DOT safety issue.

Again, most of the heavy-duty vehicles the city uses are exempted from that decibel level.

I know.

You said that.

I know.

So we're just looking to move to that.

But there are still ways if folks have noise complaints that we absolutely take them and we act on them.

Yeah.

And it is around when the service is occurring.

but if it's because it's too loud

we're you know we are operating with vehicles that are

that are sometimes loud not consist not sustained loud like for 30 minutes

but you know enough that it can be you know annoyance for a few minutes

and since our decibel level is set at a level that's

not necessarily in line with what the current waste trucks that we use are

we're trying to accommodate for that in terms of the complaints that you get

are they, do they primarily fall into one category or another,

such as the backup beeps are too loud or the lifting of the hydraulic arm is too loud?

Or is there something?

It's loud and it's happening at a time that I don't think it should happen at.

It's happening at 6 a.m.

And there are parts of town where it's allowed to happen at 4 a.m.

because they are in a commercial corridor.

So it's more of that.

But they say, well, yeah, but my decibel, but you know what?

I have it on my phone that the decibel level that I recorded, thank you, decibel level app or whatever, is now higher than what the code allows for.

Yes, but it's a waste vehicle and we're performing.

Yes, but the definitely, so it's, you know, we're trying to, you know, acknowledge that our trucks will, and waste trucks will operate at a higher level on occasion.

but it does not, if it is operating outside of the allowable hours, then yes, we will absolutely enforce.

And for haulers, we issue liquid damages.

Well, I understand the hours part.

Okay.

I won't pursue this further.

That's okay.

No, no, no.

I just, you know, if you got up to 100 or 120 decibels, for example, that's a jet airplane.

Yeah, no, we're not there. We're not there.

I've never heard anything there, but I just wonder if there is some limit that's reasonable.

We'll let that one go for the moment.

The other one I wanted to ask about in particular was plastic bags.

And the city made this change a year or two ago now, plastic bags.

We banned plastic bags in 2016.

Goes back that far?

Yeah.

Seems like just yesterday.

No kidding.

I wrote that.

I helped write that.

2016 is when the plastic bag ban went through.

And what has mystified me about this, and you say it aligns with our jurisdictions, I know,

is that a lot of bags are recyclable by designation, and yet we can't recycle them.

Right.

Right, and the states kind of acknowledged that as well recently.

And a lot of plastic bag manufacturers claim that they were recyclable, and they're not.

There isn't really a market for it, and they're found to be just nowhere near what they claimed that they could do.

So what's happening is this plastic is getting into the recycled container,

and it's considered contamination by our processors.

Right.

And we end up paying for that contamination.

So what we're saying is plastic bags, unfortunately, in their current state and with the current processing are garbage and needs to go into the garbage stream.

Well, let me break with the chair's indulgence.

Let me break this down a little bit because whether there's a market or not is not a determinant of whether the material is recyclable.

Whether the material is truly recyclable and meets standards, that is a separate issue.

But if there's a bag that meets the standards to be recyclable and is so indicated on the bag, people still can't, in the city, recycle them.

and that seems to me to be inconsistent with the principle that I think we subscribe to largely,

hopefully, and faithfully in the city that we want to divert, recycle, and reuse as much of the waste

stream as we possibly can, and so that's what I'm trying to get at. Why is it that those

plastic bags that meet the standards to be recyclable can't be recycled,

can't go into the recycling bin that residential customers have, for example.

Because we don't have a place to process them.

There's not a processor that will take those plastic bags and recycle them or do anything with them.

So they end up becoming, in our system, a contaminant.

So we end up paying for that because it's now contaminating our recycle stream because there's not a – I get where, you know, a lot of things are labeled as recyclable.

Here's an example.

Compostable spoons and all of that, those are not compostable in our system.

Our processing is not able to break down that type of material.

So we list that as something that needs to not go in the organics container.

So that's what causes a lot of confusion.

And statewide, nationally, not every product that is stated and even meets a certain standard to be recyclable

actually can be recycled in the region that it's being tossed out in if we don't have those processors.

Let's come back to plastic bags for a minute.

So what I understand you to be saying, so correct me if I've misunderstood,

that if there's a plastic bag in the recycling container,

no matter what its composition is,

if it goes down to the waste management location,

which is basically a MRF,

and it's on the conveyor belt,

that that gets pulled out as contamination,

because we can't figure out how to,

or we haven't figured out how to recycle that.

So what you're speaking about is our residential contract.

Yeah.

And Erin knows a lot about it, but she's in the commercial, so I thought I would jump in.

So our residential.

Great job, by the way.

What's that?

She's doing a great job.

Oh, I know.

It was a great presentation.

The residential contract that we have at Waste Management is a 20-year contract that was implemented back in 2012.

It's got about six years to go.

That's for garbage and recycling.

without getting into the real weeds of what they're required to do.

Plastics generally, the market for them or the end market or the ability to recycle them

is often tied to the price of oil.

Oil goes down, you know, because they're derived from that.

We always are recycling the ones and twos.

We often are recycling the fours and fives, and we sometimes get the sevens,

which the bags are one of the outliers.

So their ability to get them out, there are requirements in their contract for them to recycle at a certain level,

but when the processing gets too far, they don't have to.

It's just the way the contract was written.

It's back in 2012.

We'd have to negotiate it if we really wanted to push for certain increments on the plastics that are more difficult.

I know all the seven of them, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride.

We can go through them all, but each of them have a subtlety.

And it will change.

We'll get informed by waste management that right now the market for five polypropylene is not good and those go off.

So it changes.

But we do have as much as we can the leverage to get as much of it recyclable that is feasible to process.

What you also do have at times are private sector or other places where you can bring bags.

and then they're clean source separated

and that's the seven they can get,

they have a better market

because they haven't been mixed in

with the 90 gallon can and all the other materials.

So we have glass that gets broken in there

and then certain things that compromise certain plastics.

Okay, so you would need an amendment with a contract

for the processing as one takeaway from this.

Well, it's a takeaway and it's a good takeaway

because as we mentioned when we were in front of you

on organics and we got those agreements approved,

we have six years to go in the recycling

and the garbage contract.

And the way we frame it next time, we could pay and require certain of the outlier plastics.

Again, not the one and two.

Those are always solid.

The high-density polyethylene and the PET are always solid.

But the other ones we can put in there, it's just going to cost more because you have to get it out and you have to clean it.

All right.

But otherwise, you're going in the landfill.

For the most part, a lot of the bags that are in, now we do have a bag separator and a bag breaker.

and those I believe are clean and those can go,

but pulling them out manually,

a lot of them end up in the landfill.

Unfortunately, that go into the blue bin.

They're part of the-

That's what happens if you're in your kitchen

and you have a plastic bag and the city says,

you can't put this in your recycling.

It goes in your, with your petrissepal waste

and the other general waste and goes in the landfill.

Well, the worst one we would want it in

is with the organics

because it would contaminate the organics.

we want a compostable bag in your food waste.

So the other two are either the garbage or the recycling.

If they put it in the recycling or if they use it to bag other recyclables,

we discourage that.

It might get recycled at certain times when the markets are high,

but our contract, unfortunately, doesn't require them

to pull out something that meets a certain threshold of processing

and costs a certain amount above its value.

And it's a complicated thing that we can subcommittee and talk about.

I'd be happy to look at it as a teachable moment relative to our next RFP

because that's when we can change it by 2032.

Okay. The fascination of garbage.

It is fascinating and it's...

So fascinating.

I've got a lot of time in garbage.

The last thing I wanted to say is that...

You're talking trash.

Yeah, talking trash.

The last thing I wanted to say was I appreciate the recommendations

with respect to trying to reduce illegal dumping

and particularly the aspect of assigning responsibility

if we can identify a vehicle that is the conveyance

for the illegal dumper.

I acknowledge the concern that was expressed

about the offering once a year to take bulky items

for multifamily residential owners.

But the counter to that is what maybe all we've seen,

all of us have seen, I certainly have,

where people move out of a unit and they take everything

and dump it in the gutter that's in the unit.

And that is the definition of blight.

so hopefully this is a step toward reducing that from occurring.

If there's a better way to do it, I think, I mean, I won't speak for anyone else.

I'd be open to it, but we need some kind of approach

that is more than what we have now in this regard,

so I appreciate you taking a run at that as well.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Great comments.

Council Member Jennings.

Thank you. I think I have the answer to this. I think I know what you're saying in 1310-130.

Registered owner of a vehicle used for illegal dump in the city may be deemed responsible and cited for dumping.

And I think when people see that, they don't see that, and they may not be, based on the following conditions.

If that car is stolen, if that car has been sold and DMV has not processed the ownership.

Correct.

and change of ownership, those types of things.

Yes.

So what it says very clearly is I'm responsible.

It doesn't say how do I deal with that if, in fact, I'm not responsible

because the car is no longer in my name.

Well, usually it would be something where a code officer is going to be doing the investigation.

And if they approach someone and say,

we found that this is a registered vehicle that we found on one of our cameras doing illegal dumping,

If they're able to say, hey, I sold that car, here's the copy of the transfer of title,

or they're able to prove that they have no responsibility for that car anymore, then we're done.

We're not going to, you know, or it was stolen, or any of those, the police report that shows the car was stolen,

any of those things would certainly factor into them not being cited.

But if they are found to be the registered owner and they admit to it and they're on the title,

then they are going to be responsible or equally responsible for what occurred out when their vehicle was used for dumping.

Even if DMV has not processed the ownership in a timely manner?

You know, I think if that's something that they're claiming, we would be able to contact DMV and find out if that's true or not.

I'm just what I'm reading and what the would be reading would be something that would be of concern.

Yeah, if they're going to be responsible, no matter what, there's no exception here.

So I don't know how to word it.

I don't.

Sure.

I just I'm telling you what I see.

Right.

And as a car person, I know how the many problems of buying a car and selling a car and what happens with that car.

Trying to get it in my name or trying to get it not in my name.

There's also an appeals process with anything that when we are citing someone or taking them to, you know, there is an appeals process and they're able to go before a hearing officer and say, this wasn't my car and here I can now prove it.

But chances are with our code officer and during the investigations, if someone says, I sold it, I don't have it, they will probably work with DMV to confirm that information before they move forward on it.

so. So sad. I think I know the answer, but I don't. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay.

Seeing no other comments, my colleagues, and do we have a motion on this? I'll move it.

A motion? Second? I'll second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye. Opposed or abstained? That passes unanimously. Thank you very much.

And now we move on to the item we've all been waiting for. So this is a fun one. So this is a

council member proposal um from council member plucky bomb and myself related to comic books

which are currently forbidden uh to be sold to anyone under the age of 18 under sacramento city

code and also to designate the third week of september to sacramento comic book week so with

that i'm going to pass it on over councilman plucky bomb thank you chair i'd like to uh recognize

wolverine in the audience if you wouldn't come up and then uh following him evan uh in 1949 uh

The city had a bit of a panic and decided, you know,

comics were too controversial for the youth and they couldn't handle it.

Wolverine, is there anything you'd like to say to that?

You can call me Logan.

Look, comic book bans are stupid.

Book bans are stupid.

No more questions.

Thank you very much.

Quickly, I'm Dave Gohl.

I'm Chief of Staff to Councilmember Plucky Baum.

Eben Bergoon brought this to our attention.

We were very grateful for it.

We worked alongside Councilmember Maples' office, and our team, Elian and Sarim, wrote this first council proposal.

So really proud of them, and thank you, Councilmember, for your staff's assistance.

Thank you, Wolverine.

Eben.

Do we get to see your blades?

Those are not allowed in Council Chair.

Yeah, yeah.

Thanks, Dave.

Yeah, they're not Kerpins.

Eben, author of Tiny Wizards and B-Squad, come on up.

Hello.

I just want to thank Council Member Maple and Plucky Bomb for the opportunity to, and being so responsive to this petition that I did online.

As a comic book creator myself, I've seen firsthand how comic books are just this influential celebrated art form from Egypt to China, back to Aylton.

It makes imaginative thinkers.

It makes lifelong readers.

It does not make widespread delinquency.

It does not make societal harm.

And I think because comic books have this really valuable ability to speak truth to power

and foster that lifelong literacy, they're often the frequent target of book bans.

And these antiquated laws kind of set up this jeopardy where bad actors could work hard

to make this medium imperiled.

I actually just learned last night from the director of the comic book legal defense fund

that the California Supreme Court actually struck down a very similar law

and declared it unconstitutional in the county of Los Angeles, and that was in the 1950s.

This law has actually been used fairly recently, well, since the 1950s, and there are even other states where retailers have been arrested and charged with felonies over things like inadvertently giving a comic book to a young person that didn't need it or wasn't for them or even intended for them.

So I think we can do better as a city and just get this log to go and then celebrate through Sacramento Comic Book Week.

There's been so many wonderful comic book, such a wonderful comic book community.

There's many, many stores.

There's many, many conventions.

And celebrating, I think, with a whole week also poises us as a large city and a large state to be able to kind of have a big northern California celebration of comic books as a medium and an art form.

We already see at the Crocker Art Museum they're doing CrockerCon.

We've been doing that for 11 years.

There's SACAnime.

There's SACCon.

The list goes on and on and on.

I was just at Folsom Comic Con this last weekend.

So it's just a really great time to be a comic book fan.

Thank you.

I want to thank Eben, recognize him for his leadership, not just on this issue,

but with regard to all the work that you're doing at the Crocker and building a space for artists in our community,

this is an opportunity for us not just to take a necessary piece of code off the books,

but to recognize a community of people that are doing really interesting and creative work

and build upon some of the successes that we've had with CrockerCon and anime festivals

and make Sacramento known as a place that supports access to literacy and the creative economy.

with that I'll yield and if there are any other questions or motions. Okay well I just want to say

a couple things. One thank you so much for bringing this forward. I think this is a really

perfect example of how you can really engage with your government and get something done because I

think a lot of times people feel frustrated with the state of government. They feel like their

voice doesn't matter or that they don't know how to get engaged but really here at the local level

at the city level, you can get things done.

And so just thank you for starting that change.org petition.

Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

And I think we can add this to a really nerdy fact about me.

I used to write for a blog called sacramentality.org

where we wrote about nerdy local government things.

And I wrote something about all of the weird,

and one of my colleagues did about weird laws

that are still on the books in Sacramento,

including chicken medallions and other things

that we might want to address at some point.

and this was one of them where I just think it's a very outdated thing that most people probably

don't know is on the books but it's also really important for us to address that and to change

that because we don't want to give the impression to any person any young person that this isn't

something that we want them to engage in so just thank you for your advocacy and with that Madam

Clerk do we have any public comment on this item? I have no speakers on this item. No speakers okay

any other comments from my colleagues? Well I'd be happy to second your motion Councilor Flokiebaum

to move this forward to the full city council.

All right, we got a motion and a second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed or obscene?

That passes unanimously.

Thank you for your advocacy.

Okay, so with that, we're gonna move on.

Do we have any public comments

for matters not on the agenda?

We do not.

Okay, any committee questions, ideas,

comments, reports, and whatnot?

With that, we are adjourned at 12.07 p.m.

Thank you.

Thank you.