It is Monday, July 14th, 2025.

I will just go ahead and lead us to the Pledge of Allegiance, please stand if you're able to.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Aguilar.

Councilmember Azevedo.

Present.

Council Member Bolt.

Present.

Council Member Simon is absent this evening.

Councilmember Vivero Swalton.

Or Vice Mayor Bowen, present.

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Thank you.

Okay, so I'd like to talk a little bit about our agenda today.

We have two primary items.

One's a work plan update, and the other one is um kind of an instructional session on contracting.

For our first item, it's going to be about a 30-minute presentation covering three separate topics.

So I'd like for you to just be mindful that it's not going to be super long, but it's not gonna be super short.

So be sure to take time to write your questions.

Because it's one of our longer presentations, we'll probably end up going around a couple of times on the QA and question part.

But I will be taking public comments first after we hear that presentation.

So just be aware about that time sequencing.

And I'm also mindful of um trying to be as respectful as possible for the fact that Councilmember Aguilar is uh on the East Coast.

Well, assuming that he shows up because I believe he is planning to attend is on East Coast time.

So I want to try to get this meeting done before it gets to be one in the morning his time.

So with all that in mind, we have three pres or three sections of a one big presentation.

We have acting city manager.

You are kicking us off, right?

Acting city manager Mike UN is gonna kick off this section.

Okay, thank you, Mayor, and good evening.

Uh council members.

Uh this evening we staff are going to update the uh council on your priority work plans, specifically in the areas of public safety, infrastructure, and housing and homelessness.

Slide.

So uh the timeline for this goes back to 2023.

Back in May of 23, the council uh was presented priority work plans for these three areas.

They were developed.

Um, and then in 2024, council at your council priority session uh established economic development and quality of life as two additional work plans.

And then this year, five months ago in February, uh council held your priority setting session for fiscal year 26.

Staff received feedback from that uh priority setting session and uh as well as feedback in the biennial budget process, uh that was uh conducted during the spring.

Uh, in June of 25, uh just last month.

Uh, that biennial budget process culminated in adoption of a budget for the next two fiscal years, and here we are this evening in July of 2025, presenting to you the priority work plan updates for these three areas.

And as I mentioned, the uh biannual budget timeline uh that took place over the past several months that started in December and November and December of 24.

Um that kicked off among the staff.

Uh council held a priority setting session in February of 25.

Three or excuse me, two community engagement forums were also conducted to gather feedback.

All of that feedback was put together in a proposed budget that was presented to the finance committee in April.

Finance committee then gave additional feedback to staff and direction, which staff then formulated a revised proposal that came to finance committee in May.

Uh, and then in June, a work session was held where departments presented their budgets to council, uh, which then led to adoption of said budget on June 16th of last month.

So all of that then, uh, the budget includes uh elements of these three work plans that have been updated and will be presented to you this evening.

That's public safety infrastructure and housing and homelessness, and then to kick us off uh and lead us into the public safety work plan is uh police chief Angela Avery.

Chief.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and council.

Tonight I will provide you with an update on our public safety uh council priority work plan.

The plan is to focus on six key areas.

Increasing sworn staffing, recruitment, reducing animal control costs, ensuring strong community engagement, encampment removal, and emergency preparedness.

Increasing sworn staffing.

So unfortunately, we have seen a slight setback in our staffing numbers due to a variety of factors, such as retirements, resignations, and candidates failing the police academy or the field training program.

However, we remain very focused on increasing our net staffing numbers.

So our goal here is to increase sworn staffing to a net of 78% by December of 2026.

In 2027, we want to increase that to a net of 82% staffing through our recruitment efforts, which I will touch on upon in just a moment.

Lastly, traffic issues remain a top concern, not only of the department, but also of our residents.

We plan to increase our traffic division staffing by shuffling around existing staff to fill two vacant traffic officer positions by July of 2026.

Adding additional personnel will help us to focus on traffic safety in the areas of education, enforcement, and engineering.

It will also increase our participation in regional traffic enforcement efforts and make our streets safer for vehicle and pedestrian traffic.

Recruitment.

Recruitment is an area that will always be a challenge, but with renewed attention on our strategies, we hope to see some significant gains in the next couple of years.

As you know, we have a current goal to hire three officers per quarter.

In addition to this, we also will do an annual review of our recruitment strategies and fine-tune change or remove any strategies that are not helping us reach our goal.

We will do a quarterly recruitment social media post, participate in six recruitment events, both virtual and in person per quarter, and visit at least one in progress police academy per quarter.

Police academies often have non-affiliated recruits in them.

These are individuals who put themselves through the academy, and so our hope is to catch some of those individuals while they are still in the academy.

This is a big one, reducing animal control costs.

So our goal here is to reduce the number of animals we intake, thereby reducing our animal control costs.

We will reduce the number of strays processed by 10% by the end of 2026 and by an additional 5% at the end of 2027.

We plan to achieve this through employing a shelter diversion strategy, increasing staffing of trained animal control personnel, and increasing enforcement of loose dog violations.

The shelter diversion strategy works by keeping stray animals at our temporary shelter for longer periods of time, which will allow additional time for our staff to reunite the animals with their owners.

Also, increasing messaging to the community to encourage our residents to call San Leandro PD prior to dropping stray animals off at the shelter.

This is an area where we see a kind of significant cost as it relates to our SPCA contract because anytime a resident takes an animal to the shelter, even if the animal is owned by the individual dropping off the animal and they are surrendering it, the City of San Leandro is charged a fee.

So to put this into perspective and give you some numbers, in fiscal year 25, we brought in 721 canines and 224 felines for a total of 945 animals.

This count does not include the 706 kittens that were brought in because these numbers are not counted against our contract, thankfully.

Of the 721 canines surrendered, 379 were brought in by residents.

Of the 224 felines, 100 were brought in by residents.

So here I'm hoping that we can reduce the number of surrenders and intakes through messaging and better managing of our current resources.

Ensuring strong community engagement.

San Leander PD's commitment to community-oriented engagement remains a focus and priority.

Our priorities in this area include hosting one coffee with a cop event per quarter, hosting our annual United for Safety event, our annual Cookies with a COP holiday event, we buy annual pizza with a cop.

Apparently we like our food.

Staffing a booth at the farmers market and not shown here, but inadvertently left off our commitment in participating in national night out events.

National night out is usually held every year on the first Tuesday in August, and this year it is Tuesday, August 5th.

So I hope to see all of you out there for this important event.

And although although these events that I mentioned are priority events for us, it does not deter us from participating in a multitude of other community engagement events throughout the year.

Encampment removal.

Since many of our larger encampments occur in uh on the UPRR's property near railroad tracks.

And I would on that note like to recognize the Union Pacific Railroad Police as they are doing a large encampment cleanup in our city tomorrow.

So they've been good community partners in helping us with our effort efforts.

With that being said, I would like to now turn it over to Libby Bessman, emergency services specialist to discuss emergency preparedness.

Thank you.

Thanks, Chief.

Good evening, mayor and council.

Elizabeth Bessman, Emergency Services Specialist.

So as you can see, I've got four major deliverables.

The first one is local hazard mitigation plan.

We're we're pretty much halfway through this, as you can see.

We'll have a draft plan, a final plan, and then we'll send it over to FEMA-Cal OES for approval.

The second one is very important to us because it's the power safety shutoff PGE training.

They've updated what they provide for the government training, and it happens, uh it's just happened last week, and it is geared for the emergency managers.

Um, and then I'll be providing some updates to uh city leadership.

The emergency operations plan is a large lift that we do every five years, which involves a lot of city departments.

As you can see, it starts with reviewing the plan and then goes all the way through testing the plan and then training staff to be able to work the plan.

And then finally, in partnership with Alameda County Fire Department, there's going to be a host of three wildfire preparedness and defensible space workshops.

You can see that they happen yearly.

And there's also three annual uh that should be uh community emergency response trainings, the CERT trainings, and we just completed one in June.

So it's been a busy time.

And with that, um, I'll send this over to infrastructure with Jason, the public works engineer.

Thank you.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, members of the council.

Jason and my city engineer with Public Works Engineering Division.

I'm pleased to present to you tonight updates to the city's infrastructure work plan.

First up is local revenue measures.

Uh, staff will be initiating efforts to explore two local revenue measures to help address the community's growing lists of infrastructure needs.

Uh, the first will consider a possible revenue measure for the November 2026 election.

This effort is scheduled to kick off later this month, with the first task being to develop a public communications and engagement survey.

Staff anticipates presenting the results of the survey to council at the end of this calendar year.

Now with that said, staff is aware of a citizens and community-led effort to place a similar revenue measure on the November 2026 ballot.

The city's effort is separate from this and is also not meant to compete with the citizen-led effort.

Staff does anticipate knowing before the filing deadline for the November 26 election whether or not the citizen-led revenue measure will be placed on the ballot.

If the citizen-led effort is successful, the citizen the city will not pursue the placement of its own revenue measure on the November ballot.

The second item is a renewed effort to update the city's stormwater fees, which will begin with a public outreach effort, communication and engagement in October of 2026.

Next is the advancement of environmental stewardship.

The first project is a partnership with PGE to help meet the California Air Resource Board's advanced clean fleets regulations to phase in the use of zero emission vehicles to the city's fleet.

PGE is offering participating jurisdictions to cover the cost to install electric vehicle charging infrastructure in exchange for a five-year commitment to electrical vehicle purchases and a charging plan.

That effort is anticipated to begin shortly and wrap up by the end of 2027.

Is the implementation of various environmental programs over the next year, including trash-free Stanley Andrew Business Certifications, an environmental preferable purchasing plan, and green building certification for city facilities.

Now moving on to asset management.

First is the relinquishment of East 14th Street or State Route 185 from Caltrans to the City of San Leandro within the city limits.

That process is anticipated to take about two years to complete and will require the consideration of mid-cycle budget adjustments to fund additional operation and maintenance costs associated with assuming ownership of the roadway.

Second is the implementation of capital improvement planning software for strategic asset management for city facilities.

This process is also anticipated to take about two years to complete.

Last month, City Council awarded a contract for the construction of the new Mulford Marina Branch Library.

Staff is diligently working towards construction groundbreaking as well as working with the state for compliance with conditions of the grant received from the state library.

Design and environmental NEPA clearance is currently underway for the repair of slides one and slide four on Lake Shabo Road with construction anticipated to be complete in the summer of 2027.

And lastly, work continues on the design refinement, utility relocation, permitting, and environmental clearance for the MacArthur Roundabout Project.

Latest revisions to the project schedule anticipate the completion of construction in November of 2027.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Director Lobadon.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

I'm pleased this evening to kick off the presentation of the housing and homelessness work plan.

I'll be co-presenting along with Director Liao.

The first strategy in our work plan is around preventing homelessness and promoting housing stability.

One of the key projects under this area is launching the permanent local housing allocation, rental assistance, homelessness prevention shotlow subsidy program.

I know it's a bit of a mouthful.

This is a program to work with households at risk of homelessness to provide short-term rental assistance to stabilize them.

We've posted the request for proposals and are seeking to formally launch the program later this year, probably in November of 2025.

I'll hand it over now to Director Liao.

Regarding housing stability, we've categorized them into under tenant protections and support and put them into four policy buckets.

So the first is rent registry implementation.

You all approved the rent registry ordinance earlier this year, so now we are staff, the housing staff in particular, is in the midst of implementing that, and that includes staffing up with the approved positions from council as well as third party assistance, seeking the rent registry software that we're undergoing this through the summer and fall.

A key element too is to develop a reasonable but uh fully cost recovery fee.

So we'll be doing that analysis and study, preparing public notification, and then coming back to council for adoption into this fee schedule.

And then so our hope once all the systems are in place with personnel, the fees, the budgeting, we expect full sort of program implementation by early next year.

Second bucket would be the rent stabilization ordinance process, which we are in the midst of.

So this Thursday, we'll be presenting a preliminary draft public review ordinance to the public and the committee, and then we'll have throughout the summer and early fall a public outreach period, including community meetings and stakeholder meetings.

We are also going to be spending the summer and fall working with a consultant to evaluate program cost feasibility of a rent stabilization ordinance, particularly with staffing and budgeting.

And coming back to the full council in the fall, likely in late October work session to present both the feedback from the public on the draft ordinance and also the about the assessment of costs.

And then in addition, just some follow-up steps we've added in.

It's a little bit rinse and repeat, like the rent registry.

We will then, if the pro the ordinance has been adopted, we would move towards a fee study, also coming back to council for implementation of that fee, recruitment and hiring of staff, third party and direct, executing contracts, and then having a pro full program implementation probably by August of 2026 or the summer of 2026.

The third bucket we know was a second priority for the council regarding protections was the mobile home rent stabilization ordinance.

So once we get close to completing the rent stabilization ordinance, we will then begin to move into evaluating the amendment of the mobile home rent stabilization ordinance.

And it'll follow a similar pattern.

The first thing we want to do is probably bring back to you all an assessment of our existing ordinance, have that reviewed publicly with the council, then do a first round of community outreach, and then pending again advancement by council and uh if needed uh identification of any funding, uh, we would go ahead and go back through rules, create a draft ordinance, do a work session, and then if and when that advances, we would do the systems placements of staffing if needed, uh recruitment, and then trying to get into full implementation mode by the um summer or so of 2027 uh or the end of 2027.

Um the last bucket, and this is a new item that we're adding into the work plan.

Um, this is called a local preference disparate impact study.

So this has actually been on a docket in our housing element and from prior councils as well.

This, as many of you know, the state and federal government, when we get funding for affordable rental housing projects, they do not allow us to use a local preference.

We have that in inclusion area, so when we don't use state federal, we can give preference to people who live here and work here.

But under state and federal requirements, we can't do that without a study.

So this is the study that we've been working towards for many years.

We've had funds saved for this, so we are planning to kick that off at some point uh later this year and early complete that early next year with the kickoff and gathering data.

And the ultimate goal is to provide a policy of disparate impact and local preference and to create a draft ordinance, probably in the early part of 2027 for you all.

And so that is a thing, like I said, that's been on the docket, and it will give you all the ability to make sure we have local preference in our affordable rental housing developments.

And so, with that, I'm gonna hand it back over to Director Lobidon for Crisis Interim Housing.

Thank you.

Um, our next priority area is maintaining and expanding uh crisis and interim housing solutions.

The first project under this area is uh the winter shelter program.

This is currently a partially funded program.

Um, and so our first activity will be to identify supplemental funding for the winter shelter program.

We are currently working with Alameda County for this supplemental funding.

Pending successful um award of funding.

We will seek council authorization to award funds with an anticipated program launch of um November, and then we'll run the program through April, which is the standard uh tenure of the winter shelter program.

The next project is um continuing to work with our nonprofit partners to operate the Louelling Interim Housing and Drop-in Center.

This is a fully funded program.

This is largely now that we're under operations around grant compliance for the various grant funds that go into running this site and working eventually on identifying a successor site as well as planning for the conversion of this site into permanent supportive housing.

The next project is exploring safe parking.

This is an unfunded project.

Um we will work to um, and this is uh the activities in this project area are based on feedback from the rules committee, and so we'll work to identify um a faith-based roster and to partner with these organizations to see what might be possible in San Leandro, as well as identifying other public partners in the city who may be able to partner on a safe parking program.

And the last project in this area is exploring the safety ambassador expansion program.

Um this is another program that is unfunded based on again feedback from the rules committee.

We will continue to identify alternative locations for a safety ambassador expansion program.

Um we will also look for funding options for the safety ambassador program and return to the rules committee with options for moving forward.

And I'll hand it back over to Director Liao now.

Great.

So this last component is regarding supporting housing production, and this will primarily be led by the planning and economic development divisions within our community development department.

Coming forward to you next week as part of policies to help stimulate housing productions will be the development impact fee amendments and market feasibility study.

So hopefully that's something to look forward to.

A few of these, most of these are actually from uh the prior work plan, and we've just extended out some of the deadlines uh due to kind of our workload.

Uh, but there's a few items that are new here I wanted to call out.

One is the evaluation of market feasibility of key entitled projects, and that's part of our strategic economic development.

I'm sorry, our economic development strategy.

Uh, another new element that uh falls under our housing element is improving the development project tracking system.

So we're continuing to better our online permitting system through a Sela, and this is one of the goals that we have in our housing element to do that.

And the last one we know has been brought up at council retreats, and uh it's one that um we do have some funds for in this past year.

So one is to evaluate um the inclusionary zoning ordinance, and so that is one that we would hopefully um have completed probably by the summer of 2027.

So those are some newer ones to call out.

Um, otherwise, um, some of the notable ones, you know, we we are embarking on uh reviewing the Bayfair transit oriented development plan and coming forward um beginning that replanning process and coming up with a more specific precise development plan in the next year plus and uh and so that's something that and then we also are looking at parking policies and reforms.

We know that is a key trigger, uh, how you handle parking um in the denser areas of town, and so we are evaluating some of the parking policies, and that will be coming forward to you all too at the end of this year and uh early next year as well.

I think we're uh open for questions.

Perfect.

So at this point in time, what we will do is we will take clarifying questions.

There's terminology things you want to dig into a little bit more.

We'll then move to public comment.

You'll come back to us for any final thoughts uh with respect to what we're hearing or seeing.

So please focus on clarifying questions.

There's uh some at this time.

Okay, going to council Marie Vetus Walton.

Thank you.

This is regarding oh, my screen just nope, that's not it.

Sorry, my screen just went away.

Um not the count my computer.

Um housing production.

Um does my understanding that the current state budget included the agreement over the state budget included some changes to state policy that would allow local governments to increase housing stock, not to put you on the spot, but is there do we have an understanding of what the nexus is between that state policy agreement that happened through the budget and the nexus between how it could affect San Leandro?

Would you happen to know if there was a specific program is it that they've created for that?

Is like a funding program or it was an agreement, it was essentially a change in regulations.

I would have to go back and look into it.

I don't know if that is something that we can maybe ask our our state lobbyists to provide some analysis and context.

Cause it was the way that it was presented.

Uh when the governor presented the budget agreement, it included that, like it was something around like building housing and opening up the the changing of legislation and policy that would allow local governments to.

Well, the one if you're talking about is the SQL reform.

Is that what that is?

So that that is quite a major thing, and I know we are gonna get some analysis on that through the city attorney's office as well, some of the legal ramifications and how that affects our procedures and process for new development, especially new development new housing development.

So that is definitely where we want to track that and and how that if we need to make necessary changes to our own systems and regulations.

So yeah, that that is been a that's a major development.

That's I think.

Okay, so analysis is for forthcoming.

Right, yes.

Um, and then I wanted to go back to uh tenant protections and rent stabilization.

Um looking at page 35 of the presentation.

Uh I guess um, hold on, I'm not apologies.

No, this is uh page 33.

Uh the rent stabilization ordinance.

So we're looking at a second reading in January of 2026 with a work session on the 25th.

Um at what point will the community be able to see kind of a landing?

Um, I'm assuming that the community stakeholder meeting meetings would include a copy of the draft ordinance that the rules committee may have had some sort of agreement, I guess.

Um a concern that I have there is that the rules committee is not, I guess that makes sense, right?

It's not representative of the whole council, it's a committee of the council, hoping that they would kind of uh think about what would be agreeable to the majority of the people here and think about it that way.

Do we have an idea of what the community stakeholder meetings would include?

Is it just a draft ordinance?

Is it like are there specific parts of the ordinance that you're specifically seeking community feedback on?

Yeah, so that's a it's a great question.

And and actually to the rules committee's credit, when they met in May, uh part of the public feedback they heard and the input they gave was uh maybe we need to come back to the full council.

That's that's where so an initial schedule that we proposed in May, we didn't we had them coming back to rules.

So the change that will also be presented after tonight to rules on Thursday is this one is including a work session to the full council because we will have more feedback on the draft.

And the reason we really emphasize in this draft that we'll be sort of fully opened on Thursday is that it's very preliminary.

In other words, we need to put something on paper.

We've we've already been hearing from stakeholders, providers, tenants.

So we wanted to put something out there.

It's not lock solid, it's really for um the feed um to stimulate discussion and feedback.

Um and then we were also given some direction on certain policy aspects that they'd like, particularly rules was saying start a starting point would be to follow what Alameda did.

Okay.

That was helpful helpful to us.

So if that helps I'm sorry, I have about 30 more seconds, so I want to make sure I get this question in.

Um, it sounds like the city ordinance, the first reading would fall in January, which is usually around the time when we do the mid-year budget review.

I'm really concerned about the city's fiscal outlook at that point, which is when we will be looking at our how we did this year and our outlook for the for the next year.

I I just would like to see some sort of um uh inclusion of uh what it takes to actually staff uh tenant protection so that we ensure that it gets included in the mid-year review, so we're not just funding policy without implementation and enforcement.

And and council member, we hope that when we come back to you in this October study session or work session, we'll have some of that information.

So we'll go to Vice Mayor next.

Um I have a few questions, but I think I'm gonna wait because they're tied to comments.

So I'm just gonna I'm just gonna come back around.

We'll go to Councilmember Rezebito next.

Thank you for your presentation.

I have a question for the police chief about the reduced animal control costs.

Um you mentioned about 945 animals.

Do you know how much did that cost the city when those animals are dropped off 945 approximately?

I'm just wondering how much it costs per animal.

Sorry, I should ask you this in advance.

It's okay.

I don't have the particular breakdown of how much each animal costs costs, but um I'm glad that you asked that question because I can answer that partially.

So in our um current contract, um, well, we did a six-month contract, but for an annual contract, it's approximately three hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars annually.

The way that that breaks down is for between one and five hundred animals, it will cost that amount of money.

For 501 to 575 animals, you have to add an additional 40,000 dollars for 576 through 650 animals, add another $35,000 dollars, and then for $651 to $750 animals, add another $79,000.

So we're already past that, right?

I mean, to total all that up, it's about $509,000 for $750 animals.

So you can understand why we are really focused on reducing how many animals are being brought in.

And I think through our messaging to the community to encourage people to call the police department first before they drop animals off at the shelter, that can help reduce some of that because it gives us an opportunity to reunite animals with their owners.

I understand that.

Because I get a lot of calls about cats.

I have people calling me all times in the night, oh, there's cats doing this and that.

So I think the solution is a part of it is the trap neuter release.

I tried to push that forward, but we didn't have enough support.

I know the council supported it, but it wasn't one of our top priorities.

But I think that'll reduce the intake also too.

Okay, that's just my comments on that.

Thank you.

Councilmember Bolt, please.

Yes, thank you.

Uh the thank you for all the presentations.

Um the first one, the first question I have is about the parking.

The um is there a like I drive around different parts of San Leandro and I see lots that I know haven't been developed for eons.

Our initial goal was to try and find something that the city owned.

I get it, it's much easier.

But we haven't found it, and we've been talking about this for a while.

The city's done eminent domain on people for commerce so that we create more taxes.

Why can't we do eminent domain on some of these properties that are private so that we can actually help people in our community?

So I'm gonna actually start because it's a complex question that involves legal and financial, all that kind of stuff.

So I'm gonna start with city attorney, acting city attorney.

Feel free to pass it along.

Oh, city manager, sorry.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Uh, so the question on eminent domain council member is a very complex one.

There are several layers to that, and uh there's a standard as to what you are proposing to invoke eminent domain for.

Um that is something that we certainly can consider if it's the direction of this body for staff to do so, we would have to pull in city attorney and and get that analysis done.

Um, but at this time we have only proceeded with non-min eminent domain and seeing if there's cooperation from property owners or the willingness to work with the city.

Okay, that actually answers that we don't have to go any further.

Okay, so at that point, how many private entities have we reached out to?

Or is that back here or here?

Okay.

How many private um landowners?

Because I I get it, the city doesn't have anything that they feel is comparable.

So the next step, instead of waiting, and I'm not dogging anybody out, but it just seems like uh we're working on it, we're working on it.

What is the process to work on it?

What is the next step?

How many people have we reached out to privately to see if they're willing to partner with us?

Sure.

Sorry, gonna be a little askew here.

Um, but we've begun some conversations with some of our larger um private property owners, particularly in the industrial area, and then we've begun looking at more of a landscape scan of what are all the vacant private properties in the city right now.

Um, when we brought this as an option to the rules committee of should we continue exploring further commercial acquisition, um that was not one of the the project areas that really I would say was a priority for staff to consider seeking out further, um, largely because our commercial acquisition is um I think an average of $5 million dollars at this point.

Um, so the priority um the priority guidance that the rules committee gave was to continue working with our faith-based partners and to explore partnerships with other public entities in the city.

A number of how many people reached out to to try and work with them, whether it's faith-based, whether it's private, is there a number of how many we've reached out to?

Um roughly.

Sure.

So with specific regard to safe parking, we've reached out to um, I would say uh only a handful of our faith-based partners in the city.

Um we've reached out to we have an inventory of all of our faith-based partners in the city, and we've reached out to them before seeking partnership on winter shelter programs, which did not receive it received two responses.

So our next step is to more intentionally engage these faith-based partners in a deeper relationship rather than just a blanket solicit for partnership.

Okay, my suggestion in that would just be to if we don't think it's gonna be a warm welcome, then we move on and we start looking at other, and then we may possibly bring in the city attorney for some um eminent domain type situations because we can do this forever that they don't want, and I get it, they have their own rights and reasons to do it, but we as a as a city need to also provide, especially when we're talking about you know, ticketing people on the streets that I'm I'm just not in favor of.

So I'll I'll stop, I see my time.

Okay, at this point in time, I don't see any others in queue.

I do have a couple of quick questions uh for myself.

I'm gonna start with Chief.

So I know that coming out of uh 9-11 and the war in Iraq and there have been various events that drive people being interested in the police force.

I'm curious whether the current political climate is increasing the interest or it's actually decreasing interest or really having no impact.

I would say due to the current political climate, it's I'm not seeing an impact yet.

Um I don't think that it's going to affect it, to be honest.

I think that coming out of the pandemic, we've seen some interest and some steam gaining in people being interested in a career in law enforcement.

So hopefully knock on wood, it doesn't change, but we're seeing positive gains, I think, in the area of recruitment.

Thank you.

And then for emergency preparedness, wasn't quite clear if in that full list that you provided, um, if there's actually a simulation that is envisioned as part of your work plan.

Thanks.

So when it comes to training the plan, there may be some space to do a simulation there.

Um I'll probably have to look for a little uh guidance if that's gonna move forward.

It's a big lift.

Um it's a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of resources.

So I I can't give a good answer, except that I think the place might be when we train to the operations plan, but that's TBD.

Thank you.

So I'll wait for commentary.

Um then on our next uh on our capital assets.

Uh we had an update on major construction projects.

So where's city engineering?

My um you talked a little bit about slides one and four, and there's really kind of a branch question there.

I'm a little bit unclear.

Um slides one and four are addressed.

Does that mean that the road can be open?

That'll that'll I'll just start there.

Excuse me, sorry about that.

Uh, it would not be able to open to two-way traffic because there is existing damage, uh significant actually damage at roadway uh slides two and three.

Okay, perfect.

And then so my second question is the obvious follow-up, which is what is the plan, what's the progress in terms of what you're thinking about for two and three?

So part of the design for two and three have started.

Uh it did uh get put on hold a few years ago, but currently the effort is on hold because we're we don't have sufficient funding to move forward with the construction.

So staff will actively be pursuing alternative funding uh for the construction of slides uh two and three.

And once those are secure, then we could move forward with that effort.

Then the last big picture question, big picture.

What amount of money are we talking about for slides two and three?

Slides two and three, the latest estimate was about eight million dollars, but that would be to restore slides two and three and then repave the entire stretch of Lake Shabot Road from I think uh from View Drive all the way down to Chabot Court because uh repairing the slide, repairing the erosion and then redoing the road are two separate things.

Thank you.

Um if we kind of uh if we can continue going to housing and homelessness.

Uh I know that there was a lot of fanfare around care court.

Kind of wondering what we have learned.

Do we have some referrals to care court coming out of our encounters with some of our more mentally ill homeless individuals?

What can you tell us about care court?

Um so I can share that uh the city's alternative response unit has been making referrals to care court and working with members of the community, not only on actually making the referrals, but on community education for um people outside of the ARU team to make referrals as well.

Thank you.

Um with respect to housing, um, I know that I have mentioned before that I thought there was some sort of Berkeley study that said that uh based on the increased housing stock in Berkeley, that the rent for older units had actually fallen.

Someone I'll go to director Liao, have have we tracked that down?

Do we know if that's true?

Um, that one I have not.

I'll so my radar to keep switching that one out.

So thanks.

I'll I'll leave the commentary later.

At this point in time, what I'd like to do is go to Councilmember Aguilar.

I do see your hand now raised.

So I'm gonna come to you next.

Thank you, mayor.

Sorry, I was having some difficulties trying to unmute.

Um my question is we is with regards to the local revenue measures for community needs.

Um can you run by item one A and two B?

Did you my question is, did was there mention that the stormwater fee update is going to be on the ballot?

And we're looking to see if we're gonna pursue a new revenue measure, new revenue measure for November 2026.

I'm just trying to understand that the comment with regards to the stormwater fee update and the local revenue measure.

We'll go to acting city manager on that.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Councilmember Aguilar.

So uh your understanding is correct.

Uh, the stormwater fund uh has a hole in it.

It's not a fund that is fully sustainable, self-sustainable.

Uh, it is a fund that is operating in 2025 with 1993 rates.

Uh there was when that fund was established, there was no escalation built into the rates.

So um because of that, there is a hole in that fund, and additional state mandates have come down for the city to fund and to undertake.

Uh and there is insufficient funding with those 1993 rates to cover 2025 mandates.

Uh so stormwater needs a solution, and stormwater is something that will likely be uh something that appears on the ballot uh in the future.

As far as uh an alternative revenue uh or excuse me, a different revenue measure for infrastructure purposes.

Staff is not involved with any sort of citizen or or community uh effort in that regard.

Um understandably we are not.

Um however, we do want to be prepared if that effort does not come to fruition.

Um, so that's why there's you see two pieces on the revenue front.

Uh one is staff planning efforts in case some other revenue measure does not get placed on the ballot, and then there's the stormwater piece, which has a hole in that fund.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

And then my question, I think I believe it's for Tom with regards to one C tenant protections and support rent stabilization ordinance.

Does this include uh rental cap increases?

Yes, that's part of the run stabilization process that we're evaluating that's um that's in the draft.

Yes.

And we were give provided some uh initial direction too from the rules committee on that uh to um at least as a starting point replicate um the city of Alameda.

Great.

Thank you.

Those are my questions.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

So at this point in time, we will go to public comment on this item.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

We have one hand up online.

And eight speaker cards in person.

Okay, so online.

This is the time to raise your hand because I'm gonna go with you first.

I want all hands raised so that I can figure out how much time I'm gonna allocate.

I'm gonna count backwards from figure out how much time I'm gonna allocate.

If we had 976 people, I could adjust the time.

I'm trying to figure out how many hands are going to be raised online.

So right now we only have one hand being raised.

Is that correct?

So let's correct.

Let's take that person and then we'll come in the chambers.

Thank you.

Mitch, you may unmute yourself.

Hey there, everybody.

Um, Mitch Heidema, district five.

And I am calling because I um I missed part of the presentation.

It looks like you covered a lot of information, which I'm looking forward to looking at in more detail later.

But I did want to call in and say that I was part of a committee meeting earlier about the citizen bond measure.

Um, and uh we will be planning on going forward.

So I am really glad to hear that if we if we are successful and we do move forward with that, that the city won't be also spending money and time working on a measure because from the survey that you had done previously, it seemed pretty clear that the city was unlikely to be able to meet the voting percentage necessary for a measure to pass.

But we there's a group of us that really sees that it's necessary to raise money and to be able to um fix a lot of the things around the city that we have not been able to afford to do.

So that is all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor, there is no more public comment online.

Seeing no more hands online, I will close online public comment and open in-person public comment.

Okay, thank you.

I will call a couple people at a time if you can get ready.

Angela, Jackie, and then Jenny.

I always get chosen to go first.

Um good evening to everyone.

Um, thank you for giving us this opportunity to speak.

Um, like Mitch, thank you, Mitch, for speaking.

I was also um part of this meeting this evening.

Um a group of us that have formed uh to hopefully get a citizen-led bond passed.

Um a revenue measure, I I believe, is just simply not going to be enough to fund all of the different projects that have been kind of they're the proverbial can that's been kicked down the road for too long.

And other big projects that have come up more recently that are going to need a lot of funding.

But we're hoping to do that, um, hoping to get that bond passed, but just wanted to really push and say, we don't believe that a revenue measure is gonna be enough and that it's gonna be the right way to move forward.

Um we are working diligently um to get this bond passed.

But um there are lots of quality of life things that need to be addressed, um, major projects, um, things that are important to the community, and that the citizens are really vehemently demanding um receive funding.

Um, and that's very difficult uh for the city right now, but we're hoping to do our part to alleviate that.

But thank you for your time.

Have a good evening.

Thank you, Jackie, Jenny, and then Ann.

Oh.

Good evening.

Thanks for being here.

Um, and for your work.

I have a lot of questions that I can't get to, and my mind is kind of scrambled at the moment.

But when we're talking about renter protections and the proposal for uh the rent registry and stuff, I keep feeling that the council's bending backwards to appease to the landlords, and it's obvious to me that if you actually counted people who rent ADUs in this town, it would be 60% renters.

They're the majority of the residents of the city.

Um one hand, we have what the mayor said in these chambers about a year ago that renter protections and stability needs to consider providing to the uh landowner a reasonable return on their investment.

And that really stuck in my craw because why is the landlord uh bottom line given more weight than having a safe space to sleep and out of the elements because Maslow correctly asserts that shelter is a top-tier basic human need.

Our real estate environment, landlords are already national, nationally in the Bay Area get 40 to 60 percent higher rent rates, and this nitpicking about passing along uh payments for stuff that you know, like a hundred bucks a month for for the uh rent registry, uh I'm sorry.

Anyway, please consider not making it.

Your time is up, crypto.

Ginny, Ann, and then Kat.

So this is less fun than you can all imagine.

I've been watching these kinds of meetings for 10 12 years now.

It hurts me.

It hurts that San Leandro, like all cities in California has been reduced to bagging and being commercial and grabbing and being so focused on money that they can't they can't govern because they're trying to fund themselves.

And this is all because of something that I voted on, not for, but on back in 1975, Prop 13, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association is the cause of this.

They are aligning with the California Apartment Association.

Stan Leandro needs to figure out.

It's not revenue that you're gonna be bringing in, it's keeping them from taking the profit out of the community of the things that matter the maintaining the infrastructure, maintaining the town, maintaining the government.

I'm sorry, I'm too emotional about this, but I think this is the crux of the issue.

We need to not be focused on who is paying the taxes for it.

You need to be focused on who is profiting from this situation.

I know it's not you guys.

I'm so sorry that you're this is like my third council to watch being in this kind of pain because this is not fun to watch.

It hurts.

I'm sorry, that's all I can say now.

If I could go back and change the past, I would, and I'm trying to, but it's not.

It's who is profiting from it.

So don't align yourself with who is profiting.

Thank you.

Ann Kat and then Cindy.

Good evening.

Since Lake Chabot Road will not be open in 2027, we suggest that the city engage in the experts in this type of old country road.

Alameda County Public Works.

They have repaired miles of roads just like this for years.

They have demonstrated the expertise in the efficiency to fix this road.

California State 2024 Streets and Highway Code 1803 clearly states that a city may contract with the County Board of Supervisors for the maintenance, construction, and repair of a road if it determines it is necessary for efficiency.

Regardless, the city council needs to support a citizen's bond to fix vital infrastructure in a holistic manner instead of small piecemeal steps that contribute to the deterioration of critical roads, fire stations, and historical treasures such as Casa Peralta.

With a citizen's bond, additional funds can also be leveraged for shoreline parks and rails to trails recreation opportunities in conjunction with nonprofits like the Trust for Public Lands.

It is way past time to focus on the resilience of our infrastructure, and we urge you to support the citizens bond.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Pat Cindy, Craig.

Good evening.

I agree with everything that Ann just said.

I do want to focus on a few things.

First of all, of course, we want this the city council to support the citizens' bond.

It only takes 55% to pass that kind of a bond.

It's my understanding that it takes 67% to pass a city revenue measure.

Secondly, the Lake Chabot Road has never been transparent.

It's never clear.

It's going to take until 2027 to finish construction.

When is it going to start?

What's going to happen in 2026?

Why don't we have a geotechnical report that tells us what the damage is and what the cost is?

We've had meetings with the county public works director and also with Lena Tam, who was an engineer for East Bay Mud for 25 years, and they say the very first thing that the city should have done after the road was damaged was get a new updated geotechnical report so you know what the actual damage is and get a cost assessment for what it's going to cost.

We're doing it in this very weird piecemeal way.

The council last week said that they supported a two-way road, but where is that?

You're just talking about it.

There's no formal motion, and there's no documentation that the city has actually taken that kind of action.

There's no formal motion, there's no resolution.

And as what we found out, the CIP doesn't even have completing the road in its entirety on its project list.

We actually would like to have Lake Shabot listed as an agenda item in September, so that the council can hear from staff what are the actual steps.

We were promised a geotechnical report after the EIR, but now we found out that there's borings and LIDAR, and staff said they weren't even going to give us a report.

So what's going on?

We have all these questions and we have no answers.

And I agree with Ann.

The county knows how to do it.

Thank you.

Your time is up.

Cindy, Craig, and then Art.

Good evening, Council and Mayor.

Thanks for having us letting us speak today.

Following the others, I don't need to add a whole lot to the citizen bond, except to confirm that yes, indeed, we have an official committee.

The committee has pulled together several stakeholders throughout the city.

Our planned 150 million dollar bond would fund a fire station, would fund recreation spaces, would fund roads, would fund the Lake Chabot opening, and would fund the Casa Peralta.

So we would really appreciate your support with that as much as you can provide.

And we do think the revenue measure is just not up to the task of doing what we can do with our citizen bond for the infrastructure of San Leandro.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Craig and then Art.

Thank you.

My name is Craig Williams, Levon Begier right over here.

I mean, that's something that we might want to consider for San Leandro.

You know, the uh tech with the tech boom, housing prices went through the roof.

We're paying like 68% higher than what the national average is throughout the country.

Um, and it's it's not that uh you know the landlords seriously improved the properties, they didn't put in new kitchens and bathrooms and swimming pools.

You know, they just they just jumped on uh the tech boom, the increase or the shortage of housing.

Um, and uh um, you know, who knows?

I mean, we could consider rolling back uh the price of uh rent.

You know, there are lots of industries where this happens.

I got a whole list of them.

Smartphones, solar industry, uh telephones, uh, or televisions, I should say, used cars, uh, sporting goods, uh, cell phone services, uh, electric cars, a whole range of industries.

The prices actually went down.

And you know, like I said, the landlords were overcompensated, and they didn't you know do anything with that.

They didn't improve the properties, and you know, we should be thinking they're talking about 5% increase, we should be thinking about maybe even rolling back the rents.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Art.

Good evening, mayor.

Good evening, council.

Um, I am also here to show support for the citizens bond and ask the council to support it as well.

Um, for me specifically, uh, this comes from really being on the board of the historical society and asking for allocation of funds and time to be dedicated to the Casa Peralta.

Um, to my knowledge, the city already has funds allocated to protect the Casa from further damage.

Um, but as any homeowner knows, the longer you go without using that money, um, the more expensive it gets, and the harder it becomes to actually maintain that asset.

And this is really truly valuable to the history of San Leandro and rooted back in our history.

And if we don't act now, obviously it'll only get more expensive as time goes on.

And no major maintenance has been done, at least to my knowledge, or at least the last 10 years.

So at the same time, our city has other pressing infrastructure needs, our firehouse, our roads, and other assets.

This is why a group of residents, including myself, have come together to support the citizens bond instead.

Citizens Bond gives us a clearer, more comprehensive path to renewing the city's essential assets, which includes the Casa Peralta.

We believe this approach better reflects the scale of what San Landro needs and as a whole represents our community.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor.

There is no more public comment.

So we will close public comment at this time and bring it back to council members for additional questions, comments, final thoughts on this item.

Vice Mayor, please.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I think in my head when I was looking at this, and this question is gonna go to the city manager.

Um the it is the title of the presentation is an update on council priority work plans.

And I noticed that depending on the different departments, and um, there's a sort of mix of an outline of the work of uh a list of the work plan and the projects included in it, and then sometimes there are some more progress updates that go along with it, and I'm I'm wondering if there is a movement towards um shifting this update to a progress update on the on the work plans, and let me know if there's if if the my question makes sense.

Uh thank you, Vice Mayor.

I believe your question is rather than having a work plan that looks at deliverables and uh milestones on when work will be achieved instead having some sort of report or dashboard that shows the deliverables and the progress that has been made.

Yes, I think it's actually a mix of both.

And again, this is just coming from my background in project management, and so this is just how I'm looking at it, but we have a list of priorities, and we have the council priorities and within within the different departments, it's how can we achieve um progress on those priorities and then we have specific actions to take towards that, and then the metrics that define that are measured.

So, for example, um the SLPD, right?

Like we um want to generally public safety, we want to create like a safer community.

We want to be able to um reduce our budget.

So one way we could do that is by looking at um SPCA and how much money we're spending towards that.

Um, the reason why I'm asking this is because the work that we're doing that departments are doing, which I applaud and I appreciate the progress on it.

It's really important for us to communicate what we're doing and why we're doing it.

And I really appreciated the explanation that we are paying $59,000 to rescue 750 animals, and that is a significant amount per animal.

And so um, so the goal then is to, for example, the goal that is to public safety means we want to get these animals um off the road, you know, out from the public and return them home or to the shelter, and this is how we're doing it, and then and then what's our timeline for that and what's the progress towards that?

Because what I also don't see across the board is um the budget for each of these items, um, and it could just be broad, and I appreciate that in human services, some of the projects were unfunded and some of them are funded, and that's really helpful for us as policymakers to understand what's what's actually being done and where we need to work to fund things and understanding the impact of each of these projects.

Um, so that could be I think a bit around communications and messaging, um, because I think that's a little bit unclear across these um projects, and to I don't have necessarily specific feedback on the projects, just because we're having them more broad, more uh in more detail in our regular meetings and then in rules.

Um the other question I had, um mayor, and I think this might again go to assistant city manager, acting city manager, is how are we doing regular updates and communications around these priorities and the work that the city is doing?

So thank you, Vice Mayor.

That's an excellent question.

Something that we are in the process of implementing right now is uh a software that allows us to better track the progress that we're making on the council work plans.

Um that's not quite fully implemented yet, but once it does, we believe that it will be able to display some sort of dashboard that shows that progress on a more regular basis.

Okay, I appreciate that.

I um I have one question.

I think it what will be to um for public works.

Um uh in um uh I don't have the slide on me anymore, but is I didn't see it explicitly stated anywhere, and I I think um exploring a revenue measure, you know, fine and you also um have a slide on our major construction projects, which I'm very, very excited about.

Um, but uh we have the lowest, if not maybe bottom two um lowest PCI, and it's only gone down over um the year, and it's always the average of the last three years, and it still continues to go down.

And so the very real goal that I get, I mean the the biggest question I get asked is like, can you fix my road?

Can you fix my pothole?

You know, um, and so where is that stated, or is I just want to make sure that's very exactly like very, very clear and explicit.

Like that is that is a major priority.

Hi, good question.

Uh we agree that it is a major priority.

I'm not sure how it is stated in the work plan.

Um, but the CIP does commit uh millions of dollars uh to payment rehab each fiscal year.

Unfortunately, as you said, uh it would take a lot more to just stabilize our PCI.

We're not spending enough to catch up or into improve right now.

So uh we are looking for other alternative measures, grant funding, outside funding to uh to enhance our payment management budget for each year.

Thank you.

And if I could just finish my thought, and then I won't go back around.

Is that okay?

Um I just had a few recommendations.

Um I really think it's incredibly important, especially if we have a committee of citizens who are working towards a citizen-led bond initiative, which I am so happy to hear and see, and just the the civic engagement is wonderful in that regard.

But that means that it is incredibly important for us as the city to work on our communications and messaging around the work that we're doing, and um I'd be happy to send um some examples of really good um communications and messaging um that I've seen.

Um, and especially around like the departmental project updates and how it is actually working towards the goals that we are um our priorities, and I will say, you know, for example, quality of life and economic development are our other priorities, and some of the work that we're doing in here also helps with those things, and so there's a way to communicate that.

Um I would love if we had a dashboard for every single department, and I think it would be really helpful if we added budget information um to each of the to the project so we understand and the community understands where the what's being spent and then how it's being spent and the progress on it.

Okay, at this point in time, we'll get a councilmember bolt.

Thank you.

I want to um echo what Vice Mayor Bowen just ended with about the budget.

I think that would be extremely helpful when we're discussing these different topics about how we're spending them and andor saving money if we did this type of policy because sometimes it's pie in the sky and you're trying to piece a few things together.

But if you had real numbers, um that you know you're gonna get a lot of support around some of these things, or you're not gonna get any if it's bad numbers, right?

So I think that's fair, and that's a real legitimate ask.

I do want to ask though the citizen led bond.

I a few people who are here tonight, thank you for that work that you guys are doing on your own time.

Um but we are gonna have to be extremely disconnected as a city if we go down the path of the citizens-led bond in the manner that there probably would be no communication from the city around this, or how about this?

Can we dig into the rules and and find those spots where we can support it?

I know we could probably support it as council members in our own way, but as a city, so I don't know if we're gonna have the answer right now, and I don't wanna put you on the spot, Chris, here in this moment, but could you speak to that for us so we know so we don't cross the line or or say hey, why don't you guys hold off for a second and then we'll get back to you?

Is your qu is your ask for him to do it now or are you asked?

If he knows.

But if he doesn't, then I'm good with that.

We're gonna be doing in the future.

So I'm gonna come to you, acting city attorney.

Thank you, Councilmember and Mayor.

Um, certainly there are limits.

A lot of those limits um primarily apply once a measure is placed.

Um so um, you know, the council will have a role in um if a measure does qualify and meets the requirements legally.

Um I don't wanna call it ministerial, but it's almost ministerial.

Um if it does meet the requirements of the code to um place it before the voters.

So just depending on the process, um, but um once it's placed, then that's correct.

The council and the city is limited from supporting um a measure.

Okay, thank you.

Maybe you can relay that to Rich later, just so we can have a very defined, because we're gonna have you know, for this to work, everybody including us on this dais are gonna have to put some time and effort into it.

So um I wanna know where the lines are that we cannot cross.

And then another part of the conversation, which goes back to my first set that Vice Mayor brought up was the dashboard.

And that would help me in, you know, the questions I had in the beginning around like, well, who have we talked to, um, you know, who are we talking to next and what ways?

Um it's it's it's it's difficult to to take in all the read it all, listen to it, ask your questions, email your questions, but then have a real time response around some of these issues when it can be vague and I understand that.

When you're in the process of it, you don't know which way it's gonna go yet.

But if we had a dashboard giving us the idea of which way it was gonna go, it's clear for the for us as council.

Um I would like to make sure that the the community is able to pull that up and read it as well.

So, you know, there's no miscommunication around the work we're trying to do.

I don't think anybody in here is in here because they're mischievous or wrong.

Um I think everybody's in here because they want to see good work being done for the city.

And when somebody doesn't know something or can't find something, that's when their mind kind of goes off into these other areas, and then all of a sudden I'm the worst council member that ever lived.

I'm not saying I am or I am, but it just fills the void for them.

So I think that would be um something that that we should work towards and maybe request as a as a council on a later date if we can figure out a way to do that.

So I'll stop there.

I'm gonna look online to see if there's another hand raised.

Councilman regular.

I'll give just a second.

If not, I'm gonna come back around.

Councilman Rivetus Walton.

Uh thank you.

I just uh I wanted uh I have one, two, three, four, five comments.

Um one is on the environmental stewardship, um, particularly.

I wanted just to ask a quick question regarding is that assuming that the federal rebate on electric vehicles will be going away, or is the PGE program independent of the electrical fleet trans uh transfer?

I um I'm gonna best answer the question as I can.

I believe it's separate, it's a separate program that PGE is entering to with the city.

Yeah.

Uh I was just concerned because there's a lot of people who are doing the math at home on whether to transition to an electric vehicle, and a lot of them are doing it like now because odds are that the federal subsidy is not gonna get renewed.

Um I think this is a little bit of a comment from the previous meeting into this in terms of the work plan and and kind of how it landed, particularly on the Lake Shable Road, and it's on the capital improvement plan and kind of how it's it's a some of it's it's technically a 10-year plan, but we are only including things that are being funded.

Um it's a I I just would like to explore a little bit around how to frame it in a way that um actually reflects the total cost of the project and not portions of the project.

Um, and then specifically what are the parts that are funded through the biannual budget, right?

Which only runs every two years, and in our particular case, we only did it for one year because we're still kind of figuring out what the next year is.

But I think I would echo um some of the frustration voiced by community members around we're looking at just two slides being fixed in two years, um, with the road being closed uh for over two years now.

So we're looking with we lit we don't have a window of when that will be open, and I I really appreciate uh the residents who are getting together to talk about uh this city-led um initiative to to fund all these projects.

But um, let's see, two minutes and 43 seconds.

Um I think I also wanted to highlight the safety ambassador expansion.

I think that in the downtown we've seen great reception of this program, and I know that there's been talks about expanding it to the greenhouse and some other parts of the city where um we want to invite people to eat and have fun and do fun things, but also to just have people walking around and and making sure that that feels safe.

That is currently unfunded, um, but would like to uh would like to look at various parts of the city and would even want to focus it on the areas where we have transit oriented development, like Bayfair places where we already know that development is on the um that changes are happening, and that there's you know, we want to make sure that as people visit to do some prospecting or maybe even explore the area that we see safety ambassadors there.

Um Bayfair included Greenhouse, the west part of town, maybe even in uh marina park.

Um, and then uh my last question has to do on housing production.

Um, and this is more of a question.

Um, what is the pipeline looking like in terms of entitled projects?

In terms of entitled, um, the the ones that we've had, I think it's probably still close to about two thousand or so.

Okay, believe so um obviously the big one that's coming down the pipe very fairly well now is is uh is um central Cowan.

Um, and so yeah.

And how many units are in that project?

That's 196.

And then where in terms of entitled projects, where are they kind of located around town, just like downtown, west side?

You know, right now, and I I think I would defer to our meeting on Monday.

Okay, we go into that market feasibility uh analysis and the impact fees.

I think um if I could put a placeholder on your question and we can do a little bit more, and I think that'll be perfect time for us hopefully to have a response for you.

Okay.

Well, then that leaves me with 30 seconds back to the chair.

Your your covered perfect, okay.

So I'm gonna go through a whole list of things here as quickly as I can.

Uh public safety for parks.

So I think the park ambassador program.

I think there's been some discussion park range or something like that.

Um, so something to be thinking about stormwater subsidy.

You know, city manager and I have talked about stormwater subsidy.

Like we need to tell the residents how much of the general fund money is going to subsidize the stormwater because residents said no, and they need to understand the consequence.

So that's millions of dollars being pulled out from libraries or whatever program that you like, it's specifically being used, and we need to track that.

Um, I think that uh understanding how to most effectively achieve any of these goals is really important.

So take environmental sustainability.

So we can drive um participate in electrification of our fleet, and that might be a really cost-effective way to do impact.

Um, but at the same time, one thing that we need to recognize for our residents is that we have a number of very low-income residents in the city of San Leandro.

And so forcing those residents to buy the most expensive power is their default choice.

I don't think is a good practice.

Um I've talked about it, it was on the council priority session.

We laid out, I think it received six of seven dots.

So this concept of defaulting people to what's very green power, but not making them buy the most expensive, is something that we need to be thinking about because ultimately residents were trying to help our residents.

We have talked over the years over the last two and a half years that I've been here about the importance of ownership and having construction that drives ownership.

I have a long time been this advocate of uh being concerned about wealth leaving the city.

Instead of building wealth amongst residents in the city, and I still to this point am unclear on what we're doing.

I think a little bit of that's in housing production, but if it's all rental housing production, all you're doing is creating more avenues for wealth to leave the city.

You're not helping the the residents who are present to be, you know, building wealth for their eventual retirement.

I think for as Vice Mayor pointed out and some other people, really, this this concept of what's the real impact of any of these actions and being able to take it to metrics.

We started on that path of metrics a while ago, and I just want to make sure that we haven't lost that connection to metrics.

We are we have served this many people, we've done it at this cost, at this cost per unit of service delivered, because that then helps us choose between programs or between efforts.

I think about some of the discussions that Director Loban and I have had around there's lots of ways to serve homeless individuals, and maybe this program is because it's less expensive than this other program, should actually be increased.

Whereas another program, maybe it might be popular, but should be decreased because it's not as cost-effective.

We can serve more people, but we really can't do that unless we lay out and stick to uh using metrics.

Same thing for when I think about the strategic asset management discussion.

Um, part of what we need to be able to tell residents is what things were like before and what they're like now because of the strategic asset management uh efforts that we're undertaking.

Um, and I think that again goes to metrics.

Before we were doing this, we weren't tracking this, we weren't tracking that, we weren't able to properly budget for this, and now we can, and here's the budget, and therefore we know that we need to spend XYZ.

We just need to be able to articulate that story in addition uh to doing what we are doing.

Uh I do want to highlight what I have heard from many, many people, and I think Vice Mayor said it as bluntly as fix my road.

So that's a lot of times what I hear is fix my road.

I don't want to hear excuses, fix my road.

And so when we think about work plans and delivery against work plans and objectives, it's okay.

Well, how many miles, how many yards, how many square feet?

Um, the map was 80% red and now it's 20% red.

I mean, what are the measures that we're showing to people that says we're making progress against those commitments?

I talked a little bit about a simulation for environmental hazards.

I think we we had a really good simulation, it was called the gas leak.

And I don't know that we as a council have ever heard like of the full after action report.

Like, what did we learn from that?

What have we seen actually change?

We've heard about ideas of what could be changed, but what have we implemented specifically?

I think one of the feedbacks we got was uh language, multiple languages.

So, okay, every police car now has multiple language recording, like literally what's happened, how are we making progress?

Because then we can tell residents, we learn from our experience, and this is specifically what we've changed.

We can go out and broadcast it.

Um project costing, you know, this is one of my pet peeves, and and we need to be able to say where we are on budget for specific projects.

And I just as a little plug for the city, when we have our new uh financial reporting system, which is hopefully coming July 1st of next year.

Everything's still on track, everything's still on budget.

We'll finally be able to do that.

We'll finally be able to do what do projects actually cost, and that's going to help us manage and tell these stories.

Because right now we just it's it's very hard to do that.

On encampment removal, I have this sensitivity.

I think we have to be very careful, because we are helping a number of individuals.

We're connecting them with services.

We're actually housing a number of individuals in coordination with Alameda County.

There are also individuals that do not want to receive those benefits that we offer for any of a variety of reasons, raising for ranging from mental health to uh perhaps substance use abuse substance use disorders.

Whatever the case, we need to be able to clearly communicate that we are in fact impacting this number of people, and that for those that were not able to, that we need to have a good sense of why not.

Because I think it's what what residents struggle with a lot of times is that they just see people there, but they don't understand what's going on.

They just know that it makes them either feel uncomfortable or they don't like what's happening, what they perceive to be drug use, and so we just need to be able to communicate with with metrics and data to demonstrate that we are being compassionate, but that we're not being naive, and it's that balance.

We were walking that line uh down the middle.

So that's that's a lot of different thoughts, Vice Mayor.

I see that you're backing queue.

I'll come right back to you, despite your.

I did promise, but then I realized I missed two little bullet points in my notes at the bottom that I wanted to get in.

Um, and it actually pickies back on a little of a lot of what you just mentioned, Mayor.

Um, I I want to recognize that this work plan progress this work plan update is much more generalized, and so some of the feedback that I'm trying to give could be a little bit more specific.

And so I would offer that when we have our meetings where these items come to the council and our agenda is separately, that you know, maybe it'd be included in that.

One of the things that I think would be helpful is having the and I don't I don't know if another council member of Virus Walton, you mentioned this when I stepped out of the room, but having the total project timeline of particular projects on it says, you know, um, for example, I'm looking at the McArthur Roundabout, which I am for district five, very, very, very excited about.

Um, you know, it says due date November 2027, but in speaking with residents, this project was started when I was starting college, right?

Like a decade before I like moved back to the United States, right?

So this is a long, long, long, long like time coming.

And um, we've been doing work to advocate and find funding for the last $4 million since I got on the council.

And so that's a really helpful thing to understand.

Um, and it also helps us to um set expectations of like how long a project may take.

I think about um the Kerry Haas Bridge and the complications around all of that, how long that actually took.

And thank goodness we had, you know, the funding land in our laps to be able to do that, but I imagine that due date would be a lot later on.

Um, and then the other thing that, you know, when you do a progress update, the purpose is to um in a project be able to pivot or to recognize if it's effective or efficient, if it's working or if it's not, or if we need to add more resources to it.

And um, that's something that I would love to be able to hear what challenges um staff are facing to um achieving this goal, or they're recognizing that hey, like this isn't actually solving the problem we thought we were solving it for, because that will help us I think make decisions for funding and for saying, you know what, like we really thought that this was the answer, but maybe it's not, and it's better for us to um revisit it and and and make a better decision for it sooner than later.

Um, and and those are my those are my last thoughts, I promise.

Thank you.

So I do have just uh uh note for you, Director Liao, at some point it would be useful to just dig in, you and I a little bit about the disparate impact and really explore what that means.

So thank you for the presentations, um, and I appreciate the efficiency and the ability to answer the questions.

So thank you for all that.

We're gonna move to item three B next.

And this is our training.

Uh, we're going to get a little bit of an education for free.

We we didn't even have to pay for this college class.

And so I think I'm assuming that that is you.

Uh city engineer, is that right?

Let me look out in my list.

Yes, city engineer, Jason Emay and Felicia Silva.

Where are you, assistant director?

There you are.

So thank you for coming forward and being so effective, and I'm assuming that you'll be loading the presentation so that we can jump into that as soon as you're there and if you've got some pre-speak feel free to begin with your pre-speak while that's loading um hello can you all hear me uh Felicia Silva Assistant Finance Director um also here with Jason uh I might from Public Works we're gonna do as you mentioned a little bit of um contracting uh training if you will um or study session and I will start with just general um overview of our procurement rules and then uh Jason will dig in a little bit more regarding um the public work side of things and okay next slide so um we will begin again this is just an overview of our procurement guidelines in accordance with our um municipal code it's always the city's desire to make sure that we have full and open competition and that we're getting the best value for the city with that being said um we're gonna focus on um three uh main things here on the general uh procurement overview side gonna go over the different types of contracts and then we'll talk a little bit about the procurement thresholds and briefly discuss the difference between sole source and single source so this is uh a professional consulting services flow chart and I'm not gonna get so much into the flow chart because some of that is the nitty gritty for uh staff but I think the main points for this slide are uh professional services which um you all um often see on city council as a consulting services agreement uh and that includes uh typically technical services so you're looking at facility planning um information technology organizational development um various studies and um looking at again the those uh consultants that are providing more tech technical services so if we're um taking a quick look at the workflow you can see that uh typically it's least restrictive and informal at the lowest dollar threshold in this case uh five thousand dollars and uh the most formal is over a hundred thousand dollars and I'm uh gonna I have another slide where I go over the thresholds uh a little more in depth um but the the main thing I want to just point out here is even though we do have uh different thresholds in terms of uh the purchasing authority and for example when city council is required to approve a contract which again is over a hundred thousand uh we are always you know seeking competitive sources and also all of the vendors are required to have a business license and make sure those and um insurance requirements are met so then we have uh non-professional consulting services or non-professional services and these are typically general um services more routine operational uh janitorial landscaping um hauling moving minor repairs and again just a real brief look at the flow chart again least restrictive um and informal is it uh the lower dollar threshold in this case it's 25 thousand dollars and then um council again is required to approve contracts that are over a hundred thousand dollars and just have to reiterate always, regardless of what the actual um purchasing thresholds are, always looking for uh competitive sources, and then making sure that uh vendors have business license and insurance requirements, all the all those requirements are met.

So on this one, you know, I think there's a little bit of a typo here.

This is actually related to goods and services and not public works projects.

And we do have a threshold of $60,000 for in informal quotes here, 60,000 to 200,000.

And it requires at least three quotes from qualified vendors, and then formal competitive bidding over 200,000, and the formal competitive bidding, that is when you know it needs to be published.

We put it in the paper, it has to have at least seven uh days.

Notice it comes in with a sealed bid and is open at a specific time, and the bidders are you know uh allowed to come in and see that bid opening, and then it also has um specific requirements that are outlined that the vendors or potential vendors submit their their bid for.

So this is the actual um outline of all of the various purchasing thresholds that we have.

So I'm gonna spend just a couple minutes and we'll walk through all of them.

Uh I've touched on most of them, but first we have our maintenance services and or we call them non-professional services.

Again, we're looking at um more operational routine, general services, um, such as janitorial, landscaping, et cetera, and always looking to make sure that uh we're looking for best value, and even at $25,000 or less, we're still seeking to make sure that we have competitive sources.

If you look, just we'll quickly go from uh A, which is the dollar amount, and then I want to uh focus also on all the way to the right on D, which is the approval authority, and you can see that there's also different levels of approval authority.

So the department director or designee, they do have the authorization to enter into contracts uh under 25,000, and they are therefore then responsible for making sure that um they are seeking those competitive sources, and does not then have to go to uh the city manager's office.

The next level is um 25,000 and 100,000, again, um soliciting at least three sources.

So now we're we're getting into uh actual informal bidding requirements, and uh it does also require city managers' approval between 25,000 and 100,000 dollars, and then for um a hundred thousand or greater, that's uh when of course we're still looking for the competitive um bidding and those three sources, and and that's when city council might also see a contract for approval for those non-professional services agreements moving on to professional services agreements, and again, looking at technical services, it may be things like information technology, um, you know, various uh analyses and studies, consultants that are able to do that technical work, um, and five thousand dollars or less, still looking to make sure that we're looking for um the best value for the city and and making sure that we also have the competency, right?

The experience, the expertise, and I do think it's important to um note actually for for both the non-professional services as well as the professional services.

While um cost is a factor, we still want to make sure that we um are looking for competent uh bidders and potential vendors that understand the city's needs and um have expertise and experience that can um that they can bring to the table in terms of providing those services.

So in both of these cases, um fact it is a factor in terms of price, but it may not be the only factor.

And there's often various criteria that is utilized when we're reviewing whether or not it's the most responsible bidder for the city.

So that being said, we're again looking at lowest dollar amount, least formal all the way up to the most formal.

And at a hundred thousand dollars, again that's typically when city council will see those contract authorization requests, and then anything over 200,000 requires a formal RFP process, and also again when it would come in front of city council.

So for public works projects, $5,000 or less is the again least restrictive, and that is at the department director's discretion.

These in terms of public works projects, you can typically look just at the lowest bid, of course, always looking for a responsible bidder, making sure that there's a you know a positive rep reputation from the potential vendor, and that there's confidence that they can perform the the city's um you know specified scope of work, then moving on again, just skipping up, you can see that the city manager has uh authority up to a hundred thousand dollars, and then city manager um and city council anything over a hundred thousand dollars is typically when uh city council would start to see those um solicitations and authorization to enter into contracts, and anything over 200,000 of formal bid is required, and then moving on to the goods and materials, sixty thousand dollars or less.

Um, and so we're it's not just goods and materials, it's equipment, it's supplies, looking for um always looking for competitive sources, making sure we're getting the best value for the city and looking at value in terms of not just price but but quality and reputation.

And so $60,000 or less, it's at the department's uh discretion, and the uh department director or designee takes on that um approval authority all the way up into a hundred thousand dollars.

Um that's typically when the city manager and city council will see um the contract, and then uh $200,000 or greater city manager and city council.

So and with that, so sole source, so sole source typically is when there is only one vendor that can provide um that good service, that good or service or materials or supplies.

And so, for example, it could be that there's you know, we have a you know, some sort of software system, and then there's ongoing maintenance or something associated with that.

Typically they're the ones that are gonna provide that.

Um there is a requirement that the departments have to submit a sole source request with a requisition that is reviewed by purchasing, and again, it's you know, it could be an emergency or there could be a timing component to it, and also there could be um like we mentioned, um, you know, the services or the product is so unique that only one vendor provides that that service.

A single source is there could be multiple um potential vendors out there that provide that service or and/or product or material supply, but it could be in the best interest of the city to continue to use one uh source, and that could be based on you know compatibility with with, you know, certain, you know, equipment, for example.

And the other thing I would just note here is even if we're looking at single source and the um the city determines that it's in its best interest to go with one specific vendor versus doing competitive bidding, we're still looking at price and making sure that the price is reasonable.

And then in these cases, it should also be noted that the city council is required.

City council approval is required if we're not going to use the competitive bidding process.

And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Jason for additional information on the public work side of contracting.

Good evening.

Thank you, Felicia.

Honorable mayor and members of the council.

In the interest of time, oh, you did reset it.

Thank you very much.

I'll need about 10 minutes.

I may go a little bit over about me about 10 minutes.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and members of the Council, Jason E.

My City Engineer Public Works.

I'm pleased to present to you tonight.

How the public works department utilizes public contrasting to assist with the development and construction of our capital improvement projects.

So very quickly, capital improvement project can be typically broken down into three phases pre-design, pre-development, and construction.

During pre-design phase, the scope of the project is developed and refined based on feasibility studies and public outreach, typically resulting in a conceptual design.

Now, once the conceptual design has been approved, the project moves into the design development phase where the preparation of construction documents occur.

During both the pre-design and pre-development phases, the CIP city typically uses the expertise of professional consultants, which are selected through a request for proposals or RFP or requests for qualifications or RFQ, as described earlier by assistant director Silva.

Now, once construction documents are complete, the project moves into the construction phase, and construction contractors are typically retained with public works contracts through the competitive bidding process described earlier.

However, services for professional design consultants are typically retained through the construction phase to provide design support through construction and project closeout.

Now, a term that is often used when awarding both professional service and public works construction contracts is contingency.

A contingency is a designated amount of funds set aside in the project budget to account for unexpected costs.

It serves as an important risk management tool to both the city and our consultants and contractors by allowing the project to respond to unexpected events or unforeseen conditions without affecting the overall budget or schedule.

Contingency also allows projects to respond to changes in scope or errors in emissions and helps avoid the potential for cost cutting, which can compromise project scope or quality when problems occur.

Contingency also allows for flexibility in the design process, not only to respond to unforeseen issues, but to explore ideas that may add value or enhance the project during both the design and construction phases.

But what contingency should not be used for is to accomplish the original scope of the project, unless it is agreed upon by all parties involved at the original project, original budget, excuse me, did not address all project needs.

Now, how is appropriate amount of contingency determined?

Well, to be honest, there is no set formula, and the process is just as much art as it is science, but you do want to be mindful not to set your contingency levels to low or too high.

In general, contingency is set as a percentage of the total contract cost and is based on the complexity of the work involved, the amount of risk or unknowns, and the size of the contract.

Next, project contingency is used through the use of change orders, which are amendments to the contract that change the scope of work and associated costs or fees.

Now, change orders can be initiated by either the city or the contractor, but in either case, are closely reviewed by engineering staff to determine if the proposed change falls outside of the original scope of work.

Some of the common reasons for change orders are listed on the right, include unforeseen conditions, such as unidentified underground utilities, differing or problematic soil conditions, or weather-related delays.

Next are city requests and design scope changes, which are typically adjustments or revisions to the project scope or design requested by city staff to add value to the project or better meet the project goals.

Fourth are errors and emissions, which result from incomplete or inaccurate drawings and specifications.

And lastly, regulatory or code compliance issues such as updated building codes or zoning requirements and new environmental or safety regulations.

Now, engineering regularly recommends the use of two types of change order limits on professional consultant and construction contracts.

These are individual and cumulative.

When used together, individual and cumulative change order limits are a valuable tool to effectively manage project scope and budget.

As illustrated on the bar graph on the left, individual change order limits focus on the cost of a single change order and are analyzed independently of other change orders.

Individual change orders that exceed the established individual change order limit do require city council approval.

This ensures that significant changes to the project scope and budget are brought before council for their consideration.

Now, in comparison, the use of cumulative change order limits focuses on the overall budget impact of all change orders and protects against scope creep.

Any change order that would cause a cumulative amount of all approved change orders to exceed the established limit requires city council approval, regardless of whether or not it exceeds the individual change order limit.

So for example, in the case illustrated by the bar graph on the right, any subsequent change order that exceeds 2% of the original contract amount would require city council approval, even though it is below the established 10% individual change order limit.

Now, one of the best ways to demonstrate the benefits of change orders as an effective project management tool is to provide few examples from current projects.

First, there is a common misconception that all change orders increase project costs.

On the Memorial Park project, a change order was actually used to credit funds back to the project after the contractor's team identified two cost saving opportunities.

First, during construction, the supplier of the dragon play structure shown on the left notified the project team that the tail section was currently undergoing further safety evaluations based on installations at other parks.

As a result, the tail section was removed from the park design and the cost savings was credited back to the project through a change order.

Second, the original plans called for the installation of a new sanitary sewer lateral.

However, based on further investigation, the contractor suggested that the existing lateral could instead be reused.

The city's design team agreed and the project scope was revised and the resultant cost savings were again credited back to the project through a change order.

Now also in Memorial Park, after demolition and clearing the site, it was discovered that the bottom of the perimeter fence to the west was curled upward, causing potential security concerns for the adjacent apartment building and park users.

A change order was used to have the park contractor secure the bottom of the fence, the solid rail seen in the second photo from the left.

Next, for the paving project currently underway on Bancroft Avenue, a change order was used to lower traffic signal conduits that were unexpectedly found to be installed at unusually shallow depths.

If change order authority wasn't available, there could have been the temptation to leave the shallow conduits where they are in place to avoid budget overruns.

However, doing so would likely have led to the conduits being damaged and then forcing the city to come back and cut into the brand new pavement to make the appropriate repairs.

In this case, a change order was used to both react to unforeseen conditions and in the end deliver a higher quality product to the public.

And secondly, a change order will be used to have the city's contractor address deficiencies in some of the work done by East Bay MUD to repair their broken and aged water mains.

Use of change order capacity in this case is an example of how it can help avoid otherwise costly and impactful to delays to the project.

Now not shown on this slide, but even more timely, a change order and design contingency will likely be used to have the consultant currently designing repairs for slides one and four on Lake Chabot Road to develop an updated cost estimate to design and construct repairs for slides two and three.

Now without available change order capacity, staff would instead have to come back to council sometime in September or October to otherwise authorize the additional scope of work.

Next, what are some of the risks of not utilizing contingencies?

So without the use of approved contingency and change order limits, uh projects could be paused or delayed while staff seeks council authorization for any and all changes to the project scope.

Even those that would clearly add benefit to the project.

And if those delays are significant, it may lead to construction delay claims by the contractor, resulting in additional costs to the project.

We also mentioned cost cutting or the potential for sacrificing key features of the project in order to stay on budget.

And we also discussed how lack of contingency could discourage the consideration of design or construction alternatives that could add value or enhance the overall project.

Now listed on the right are a few best management practices for the use of contingency and change orders.

First is to continue to delegate or increase the authority delegated to the city manager, public works director, or city engineer to approve change orders.

Next is to institute a system that classifies change orders by type or cause as the data collected can help improve project understanding and future project development and delivery.

Next is the establishment of a pre-qualification process process for contractors and consultants.

And along those lines, utilizing alternative contract methods such as on-call construction services and the California Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act, or CUPA, which streamlines bidding.

And oh, look at that.

Perfect.

With that, that concludes TAS presentation.

And we'd be happy to answer any questions the council may have at this time.

That is perfection.

Okay, so what I'm gonna do here is just very quickly.

Do we have any public comment on this item?

Mr.

Mayor, there is no public comment on this item.

So I'm closing public comment.

I'm gonna say questions, comments, throw it all out there.

Let's kind of plow through this.

Councilmember Bolt.

Yes, thank you for the presentation.

I appreciate it.

Um I got a few.

I on the last slide, you just one of my first questions was uh pre-qualified list of contractors.

We have that here.

Or uh we currently do not, but we're evaluating the use of pre-qualified, having a pre-qualified list.

Well, you could either have you could do both, you could do two things.

You could have a pre-qualified list in general for general contractors uh for various different types of projects, or on our larger projects, you can actually uh require contractors that are interested in bidding on the project to uh submit pre-qualifications in order to bid.

So there's two types, neither of them are in place right now, but we're contemplating either as uh effective tools to manage budget.

I think it's a great idea.

I work in this industry all across the Bay Area, and I worked on um several different ordinances, one of them being a good contractor ordinance that the city, in my opinion, should adopt.

Having these pre-qualified lists help us tremendously.

Um, there are tools that you can put into the pre-qualification addition to what other people want.

And this will lead us into a couple other questions with um uh change orders.

If you got a certain contractor that we've used in different areas and they constantly have change orders that up the cost.

That's something we can keep track of in this type in in this instance, and then reverse if you have good contractors that are actually saying, hey, we found a cheaper way, a better way, here's some money back.

I know people think that doesn't happen, but I know for sure it does.

So I'm glad you pointed that out.

So having a a good contractor or or a pre-qualification that has some type of ordinance attached to it could help us in the future um where when when we're talking about the 101 and and you had the different categories and and contracts where do they where do they typically fall in the categories and when I say that for for like maintenance for all the different ones you have a bunch of con you do we have more contracts that are less than 5,000 that are in the hundred thousand you know five to a hundred thousand like where do they typically fall in there.

That I'm going to look at maybe really hard so yeah we probably don't have the data on that right now but uh I'm gonna look at our assistant director.

Yeah that that we could do some analysis and get back to you on that but um I would also just say one of the reasons um we went to council a couple years ago to increase the thresholds is because it's increasingly you know less and less common to get things that are under five thousand dollars right so um definitely it has started to to creep up from the from the five thousand dollars and um I don't want to put um uh you know um acting city manager mike you in on the spot but he also might have some insight on that.

If you don't it's fine maybe maybe you guys can just look at that because I I think as the mayor often says being data driven is important.

I've heard that across my my and if we understand that this will help us in the future um one thing really stood out for me in this and I wanted to ask a question not email it uh the goods materials equipment um furnishing and supplies on this one it's up to the department director or designee all the way up to a hundred thousand dollars but every other category they only have up to five thousand why in this particular category are they allowed to go up to a hundred thousand um I again I I think it was primarily um for the reasons I just stated above like increasingly the the cost of um certain goods materials equipment um also streamlining um the purchasing process so that you're not constantly going out and having to you know bid certain items um so trying to streamline that administrative burden and then uh the timeline in which it takes to actually you know do the the bidding and then actually get the supplies or equipment um materials in the door so just trying to streamline that and then take into account the increased cost of of um a lot of these items okay so with the and and here's the reason why I asked because and and you're saying you're kind of alluding to what I'm I'm gonna say um a lot of these they're you don't have to bid on because it's a design it could be a one bid.

So for if we're um looking at the the threshold um I think we're looking at the one on the bottom I just want to make okay so we're looking at the one on the bottom um and I just want to point out yes um we're always looking for competitive sources so um it's not necessarily the you're right there's no you know formal you know um policy that's noted there but we're always looking for competitive sources and then uh once you get to sixty thousand dollars that it is at least three um sources that are required yes um I I know my time has ran out and I got quite a few I'll I'll come back to them but I want to finish this point um sometimes guardrails are good and none of our directors here in this city would ever be doing anything mischievous with that money I know that I feel that in my heart but that doesn't mean that we should just have the capability up to that amount because we don't we don't even know the number you know we don't even know the number of them in here and I know you could go back later and say, well, that department is, you know, way over budget, right?

But it's long gone.

So I'm gonna I'm gonna re-enter the queue because I got a few other ones and I'll thank you.

I appreciate that.

Councilmember Rivotus Walton, please.

Thank you I I really appreciate the level setting since this has been, I think, a common theme with council comments as we talk about capital projects.

Um and I I I will say that I've been doing I've been chatting with folks in the industry too to kind of figure out what are some best practices in the public in the private sector that we can bring in here.

Um a couple of uh a couple of things in addition to some of what my colleagues have already raised, but I did want to look at um the actual contract negotiation and and looking at the structure of the contracts, um, in addition to including some of the best management practices to ensure that we can refresh uh the legal analysis and ensuring that we are um protecting the city as much as we can.

I don't know, you know, I'm not in the day-to-day, so I I don't know how often we look at these uh types of of contracts and maybe even having a kind of a floor that we need to be meeting in terms of liability and you know, I I just know that um I don't know how often we look at those contracts and what that what that feedback loop looks like internally.

So I just wanted to raise that.

Um the other thing um that I wanted to ask about was around um there's this concept in the private sector of an owners of an owner's representative, right?

Where you have uh a person representing the city that really looks and works with the various contractors and you know, these are people that work in the Bay Area, well respected, and if companies that are bidding a job want to continue working with that person, whoever contracts them, they want to make sure that they don't, you know, that they work well together.

So that's just something that I wanted to include in the mix of thinking through what that what practices from other sectors we can bring in here, looking at the contracts, um, owners representative, um, and I just I just really want to include I I just really want to appreciate because I I specifically the change order contingency and the limits because that's something that we keep kind of rehashing on the on the dais.

I don't know how to properly say that I don't know if it's dais or dais.

I don't know.

You need nial uno ni el otro, but okay.

Uh uh so I I really appreciate the kind of context setting and level setting.

I will be referring to this spreadsheet to this slide uh when we talk about capital projects.

Um then also um looking at staff training.

Um I know, you know, in kind of combining our previous conversation with with this, I think that we are going, you know, if the citizen uh initiative is successful and we end up getting this influx of cash when we have to deliver on capital and infrastructure projects.

I think it'll be important, if not pivotal, to ensure that the public understands that we have a handle on managing capital projects in the city.

Big, small, um, simple, complex.

Um, I think uh that it it'll be really important, and I'm really happy that we're doing this now in advance of that to ensure that we are really stepping into this uh upcoming year, uh, hopefully successful with the right foot forward.

Um, so uh thank you for your presentation.

Thank you to the team.

Uh I offer these um suggestions for us to kind of think about how to if this if these tools work in our particular context, great.

If not, just know that I'm doing research and really thinking about it.

Um, because it is imperative that the public has the trust that we are able to handle these projects and we're gonna manage them well and they're gonna come under budget or at budget and on time or early.

So thank you so much for your time and for the training.

And thank you to the rest of the team.

At this point, I'm gonna go to Councilmember Aguilar.

Thank you, Mayor.

Sorry, my camera's off.

My internet is acting up here.

So uh just a couple of questions with regards to you know the the world of RFPs, RFQs.

I think when the Lakina um winner with regards to RFP submissions, are we?

I think you know there's been some issues with some other RFPs in the city.

Are we utilizing a scoring system?

Yes, uh, each um RFP does have um a scoring rubric or um metrics associated with them.

Um, and again, uh it could a lot of it is around um the experience of um and or understanding of the the scope of work to be delivered um and costs can also be a component.

Uh each uh RFP is unique, so there is not one standard, um, if you will, but um is uh usually designed based on uh the actual RFP itself by and by the um project manager.

Thank you.

And when let's say somebody doesn't win a particular bid, are you you know after I mean there's a code of silence once a contract is awarded and waiting for signature?

Do you release the?

Let's say somebody wants to find out what their scoring what their score was.

Do you release those scores or let them know or kind of do a debrief as to how they scored and what they can do better since they were not awarded the project?

Um can I ask the city attorney's office to help us answer that question just to make sure that we get that get that right?

I think city attorney, yeah, certainly.

Um councilmember, can you just repeat?

So I understand exactly what the question was.

So let's say somebody bids, you know, we we have a contractor A or yeah, contractor A, contractor B, contractor A has awarded a project, contractor B is upset that they didn't get awarded, but they want to see the results of the scoring system.

Is that something that is publicly available?

Uh the results, the scores themselves are the um the notes are generally not.

Okay, those are my questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

At this point in time, I will go back to council member Bolt.

Okay, thank you.

Um, I I'm gonna echo um council member Overos Walton.

It's a good idea that we're doing this now because the community must understand that we're doing our best uh to make sure that if we do get a bond, um, you know, we're gonna do our best to manage it.

So I I echo that.

Um, real quick in one of the slides you had said, individual um change orders go up to 10% cumulative overall for the contract is up to 20 percent.

Um on the slide, it said 20%.

I believe you just said two percent on accent.

I just want to clarify to make sure it is 20% accumulative.

Yes.

Okay.

Oh no, I'm just no, I was nodding to say if I I'll take that.

Uh that's a good question.

Uh can we uh can we ask the city clerk to pop open uh pop the slide back up?

There you go.

That's a good question.

Uh so the end this is just an example.

This is not a hard fast percentage.

This is just uh hypothetical examples.

So the individual change order limit on the bar graph on the left is 10%.

So that's what you compare each individual change order to.

The two percent that I alluded to is that uh the cumulative limit shown on the bar graph on the right is 20.

But if you add up the three change orders that were already approved, the orange, blue, green, those add up to 18%.

So any subsequent change order that we approve, if it's over 2%, even if it's below the 10% individual change order limit, council still has to approve it because you're looking at the aggregate cumulative total.

So 2% is your your available capacity to approve change orders without going back to council for the cumulative limit.

Thank you.

I my brain was not allowing me to process that, and it made perfect sense once you said that.

So thank you.

Now, when we talk about uh 10%, and we have subcontractors and this is their individual contract, is their individual 10% only on their contract, or are we saying up to 10% of the overall project cumulative?

Uh that's a good question, and and I believe there is a some uh confusion or misunderstanding on this previously.

So 10% we we don't look at the individual subcontractors contract.

Our contract is with the prime contractor.

Uh how they manage your subcontractors, uh, you know, that's uh how they choose to do business.

But when we look at the individual change order limit, it's 10% on the overall construction contract.

So in other words, on the on the primes contract, it doesn't flow down to to uh apply the 10% to the individual subcontractors.

So in theory, a change order could be more than 10% of a subcontractor's contract because the subcontractor's contract is less than the prime contract.

Right.

And then that would blow up their ability for any other, so that's okay.

But my my only problem is is if they bid it so low just to get the job, and then they come back and make it up later.

And you know, that's a practice of of some companies.

They do that and they take advantage of of these loopholes.

So um I know that to be fact.

So um, rough estimate.

When we're talking about our contracts, because I know you're not gonna have the number, is it more than 75% come back for for change orders?

Maximize their ability, the 10%, the the 20%.

And in your opinion, you know, just thinking back.

That's a good question.

That's a hard general statement to make.

Um, more than 50.

But we gotta you gotta be able to know this.

You can't we can't not know that.

Um I don't think it's a correct statement to say the majority of the contractors max out their cumulative their contract limits.

We do try to uh create a tight set of plans and specs.

However, like I showed you, there are instances when change orders are positive, when it's a positive change, like we chose to fix the fence uh at Memorial Park.

That was an added cost, and that's a change order, but I think that added value to the project.

Uh so they'd lowering the traffic signal conduits.

We knew that we were gonna save ourselves some headache later.

It's a good thing we would create we would develop a more a higher product quality product to the city.

So we chose to make that change on that change order.

So not all change orders are bad, but we don't see a lot of projects maxing out.

Okay, that's fair.

Uh one one last one.

Um when we're putting these RIPs out, uh we have uh sites that we work with, right?

When you when you're pumping them out, you have so uh uh roughly how many sites do we put our projects on?

Oh, that's a good question.

Uh I do not know the exact amount of plan houses that we use, we utilize.

Uh but we uh it's more than three, I believe.

It's more okay, good.

No, that's uh but we can get you actually the exact list.

We have a standard list of plan houses that uh at least engineering uses for public works contracts uh for roadway contracts.

Um we we have a standard list of plan houses and they request, you know, to be on that list.

So we can get you that exact list.

Yeah, that's that's a that's a good thing to know because then we can also you know put that out for any local contractors from the city that want to bid on stuff.

But man, my very last thing is just um your very very last very last very very final ultimate maybe close to very very um I want to plug in the good contractor ordinance for us.

I think it's really good because a few things come out of that.

Number one, if you have a contractor who has wage theft allegations against them, you know that.

Like we won't pretend to to bury our head in the sand it's there they can't bid on our projects right and all this can come through uh the pre-qualification list and it is it's not it we don't need another staff person we just gotta dig in and get that um the right program in place and that's what they bid to and they'll put up their C SLB on it and it'll show us any type of allegations and I think that's a really big thing so I want to plug that and I'm willing to willing to work with anybody that wants to sit down and discuss it.

Council Marie Veto Swaldon please.

I went back to my note on my mini research project on kind of capital projects and contracting and my question around the contract and I I wanted to ask do we uh include liquidated damages in our con in our capital improvement any type of capital projects.

Yes we do we do that's yes no that's yeah okay so just for uh and is it I guess it we'd have to say a specific case but just for context liquidated damages is you have a due date that the project would be completed and if the project is not completed you pay 500 a day you know that's just for context uh so that we kind of level set um uh just when we um I think that we have a reputation that um our projects are not completed on time that we have a a lag time that we don't complete them on time that they're over budget and I just don't know if if this is something that is um if it's if we need to update that particular clause well I I don't want to be too directive because I'm obviously not a legal expert here but that's something that in my research and and talking to folks that was something that kind of kept coming up do you hold these contractors to the fire if especially on like public buildings like the construction of um the new uh police building or the construction of uh the the delay of the pool over in uh manor park which I keep forgetting the long name I think it's um San Leandro Aquatic family family aquatic yeah well okay I keep I keep calling it manor pool um where there is uh there's a cost there's a cost to the public when that pool is not open um and it's hard to define the public cost uh the loss of trust um so I just you know wanted to think about using um this one tool which is our ability to enforce the contract that we have in place and identifying issues early so that we're able to kind of look ahead and um and uh not have these projects be late and have it you know have some skin in the game uh to ensure that they know that every day that they're late we're gonna hold them to the fire even if it's five hundred dollars a day or whatever the amount comes to be depending on the project but um I'll just leave that there and because we're at 925.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor I will give time back I promise I should make that I should not make promises I should know better.

Um I I just want to piggyback on what customer's waltzon was talking about and this wasn't in my notes for the last presentation so I'm glad it's up again but we were talking about on slide 15 for change orders one of the things as an example was bank Bancroft paving and I will say that I get emails and I mean every conversation eventually ends up with you know what's going on with Bancroft right like my child goes to Bancroft middle school like I am there all of the time I hear this whenever um I see any other human being in San Leandro.

So I think one of the other things that's really important to holding people accountable also is for us to again communicate out why we are actually making this change order, like the importance of it.

We can talk about it in these chambers.

But the reality is that as much as I wish and appreciate the people that are still here with us.

Most people do not pay attention all night long.

And so that message doesn't get across.

And so what they see and feel and hear is what the experience, which is driving down a road that is not being fixed.

And the reality is it's the timing of it as well, right?

Like Bancroft um uh it started during the school year when we had hundreds of families going down that road at least twice a day.

And so I wonder with like the change order contingency with best management practices.

Maybe one of those things is communicating out the change orders and these contingencies and why they're being, you know, the communication piece to be added to everything that we do.

Like, are we clicking making sure that like we are really communicating this to the council and to the community?

Um that is an excellent point, Vice Mayor.

And uh engineering takes that to heart.

We are currently we have uh we we will say that we could have done a better job getting the message out previously.

Uh we have started posting updates more frequently on the city's website and through all of our alerts and social media channels, specifically for Bancroft.

Uh, there has been a lot of flashing red signals, uh dark signals, there are a lot of lane closures.

Uh so we do urge the uh residents in the city to monitor either our social media channels or the city's website.

So we are trying to post uh current updates for that uh particular project.

Uh we have taken these comments and concerns to heart.

Uh we do plan on rolling out uh soon by the end of the month uh project update websites on the city's uh website that will provide a project status, uh overview, uh what phase it's in, uh, what kind of uh updates we have on a regular basis to uh better get the word out for the uh progress of our our most highly visible projects.

I appreciate that.

And then the only other thing that I would ask that, you know, um to whatever lift the staff has, but especially for high-profile projects that are just very, very visible.

Like that is a really good example.

If um council members could get just really brief talking points so that we can help relay that message, because we are fielding those, you know, those questions, whether it's formally in an email or just seeing people at the grocery store, so that we can help you on the front end so that um you know, or at least refer people to the website or the dashboard that's gonna be up.

So I appreciate the work that's being done.

Okay, so I will offer my final thoughts so that we can get going.

So a couple of thoughts.

I really appreciate slide 16.

The fact that you lay out some best practices, best management practices, um, and then have the courage to say that, you know, we haven't hit them all yet.

That's awesome to me.

I really, really appreciate that type of transparency because it inspires confidence.

Um, I think that there's perhaps some other practices that we can, at least one that we can add there or two, um, incentive contracting.

I'm not really quite sure what we're doing in that realm, but certainly on the contracts that I've reviewed, I don't see incentive contracting.

Um, and it's it's been laid out there in the literature for many, many, many years.

I know the school district does it with respect to timeliness.

A contractor finishes ahead of time and meets the requirements, they get a bonus.

They're behind, it's contracted in that they're gonna take a loss.

And they have to pay literally pay a fine in the spirit of liquidated damages.

Um I think uh a second consideration, something that uh Council Mary Vetus Walton raised that I feel very strongly about, is this notion of uh an owner's rep.

I know if we've got a 250,000 dollar project, it's probably not worth having an owner's rep.

Um, but boy, if we do get the money to be spending tens of millions of dollars, hundred million dollars, we absolutely need someone who is our advocate.

Someone has those repeat interactions across many environments.

So we have the benefit of interacting with uh builders in our city.

These reps have experience across dozens, scores, hundreds of cities.

And so there's that relationship where they're like on opposite sides of the table, really, really pushing each other.

And I think just bringing that skill to the table uh makes everything a little bit better, more efficient.

I was unclear on the answer around contingency uh with respect to the prime and the sub.

So I just want to make sure that the record is perfectly clear.

So suppose that we have a million-dollar contract, and suppose that we have set up for the sake of argument on that million-dollar contract at 10% contingency, $100,000.

Million dollar contract, 10% contingency, $100,000.

There's a sub on the job.

And that sub had a $200,000 project.

Guess what?

They were off.

They need to do a whole bunch of new work.

Their cost is going to be $300,000 off by 50%.

We as a city, when we're managing and interacting with the prime, we don't have visibility to that.

We just know that the prime needs an extra 10%, needs that $100,000.

By this process, we would approve that.

It would be within parameters, et cetera.

Um that is correct.

That's perfect.

I want to come back to pre-qualification.

I'm thinking about Bancroft in particular.

And I really don't want to get too far into the weed, so you know, I'll let you go wherever you want to go with this.

But when I, you know, one of the things I know that we had to work through was the contracting for the uh dropping of the conduits.

Let me just check.

Is that factually true?

We had to do some contracting for the dropping of the conduits.

Uh good question.

We had to because it wasn't in the original scope, we had to negotiate a uh scope and fee change order uh from the general contractor to say how much it would cost to do that additional work.

Okay, so the general took care of all that that was DeSildegates?

Uh DeSilva Gates, yes.

So they took care of finding the subcontractor?

They already have a current subcontractor on their project.

It is St.

Francis, I believe, uh, and they were already doing other electrical work.

So we asked uh the general contractor, because our con our correspondence always goes to the general contractor, uh, how much it would cost uh for their team uh to do the additional work.

Okay.

I'll follow up on some questions that I have on that separately.

Okay, the last question for you, uh, city engineer.

Thinking really about this slide number, whatever it was, 16, the one that I really like.

Um, what should I worry about the most?

Of not utilizing contingency.

I just I'm sitting here as playing an oversight function.

But if you were in my chair, what would you be worried about when you're trying to oversee projects and just at the big picture level?

Where's the risk?

The risk is in the amount of unknowns.

I think that's the that's the thing that we struggle with most.

Uh both contractors, consultants, and the city.

It's the amount of unknowns that are in every project.

Now we could create a perfect set of plans, but that would cost probably four, five, six times as much as it does to create our own plans.

And it also would cost two, three, four times as long to create them.

Um so there's a balance between how much we discover uh before we bid a set of plans and how much we leave to unknown.

Uh similar to contractors and consultants.

Uh, if you and I I came from the private side, so I have a little bit of uh experience with this.

If you create a budget that accounts for every single unknown, you wouldn't get any work because you'd price yourself out of every job.

Um, so they have to have a balance between uh leaving a little bit of risk and then protecting themselves as well.

So I think that's the hardest struggle that everyone has, both contractors, consultants, and the city is balancing the amount of risk and the amount of unknowns uh with the amount of preparedness for a project.

We've had a really thorough discussion.

I appreciate the preparation that you as a team put into this.

So with that, what time is it?

It is 9 36 and we are adjourned.