Thank you.

City Clerk Susie Martinez, please call the role.

I'm reading on the right script.

Councilmember DeVini.

Is here.

He just stepped out for the moment.

Councilmember Francois.

Here.

Councilmember Silva.

Mayor Pro Temwell.

Mayor Darling.

Here.

All right.

Next on the agenda is public communications.

And under California law, public comments at special meetings are limited to subjects on the agenda only.

Therefore, public comments will be received during the city council consideration of the item.

So next on the agenda is a study session on consideration and direction on draft recommendations from the curb management program or plan.

It's a plan, not a program.

And I'd invite the staff come up and start the presentation.

So thank you, Council members.

My name is Brianna Byrne, and I'm an associate traffic engineer here at the city of Walnut Creek.

This afternoon, early evening, I'm going to be discussing the curbside management plan and the draft recommendations.

Again, emphasis on draft.

We are here to solicit feedback from our council members.

In the audience with me today, this was a very large effort.

So we have two consultants on our team from Fair and Pears, Terrence Dow and May Commitment.

And then multiple staff from multiple departments.

So as we get into any type of questions around the recommendations or friction points, they will be here to support.

So a discussion overview for this afternoon for this presentation.

What is curb management?

And then go into the goal setting for this plan in our downtown.

We'll review regional as well as local existing policies and goals, the parking study that we had done as part of this effort, and then our outreach findings and what we heard from our stakeholders.

This will tie into the recommendations and then go into our implementation strategy.

Following up with timeline and next steps.

So curb space, what is it?

As a city's asset, curb space, it's where we can see people park, but it's also a bus stop, it could be a loading zone.

Think of the yellow curb, it could be bike lanes, it could be curb extensions, it could be parklets, outdoor dining.

So managing that curb space is called curb management.

And it's about organizing these uses along the curb based on transportation best practices, but also community goals.

What does downtown want to see for Walnut Creek?

And then the management, it seeks to balance among all road users.

So the goal setting for downtown, as we went into this plan, this was our goal.

The plan would set data driven standards to optimize the curb by balancing parking, loading, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, placemaking, accessibility, and safety, while considering the needs of people of all ages, abilities, and economic backgrounds.

As we started the process to solidify these goals specific for Walnut Creek, we again we looked at our adopted plans and policies, stakeholder input and our data collection.

Looking at regional first, there's the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

So we're doing this.

In part, the city received a little less than 200,000 in grant funds from MTC, Metropolitan Transportation Commission to prepare this plan.

MTC has a transit-oriented communities, a TOC policy, and this aims to improve connections and access to transit in the region.

So MTC, they created this grant to help agencies support TOC Action 5.

Implement complementary parking management policies.

So when it comes to the city to comply with TOC Action 5, we would pick any one of these five and say how we are compliant.

This plan would support that lower left curb strategy slash management.

Now looking locally, we have the city's rethinking mobility plan.

So this strategizes, it provides strategy strategies to reduce automobile trips, manage parking demand, and enhance access for those walking, biking, and using public transit.

Several strategies in that plan, but the three that relate to curb management and parking, we had improved parking and curb management signage, invaluate zone and demand based pricing, consider municipal garage pricing and demand.

On the lower section here, we have our parking utilization policy.

So this is within our Muni code, and it states that we have an 85% utilization goal for all parking, street parking, and garage parking.

So what does that mean?

This little graphic on the bottom of our screen is a curb face with 10 parking spaces.

In this example, one is empty.

This would be a 90% occupancy.

So an 85 average for downtown is anywhere between one and two empty spaces on our street face, on our curb face.

So at this rate, parking is easy to find for anyone that wants a quick trip or for accessibility needs, they need that very accessible parking spot.

Or maybe they just want it, but providing that space so they can park and it reduces congestion and circling within our within our downtown.

Next is our local roadway safety plan, a path to vision zero.

This plan looked at our the city's collision records between 2015 and 2021 to identify trends.

There were 10 trends, one of which was large roadways around downtown.

So what this slide is showing, 22% of all bicycle injury collisions within the city of Walnut Creek happened on large roadways around downtown.

Similarly, 27% of all pedestrian injury collisions, large roadways around downtown.

And even when we're considering all collisions, vehicles, PES, bikes, 19%.

So from that effort, the local roadway safety plan, Walnut Creek became a vision zero city with a stated goal of zero fatal or serious injury collisions by 2035.

Moving on to our sustainability action plan, the set goals and milestones for the city to address climate change by reducing greenhouse gases.

The transportation strategies included strategy five and six, expand adoption and accessibility of electric vehicle modes.

The plan did include micromobility, as well as increase the availability of electric vehicle charging.

Strategy nine, ensure safe, efficient, and reliable mobility options throughout the community.

Again, tying back to our local roadway safety plan.

The last one here, we have our economic development action plans for years 23 to 25, and this provide actions to improve economic vitality in the downtown.

So of those that are transportation related, we have promote Walnut Creek as a premier ace bay location for offices, which includes promoting the transportation access, ensure the success of outdoor dining, streetscape improvements, and future construction, and then enhance downtown attractions and infrastructure.

The plan outside of its 12 actions also identified future actions.

And the one that we have here improved walkability and connectivity between BART and the Golden Triangle and the core downtown to support office tenant growth.

The other input we considered for our goals was public engagement.

Throughout most of the plan, we we engaged with these list of stakeholders before the recommendations, after the recommendations in some case some of these groups met before we met with them before and after.

But reading through them quickly, we had the parking enterprise group, parking enforcement, economic development, sustainability, Transportation commission, walnut creek Downtown, county connection, bicycle, and Pedestrian advocacy Groups.

We met with our youth commission.

We're here tonight, this afternoon with our city council, and then we also solicited feedback via public survey, and then we also had a booth at the May Locust Street Festival.

So from this stakeholder input, really five friction points came to the surface.

The first one on the left there, loading and our 15-minute curbside pickup spaces.

So again, loading, think of that yellow curb, think the large commercial delivery trucks, and then for our 15-minute curbside pickup spaces, these were implemented in the downtown to support our restaurants during COVID.

The intention was a free space for patrons to park quickly, run in and get their order and get out.

How it's being the challenge nowadays with both the yellow curb and the 15-minute curbside pickup is with our food delivery drivers.

They don't necessarily have a place to stage, so they're staging in these areas, causing double parking from the commercial vehicles, or just not having these 15-minute curbside spaces open for the intended users.

Moving on to parking for merchants.

So for the drivers, they would say they arrive before metering starts at 10 in the morning, they're able to park right out front, but then midshift or right before that 10 a.m.

window, they have to go repark.

Takes it away from their shift, and it also kind of doesn't make it enjoyful working experience for them, as they then have to go find parking that's either free or further out, and then walk back to their restaurant.

Then for the scooter users, we actually heard this from several businesses where it's quite a popular mode choice for back of house or some servers, where before the restaurant opens, they can park in say the dining room or maybe just out of the way, but it's become a critical mass where out of the way does not exist.

And so some of their employees are having to find parking outside, and then it's the risk of having these scooters stolen.

Pedestrian and bicycle spaces, the friction point here, many of the stakeholders, the youth commissioner, the downtown businesses, they enjoy having what they say unique is about what is unique about Walnut Creek is our outdoor or outdoor spaces.

They use Broadway Plaza as an example where they can let their kids play on a structure and they have a safe place to gather, but it's not necessarily true for all areas of Walnut Creek.

So having an enjoyable pedestrian experience once you're out of the car was something that they desired.

On the bicycle side, again, talking to the about the employee struggles or even our advocacy groups, trying to find bicycle spaces or amenities that are better for cargo bikes or larger bikes can be difficult in our downtown area.

The other friction point I have here is wayfinding, really pointing people to the facilities that we have downtown.

And not even or even more than that, just where there is capacity downtown, so they're not going to that busy South Locust garage.

And then the last friction point is street parking.

So again, where those users want to park on the street, they're having difficulty finding that street space.

So they're circling and they're you know they're beginning their trip downtown, a little bit of frustration.

And the last uh quick overview before we get into the goals is our data collection.

So on the on the right here is our study area.

So we looked at as far north as Parkside Drive, as far south as South Main Street, just south of Lilac.

So think Las Lamas High School, think near Kaiser, where we have in gray is our green zone.

So these are our green meters.

They are $2 an hour, and you can park for up to three hours.

Outside of that zone, we have our purple zone.

So these are our purple meters where you can park for $1 an hour for up to 10 hours, and really, this is all day, given that our meter hours of enforcement are 10 a.m.

to 8 p.m.

Also within our study area from the municipal side, we have four garages.

So starting within that blue zone in the upper left, that is our Lusher Garage, that's our largest garage, and it supports the Lusher Center.

Moving right, we have our library garage.

This is on Lincoln.

We have green meters underneath the library.

Moving south, we have our South Locust Garage, and this is the only one that you'll see in red, and I'll go over kind of what that means later.

And then the last one we have is the Broadway garage.

And this is accessed right off of Cyprus.

So what this map shows is the parking utilization.

So we collected data in October on a Thursday and a Saturday, and this is the average demand.

So not even the worst of the worst.

This isn't, you know, lunchtime or dinner time.

This was the average from 9 a.m.

until 10 p.m.

So what we see is over 85% along main and locust, you know, even east west on those minor streets, and then as we get further out, those those curved spaces open up.

If there is interest, I do have graphics about the peak as well as our December data that we had collected to really support typical conditions and these recommendations.

So we do have kind of the worst of the worst with what happens in our downtown.

So from an inventory perspective within our study area, we had 465 green meters and 1,041 purple meters, putting us a little over 1500 metered spaces.

For the city garages, we're at 1433.

From a municipal management side, we are looking at 3,000 spaces, about 3,000 spaces.

From the city, the non-city operated lots and garages.

As part of the study, we were able to partner with Broadway Plaza, and they have two garages.

So there's the one off of Main Street and then the larger one off of Broadway.

And as part of the partnership with some of the private operators, we also looked to our certified smaller lots that are within the study area A.

In all, trying to determine how many spaces are in this area.

Estimated around 10,000.

I have some numbers on some of the larger garages if there's curiosity, but with about a 10,000 space number, the study was inclusive of about two-thirds of our downtown parking supply.

So the data takeaways, parking demand exceeds 85% utilization in the core area, especially in our downtown, especially in oh, especially on street.

And then at the same time, during that same period, our city garages, they have the capacity.

And then looking further out, outside this core, the areas surrounding downtown also have capacity on street.

So moving into our plan goals.

So from left to right here, this plan, we were trying to use data-driven standards, but we wanted to pull back with other plans and existing policies that we have to make sure that this effort is in line with what's been done in the past.

So first we have the sustainability or this pedestrian and bicycle safety.

So ensure that pedestrians and bicyclists can get to from and around downtown safely and comfortably.

We have the sustainability and mode shift, advanced sustainability through mode shift to biking, walking, and transit, reducing vehicle miles traveled.

The placemaking, use placemaking to enhance downtown's walkability, charm.

Number four, we have the fairness and accessibility.

Consider users of all ages, physical abilities, and economic standing to ensure downtown is conveniently accessible for all.

Then for the loading, we have managed commercial loading to make freight and deliveries more orderly, efficient, and produce less conflict.

On the economic vitality side, we want to enhance downtown's economic vitality as a top retail destination for the region.

And then the last goal there is the curve in parking management.

We want to be able to manage the parking demand, reduce the demand for street parking, and the difficulty finding parking to improve the arrival experience for visitors and residents.

So with that, we're gonna move into recommendations, but I did want to pause for any questions that we've covered so far.

Anybody have a quick quick question?

Thanks, Brianna.

Can we go back to the slide that showed um all the parking garages?

Uh yeah, actually, yeah, that's no one further a forward.

Further forward, yeah.

That's it.

So of the extra 4,000 or so spaces to make up the 10,000.

Is that like the target parking lot or some of these other ones?

Yeah, so think target, um, some of the other larger ones is like Olympia Place, Plaza Escuela.

Okay, um, yeah, they just didn't have the gate arm or their connection to the meters weren't working well enough.

So with the data was not easy for us to attain, and therefore we just couldn't easily include it.

Okay, so these would be managed by in in many cases the actual um storefront or or landlord property, summer park smart, but uh there's there's not a way to track the cars going in and out of them essentially.

Correct, or maybe it's like a commercial build or an office building that they have that ability, we just didn't have the connection to ask them.

Yeah, thank you.

Can I just confirm?

So it does include the major office buildings that are in the street areas because they have quite a bit of parking for their tenants.

The estimate that 10,000 estimate, correct?

Right.

Yes.

And that's downtown, just to make sure, right?

Within that study area that we were looking at again estimate.

Yes.

Other questions or clarifications?

Um council member Silva.

So um from a policy perspective, the target goal is 85% occupancy enough for quick for drivers to find parking if they want it, but not so compacted that it doesn't have people shopping and dining.

Correct.

So with the 85% where you're saying that we we're at that 85%, is it a particular day of the week, time of the day, or location in the downtown?

Because I don't think it's all of it all days, all times.

So if I if I understand the question, so it's does that policy apply to the whole downtown or block by block or area by area, isn't that correct?

I guess that's what I'm asking.

Actually, is I didn't I wasn't clear enough.

When you say we are at 85%, is that just for certain times of the day, certain days of the week, or certain locations within that whole area?

Yes, so from this data takeaway, we that we see an excess of 85% within our downtown core streets within our South Locust garage, and then but is it all the time and every day, or is it always at lunch?

I'm really trying to hone in on how big of a problem is this.

So again, this is so what we have shown here is the average.

So it's definitely it's definitely around peak lunchtime, and then definitely around peak dinner time.

When we get into certain times of days, it really plays into land use, so like what's nearby at the time.

Is it every day of the week, or is it typically Thursday, Friday, Saturdays, and a little bit on?

I mean, it's it's every day of the week.

And so when we did the parking data collection, we had two days in October, and then really trying to get to your question is is someday worse than others.

So that's really what December data collection was about.

So we had several days of the week.

We did a Saturday, we did a Sunday, Saturday is exceptionally busy, especially leading up to Christmas and Friday as well.

All right.

Alright, thank you.

I'm so I'm sorry, just to go back.

I was on the transportation commission for eight years, so we dived into a lot of this.

So I think what council member Silva is is getting at, which I also have a question about, is there's no question eleven thirty to one, or probab on probably every day of the week, you're probably close to a hundred percent.

And prior to eleven, eleven thirty, or between two and maybe four, four thirty, maybe it's fifty to sixty percent.

I mean or because I know for example, if I go downtown at at nine, nine thirty in the morning, I can park anywhere on any block.

It's very, very easy.

So uh am I correct in like trying to dive into that point?

Yes, because when we talk about what are the solutions, we need to be very clear as to the magnitude of the issue.

Is it occurring all the times, etc.?

Sounds like you have the question in mind now.

Yeah, so and and um I will ask Terrence to to come help answer um since he likely has that data handy.

But again, it does it does come back to the land use to your point, it's probably empty before 10 a.m.

where a lot of places are downtown aren't open before 10.

So we wouldn't be doing any type of curb management, it's less than 50 percent.

Um I could just direct your attention to um the graphic being oh, sorry.

Hi.

Uh my name is Terrence John with Ferrum Pierce.

Um working with the city on this project.

If I could direct everyone's attention to um the exhibit on screen, you'll see we um classified um every parking resource of both curb and the garages that we had data on um into three categories, so zero to fifty percent, fifty to eighty-five percent in yellow, and finally eighty-five percent or above in red.

And like Rihanna noted, this um was an average of um the entire day of a weekend day.

It was a Saturday, um so the whole day, what's the average occupancy at each particular curb or each particular garage?

And as you can see, there are most of the garages with the exception of um South Locust, um, had plenty of space.

So they're either green or in um the larger of the Broadway Plaza garage is yellow, but the South Locust Garage is eighty-five above eighty-five percent, and that's the average for the entire day.

Um, and you can see also um the north-south streets through the core of downtown, so you see Main and Locust every block is red, and some of the east-west cross streets on there are also red.

Um I believe uh we have extra slides where um we show sort of different snapshots in time to kind of break that down.

So we have kind of the equivalent um graphic for a weekday average.

We also have it for um council member as you alluded to some of the peak of the peak.

So we know, you know, lunch time on a Thursday, particularly bad.

Um, you know, weekends when everyone's trying to shop at Broadway Plaza, particularly bad.

But um what you can see here is that even across the average of a day that you're looking at um almost completely filled up um street parking um across most of the streets in that downtown core, but the thing to note is that it's uneven, right?

Because as soon as you start to exit that that kind of highlighted zone, you start to see the greens and the yellows pop up, and obviously you see all the garages are you know still green, right?

So it's okay there's spots that are.

I think we're I think we've we've got the sense that it's not all the time, but it's this is the average.

So yeah, I think we're good.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

So let's dive into the recommendations.

Okay, so the recommendations, this first section, this first this first section will lay over, we'll go over the recommendations and as well as the intended outcomes, and then we'll do a high we'll look at each one of those again in terms of implementation.

Is there funding?

What's the timeline?

So again, this first is the recommendation with the intended outcome.

So the loading and curbside pickup, the first recommendation, adjust the 15-minute curbside pickup for easier enforcement.

And in speaking with our enforcement officers, this the easiest thing for them would be to add meters.

The outcome improve the ability to enforce these spaces and get that intended quick turnover that was originally desired for these spaces.

The other one is end commercial loading restrictions at 5 p.m., allowing for food delivery and curbside use afterwards.

So within our Mini Codes, these yellow curb spaces, they're intended for commercial vehicles.

So the idea is after 5 p.m.

when these deliveries are no longer coming in and out.

We could open them up for say food delivery or as it gets later into the nightlife passenger pickup.

So this would create a legal loading zone for delivery drivers and ride share to meet the demand in a dedicated space, not necessarily in our parking spaces.

In addition, the recommendation to move loading zones away from busy spots.

So think about some of our yellow curb along Main Street and Locust, say outside coffee shops, there's a high use of just people parking in them and running in, which then leads to this double parking issue.

So relocating some of these loading zones to say the side streets just around the corner, somewhere that's out of the way of our main street and locust streets.

So the outcome would be improve availability and proper utilization of these spaces.

The other recommendation around loading and curbside pickup, establish a staging area for food delivery drivers.

This gives them that specific loading type, a dedicated legal option to park.

And then we have explore a digital platform for reserving curbside loading spots.

This is you know opportunistic as technology advances, but we can we can manage our loading spaces and make it easier for enforcement.

So if a Cisco truck reserves a parking space, the enforcement officer will either see it in their system or possibly on a sign.

They can compare the license plate numbers, and if it doesn't match, they can write them a ticket and enforce that space so that when that new delivery driver comes in, it's ready for them.

Moving into merchant parking specifically.

So moving into the merchant parking, the vehicle focus side of it, connect businesses with those private garages.

As we discussed, there's a couple opportunities there.

The city we can we can make that connection with those businesses who are interested in providing spaces for a fee with the businesses that are interested in renting those.

So the city can really be that conduit.

The outcome enable shared parking arrangement, improve employee retention, and reduce the curb demand where those employees are needing to park.

And then within our own garages, we can reevaluate our monthly parking program, where we're allocating, which garage we're allocating these permits in, and then the number of permits.

With the outcome, expanding the participation and optimizing long-term and visitor parking, reduces that curb demand and makes it less of a friction point for our merchant parkers.

The recommendations for transit and pedestrian spaces, recommendation to improve bus stops, the bus signage, the bus wayfinding, and the operations in the downtown, with the outcome to incentivize mode shift, outdoor dining and placemaking features, outcome to improve visitor experience and economic vitality.

Install curb extensions.

This improves the visibility for pedestrians and safety for all road users.

And then the recommendation to expand our street closures to other streets, possibly longer hours or additional types of activities.

So the outcome here, we could be attracting more visitors to the downtown.

And then with the street closures, we have pedestrian-only spaces, which removes that potential vehicle vehicle ped conflict.

Moving into the traffic safety, we have the recommendation to study a discount or voucher program for businesses to incentivize ride share.

We have the outcomes broken up just by several different user types, but this program could be used to combat DUIs.

Provides a safe driving alternative, and then may entice new visitors to the downtown.

The recommendation to install safety improvements for streets surrounding downtown.

So improvements, these improvements would make corridors more comfortable for all road users and is consistent with our local roadway safety plan.

For bicycle facilities, we have it broken up into essentially three stages.

The first one is kind of what we're considering easy wins, and when we get into that implementation, you can kind of see where we're looking at pricing and timing and funding.

So the first one here, add secure bike parking, both racks and lockers big enough to fit bigger family bikes, cargo bikes, scooters.

Again, think of the employees in the downtown area.

With outcome induced mode shift through comfortable and viable facilities.

Add electric charging for bikes and scooters, encouraging the mode shift with this enhanced amenity, and it can improve employee retention.

Moving on to kind of more of a longer term infrastructure aspect, we have enhanced network.

So add low stress, context appropriate bike facilities for getting to and from around downtown.

And thinking back to our local roadway safety plan where we have large roadways around downtown, the countermeasures that would be appropriate for these types of streets are protected bikeways.

Here's an example from San Luis Obispo in their downtown area.

They have a curbside bike lane, a little buffer, and they're still able to maintain parking and travel lanes, and then on the far side, there is additional parking.

So it's just about re just about balancing the streets.

So from there, with you know a low stressed network, context appropriate network, we can further enhance these facilities.

So add a staffed bike repair station, encourage the mode shift with this enhanced amenity and the convenience.

This could double as that secure parking option.

Pair new facilities with a micromobility rollout.

So this encourages the mode shift and increases accessibility of areas outside the typical walking space.

So our downtown is definitely a park once and walk, but as you know, our west downtown and our north downtown expands, we're starting to get into areas that are maybe a little bit further to walk.

So the idea is with this enhanced network with micromobility options, we can kind of extend that reach a little further.

And then with the enhanced network, there's there's staff can study the switch to micromobility devices for food deliveries, and again, that would be reducing the demand along the curb for that service.

And then the last category that we had here, street parking, wayfinding, and branding.

And similar to the bike facilities, we have kind of a tiered approach proposed.

So the low-hanging fruit here, the ones that we see as a five year implementation strategy, and that's wayfinding and branding.

So improve the signage or sorry, apologies, improve instructions on our meters and the signage, with the outcome improving that customer experience with enhanced uniformity, clarity, and accessibility.

This is input that we had received from several stakeholders, including the public, that you know, sometimes our meters are not as easy to read and understand.

The next recommendation install and enhanced wayfinding to direct visitors to the garage on their perimeter of downtown.

So get them to the areas where we have the space and the higher parking supply, improving their experience in the area.

And then once they're in the garage, we want to enhance that atmosphere.

So encourage visitors to park here, either because it's attractive, it feels safe as a pedestrian, you know, demarcating pedestrian pathways for them, making these really comfortable spaces for our visitors in the downtown.

With all of this, evaluate the effectiveness.

So are these low-hanging fruit, how is this addressing our 85th parking utilization policy?

So we're proposing do the way finding do the branding, assess the situation again, and then if we're still not meeting that policy, then the recommendations we have create a new meter zone for the high demand areas.

So again, this is where, depending on that data, where we're seeing over 85% utilization with the outcome, we want to incentivize the turnover and encourage drivers to use the garages, and then extend the meter hours of operation to council member Wilkes Point where not everything's open at 10 a.m.

It's the hours of operation would be relevant to what's occurring in the land uses nearby.

We're not looking to enforce when there's no need to enforce or do parking management.

So the implementation strategy, the five-year action plan, you heard me say quick wins a couple times.

So these are the actions that you know there's funding assigned for, the effort is low, and then we can reevaluate the effectiveness and kind of do that reassessment, see how we're doing, and then we have the infrastructure and policy.

So where options don't fit into quick and accessible, they'd be under this infrastructure and policy bucket.

So here we have listed each one of the recommendations from loading to traffic safety based on timeline.

So where we show a green clock, this is something that staff has identified as something that can be included within the five-year action plan.

We have listed the cost and then the funding.

I'll note the improved bus facilities and operations, that's right in the middle.

We have both a green clock and a red clock, and a green circle for funding and a red.

So when it comes to that recommendation, improved bus facilities.

If we're talking anything capital, this is more substantial.

Funding has to be assigned, and in the case of a buses, there's an external source that we'd have to work with.

So that would be something that would be looking at long term, but at the same time, operations, as we understand it, you know, County Connection is looking to improve their operations so we can help them do that with transit signal priority.

That's something that we've already assigned or acquired funding for.

So some of these would be broken up, and then for the effect there, we have a scoring of one to three.

So for each one of these, it's the effectiveness of the recommendation to meet or address either the friction points that we identified or the city's goals, stated plans and goals.

So this is loading, the traffic safety, and then looking at the bicycle and then curve management.

And then before we get into the questions, this is really the meat of it all, just to tie it up, the project timeline and next steps.

We've been working on this plan for a little over a year, and we're at this draft recommendation phase, September 2nd, with the input that we receive from you all.

We're gonna update our recommendations accordingly, incorporate it into that plan document, bring it to Transportation Commission, and then bring it again to you all for adoption.

And with that, I'm I'm preemptively going back to here.

Okay.

So we've got about 45 minutes so we can get dinner in.

So I'd like to spend a little bit of time making sure everybody gets a chance to ask their clarification questions, and then what it sounds like is the most useful thing to you is when you bring us something back, is there additional information on a recommendation that we will need to make a decision on it?

Are there recommendations that one of us thinks might be, I'm not gonna say overminded body, but you know, less far less desirable.

Um, you know, what are some of the other information needs that people are gonna have when we come to that decision point later this year?

Okay, that's on so why don't we go ahead and who has clarification questions?

They're clarifying and they may end up being more and I'll try to refrain from that.

So uh first of all, thank you for that's a lot of information.

That was a lot of work.

Um, and on the the 15-minute spaces, just roughly how many of them do we have?

Oh, it's can we go back to those sections?

Yes, of course.

Uh, the friction points recommendations.

There we go.

She's asking about recommendation, the first order.

And the loading I can't.

Okay, we can space on this.

Uh we have about 30, so it's like one per block face.

Okay.

And you mentioned something about the intended users of that, and I'm sure people might have different thoughts about that.

What in the collective city view?

Who are the intended users of those spaces?

Yeah, so from that curb management policy, a 15-minute space, that's the either I need to pick up my food order or I need to just grab a shampoo from the salon.

It's really intended as we want something to be open for them to go in quickly, they don't have to navigate the garage, they don't have to pay a meter, go in really quickly and get out, and now that space is open again for a similar user.

So food delivery drivers technically would fit, but then they're competing with everybody else.

Correct.

So they technically fit, and they are technically um an intended user.

The way that they're using it is not that though.

So the delivery apps incentivize proximity.

So what ends up happening is they will sit in the car regardless of whether or not there's an order to be picked up or not.

And from an enforcement perspective, yes, our officers, they see similar faces, so they have a sense, but at the same time without confronting and asking questions, it's are you waiting for an order or are you sitting in your car?

And what ends up happening additionally is as one pulls out, they've they've called a friend around the corner that's like, I'm leaving the spot, go ahead and take it.

So it's it's becoming very much heavily utilized to be.

And those are not the yellow zones, those are the 15 minute ones that we added after COVID.

Correct.

Okay.

Can I ask a quick clarifying on yours, Matt?

The 30 spaces that you said are loading, are they individual through singular spots that are 30 different spots throughout, or some of them back to back?

So the curb, the 15-minute curb side are one single space per block face.

But the yellow commercials are bigger.

Correct.

And those those yellow ones are bigger, and they're um they're not usually they're not diagonal, they're you know, parallel to the curb and they're long for those trucks.

Okay, and then the in terms of this the staging area for food delivery drivers, uh, I understand that kind of those yellow those yellow zones after five would probably serve that purpose.

Was there any thought that they want to be right near that restaurant to pick up their delivery?

So is that is this gonna be helpful, I guess?

Yeah, and that's when we broke down that recommendation into effort, we put it as it's not easy when it's a little bit harder, and I think that's where the research comes in, where it's you know, if we did convert this, is this satisfying the needs that hot spot that the apps are telling them to go to?

So there's a little bit of additional research to identify those staging, any new staging areas.

Maybe I'll just ask two more, and then um back to the 15 minutes spaces because I do like those spaces and I use them kind of if we go downtown, we order from Lamone or something just to pick up the meal.

Um it's handy to have that, and they're I tend to have pretty good luck with them.

Uh and I like the convenience factor that I don't have to do I have any change, do I have to bring my credit card, do I have to pay for a meter?

So were there any alternatives?

I understand that it's it's really easy to monitor much easier to monitor enforcement with a meter.

Were there any alternatives thought about for meter on that?

Yeah, so we um I went back and forth with our parking enforcement career even about language to see if if there could just be something with how we worded the Muni code.

Would five minutes be better, would 10 minutes be better, would active loading as a definition be better?

That's that's things that other agencies have tried, and the the response is it can always be argued until there's a meter there, and if they haven't paid the meter, then that then that's the ticket that they can write them.

Okay, and I'll save it for are we gonna have an opportunity to give comments and all no comments later?

Okay.

Not on not at that one in particular, but um, I have questions about this.

No, yeah.

Well, I just had two more general ones.

So uh was there any thought or consideration given?

And I know we switched from uh two hours to three hour limit in the downtown area.

Do we have any data or metrics to indicate how much more those spaces were utilized than when it was a two hour limit?

I don't have that's something I can look up as part of this effort.

I did look at historical information and kind of when we went to three hour.

Um, as part of our data collection, we were able to determine how long people are parking, and in these green meter zones where they're allowed three hours, they're still staying an hour and a half.

So it's we're still getting that intended turnover, but you know, maybe there's less um less anxiety about staying at dinner maybe a little longer, but they're still.

You're able to tell how long they've stayed in that space.

Correct.

It's usually less than two hours.

Yes.

Okay.

And then just finally, um, you know, it wayfinding will that include it could include something like I think what Broadway Plaza does with the lights is brilliant because it's it's very easy and intuitive, and also the the signage out front of the garage, which indicates how many spaces are available in the garage and on on the various different levels.

Are those the types of things we'll be looking at for our own garages to implement?

Yeah, and we've we've definitely have an inventory of how many wayfinding signs we have.

We do have those digital readers of how many space, how many spaces are in there, but we can definitely enhance it.

I know the last couple years we've done lighting enhancements, and so all of those aspects are gonna be reviewed what makes a successful garage and what can be improved.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Do um are people comfortable just going through or do you want to do come back now and do rec recommendations on just loading?

And clarifying questions.

You have clarified.

Um I have some questions about this category.

Okay, why don't we go ahead and do the questions about this category and then we'll provide you some input on it, and then we'll go to the next category.

If that so on the commercial loading yellow zones, okay big trucks, box trucks, vans primarily happening in the mornings.

And no data required.

Just gut.

So it is primarily happening in the mornings.

We did ask the businesses, and they have varying levels of control.

Sometimes their delivery is supposed to show up at three and it shows up at 10.

Three a.m.

It shows up at 10.

So it's primarily early morning, correct?

But ending commercial.

And commercial.

So commercial loading restrictions at 5 p.m.

is really for commercial trucks, not for food delivery pickup.

Correct.

Yes.

And my other question was, well, as long as Matt raised the two versus three hours.

What data, what information and feedback have we received from the business community?

Because that was a large reason we did that was not about some magic data that we thought we were going to see in terms of when people were leaving leaving, but really from the businesses, particularly the restaurants.

Did they have any input?

I don't want to see us going down.

Uh the there's no recommendation to go down.

We've we only heard positive things about our three hour.

No one said oh, take it away.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

I've heard some feedback from business owners that when it's you know busy peak times and they're loading and unloading that um you know they might wind up getting a ticket uh and it's like they're just trying to load and unload in their own uh business because maybe those spaces aren't available.

Have we considered um like a pass or something like that that uh a business owner could put in their window and might give them some additional privileges as far as loading and unloading go?

Yeah, so it's something we considered um and looked into, and in speaking with our parking enforcement officers, um they were they were saying that business owners and even DoorDash drivers, they can register their vehicle as a commercial vehicle and be entitled to use those spaces.

So it's maybe it's just an educational component, but it's when you register your vehicle, you can register a commercial, and you as a business owner can use those spaces to load and unload.

Specifically when there's um like festivals or art and wine, things like that, um and uh the owners maybe don't have as easy access to their their business.

Is that something that was addressed?

I know there's um that's been a comment.

Okay, yeah, I know for where we do have kind of those street festivals and we do have closures leading up to the event, um, like uh usually we have our police officers that guard kind of the entries, and there is ingress and egress allowed for those type of deliveries.

So if there's maybe a specific like location, it'd be good to know.

And then if the uh the food delivery folks, if we move these locations, will their app their apps tell them where these locations are that they're supposed to park if we take it off the main way, or they're not gonna know they're there and they're just gonna drive up in front of the restaurant.

And that's one of the challenges and what many other agencies are facing is they they just know where the restaurant is and where the hotspot is.

Um speaking with uh Park Smart, they've tried to kind of reach out about these hot spots because some of their lots are used as well, and it's it's they're they're not having any luck in coordinating those spots.

But that's on our list of things to do is to try to direct people to where the spots might be when they're when they're coming in, what on like a Google Maps or something, or what what is that technology that they're gonna use to find where the parking is?

Yeah, so um within like our current day technology, think about Google Maps.

So, as part of this effort back in November before the Christmas holiday, staff inputted a bunch of information about parking lots.

Um, if it wasn't already in Google Maps, we said how many spaces there were, what's the rate to charge?

Um, so when people or delivery drivers do look at Walnut Creek, they can look for that.

Um, as technology moves forward, there's this thing called a curb data specification, it's like a specific coding that as part of MTC's program the city had to code.

So we have that information and as delivery apps or these commercial um ways to reserve commercial spaces as those technologies advance, we have that curved data ready for them, and it can send them to these spaces.

So we're ready, it's just not there yet.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Okay.

Do people have information needs on loading in curbside or any of these options as being uh far less desirable than they currently see it um well I'll I'll just go through because I think this is probably gonna be the easiest way at least we can quickly get it done.

I love the idea of adjusting the 15-minute curbside pickup and adding meters in there um council member Francois I hear what you're saying on that it's easy you don't have to worry about your credit card but I look at this as um it's it's very difficult to manage if there isn't a meter and I think that it just lends people to abuse the system so I would I'd like to if they're just literally picking something up 10 minutes have a meter I mean it's 10 you know that's the we have but I've seen personally when I've gone around when I've gone into a restaurant for example I come out after lunch same car is there.

So I don't know how the parking enforcement works on that stuff but I'm in favor of meter ending commercial loading restrictions at 5 p.m makes sense to me moving zones away from busiest spots makes sense staging area that is gonna be the challenge um to do something like that it's that would be hard to do but I like the idea and uh I'm not as crazy about the digital platform for reserving curbside loading spots I just think that's gonna be a huge learning curve and very sporadically used.

So I prefer to put the investments into the other ones.

Other input councilmember Silva I would agree with the comments from the mayor pro tem and um being downtown on foot most mornings there are a lot of trucks around and they're parking anywhere and everywhere and you know that but at 7 a.m in particular to in order to offload the food for the day in a restaurant etc.

So we have to be mindful of that but I think there's a way to balance this and I am not so hot on the application either I think it's technology that's way we'd be way a 10 years from now the technology is probably ready and I know I'm exaggerating but okay thank you.

I think they captured it for me.

You know I there's some technological challenges to the staging and to the reserving the the spaces but I am okay I'm comfortable including things in here that require new technology so why don't we go to the next recommendation which is the merchant parking any clarifications or questions here?

I have a clarification question.

Councilmember Silva I think I'm interpreting this correctly this is not parking this is not creating a special parking lot for a certain business.

What it's saying is for these shared spaces they can work with the property owner of this of the parking lot to acquire spaces for their employees to park in correct okay thank you.

Councilmember DeFiny so we're we're making that connection are we also connecting them with city parking lots by the increasing in number of permits or what so yeah there's there's two recommendations here one is what um council member silva mentioned and then the second one is from the city management of city asset looking at our own monthly permit program and then something we give out to businesses that need parking we have that that program yeah we have to give it to them I mean yes poorly worded yes yeah so we currently have 600 permits across three garages they're fifty dollars a month and they're in incredibly high demand with a wait list of over a year for business owners to get one of these permits so when you say reevaluate the monthly parking program are we talking about increasing the costs?

That could be that could be part of it it.

It's really who has the permits reaching out to them.

Are they still using this, or is that just an annual refresher that they're doing?

Maybe there's a better way to to roll it out uh doing it, what business gets one, just taking a larger uh a grand view of what's happening and is that best for our downtown.

So really the that reevaluate is like we're gonna do a deep data dive specifically into our garages.

Okay, I'm all for expanding participation.

I just it seems like if the they're parking in garages that are underutilized, which is what I understand to be the case, that's the behavior we're trying to promote and encourage.

So it makes sense to me that we would reach out who's actually using these, let's refresh our list, let's make sure all the restaurants know about it.

But I wouldn't be as inclined to increase the cost of that if we're trying to encourage that behavior.

It and in fact, uh my take on it was we should make sure we look at increasing the number that are available for those underutilized garages, those are people that are parking other places.

And if we could get them into the underutilized garages by just going through our wait list and saying you get a permit and you get a permit, you get a permit.

Well, you know, will we see something there?

Correct.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it would also be prudent to figure out not who by name, but the type of user in the garages.

I think these are 40-hour a week daily office workers primarily, where the people that are scrambling for parking are hourly workers who work shifts.

Maybe they work a morning in Concord and an afternoon, evening shift in Walnut Creek, and they are running close to the um close to deadline to making it to work on time.

So those parking, I think calling them garages, there are parking lots that could be used as well that are close to um closer to the establishment where the people need to get to work very quickly.

And um Park Smart was using the CVS lot for that purpose about eight years ago before COVID.

Everything's before COVID, BC.

Um, but BC, they were successfully being able to sell those spaces, and it's not a monthly because some of those employees are only coming in once a week at a certain shift in certain places.

So it's helping them be on time and not have to run off the job to feed the meters.

Okay.

I think Councilmember Definitely had something.

Yeah, and along that line, if we're not seeing high utilization of the purple meters, have we considered selling a permit to park in purple meters?

Yeah, that's something we've looked at as well.

Is um other agencies have uh done residential permits, residential areas as well.

So yeah, there's there's a couple tools in our toolbox that we'd be looking at under these umbrellas.

I would be an advocate for something like or support that one.

Okay, more on merchants?

I think these are great ideas.

I think you guys have captured it and figuring out how to get people into those underutilized garages and keeping people from stressing out and running out and plugging their meter every three hours.

Let's um move on to transit and pedestrian spaces.

Um, go ahead.

Signage, yes.

We talked about this 10 years ago when I was on transportation commission, and we still are waiting for this.

So I love the idea of signage on some of the corners downtown, directing people to where their open garages and places to park.

Um I am very skeptical of people.

Well, first of all, we say don't don't drive and be on your cell phone, right, Captain Slater?

So people to be on on their app trying to find a parking space makes no sense to me anyway.

They're gonna hit somebody or another car.

But I love the idea of signage on the corners.

I love the idea of signage in the garages.

I mean, Broadway Plaza has done it right, I think, not just the red and the green lights, but you go in there and you can see immediately where there are spaces.

There's one space on the first floor.

I can tell you that right now.

And then there's 50 on the second and a hundred on the third, and etc.

So I I would love to see those kind of improvements in our own city garages.

And uh and some of the private garages like Cinemark, for example, where it just says open.

And I this has been a pet peeve of mine for over ten years that they used to have a number on that way back when the garage first opened, I don't know, f 20 years ago, and now it just says open.

Well, if it's full, like on a Saturday night or a Sunday afternoon, that would be really helpful for drivers to know.

So not circling around in, then they're encircling on on the way back.

So any kind of improvement signage, I am all for.

Do I have to clarify that anymore or uh has that gotten point gotten across?

Okay.

Uh everything else you talk about here, uh I like the idea.

I do have a question on the expanding street closures.

I don't know if you're talking about permanent or and if it's permanent.

We just went through this a few years ago, and I think Smidar mentioned the traffic patterns downtown just go out the window, really causes problems.

But if it's temporary for different types of events or on weekends, I think that's an interesting look at.

Yeah, thank you for clarifying.

Yes, this is for farmers' markets, you know, maybe expanding it.

It's it's for those temporary street closures.

Thank you, because that was my question as well.

What street closures?

Other I did have.

Councilmember Silva.

So just to clarify, are you intending to talk to County Connection about moving bus stops?

Because that's an arduous negotiated process.

So it's more about them reaching out to us.

They they as the operators set the routes and overview that.

So they've been reaching out to us about possible stop relocations, and we've been coordinating with them.

It's like, oh, if that spot's not great, let's you know, let's look at this one instead.

And in terms of wayfinding, I've been in numerous cities around the country where they have, like they do at Broadway Plaza, they have digital signage on the sidewalk, which is not for drivers because you can't read it from the street, but it's for the pedestrians for wayfinding purposes, and I think us looking into that with a vendor, there's an opportunity to make those very effective, both for finding parking garages, finding bicycle parking, finding restrooms that are available to the public or whatever it might be, but I don't think we should ignore it as an opportunity.

And there's a way for there are companies that do it, and they use sponsorships in order to help pay fund it.

I agree with the mayor pro tem.

I I'm uh interested in kind of temporary street closures for things, especially community building events.

Like we had Los Lomas did their uh homecoming rally and mock rock downtown a couple of years ago.

And I I'd like to see both high schools be able to do that and have more events like that on a temporary basis downtown.

I brought a lot of people to the restaurants and shops.

And then a thought, and I know that you can do this with private garages, uh, the spot hero and reserve a space.

Is it a can we expand or look into whether we can do that with our public garages?

I think, you know, if I knew that I had a spot and I knew where to park, and I go right exactly to that's that space, I'm more inclined to come downtown.

And I I do just will make a plug for the the South Broadway garage because it's it's literally one to two blocks away from all the restaurants that people want to go to.

It's very convenient.

And I think it would be an added benefit if that technology existed to reserve the space in advance if you needed to.

Councilmember DeFini.

I guess uh I might be um a bit of an outlier on this one, but I I really like the street uh closures, both you know, if we can find permanent uh spots um as well as um doing the temporary ones more frequently for more uh like for more uh activities activating this those spaces.

So um it might not be something we can do immediately, but sort of looking long term are there are the ways we can manage traffic flow and still uh increase uh pedestrian use downtown.

And I'll weigh in on the you know, back on planning commission, we always would require the counters, and we finally realized we better require the counters and require them to be maintained because I've I have gone to the top of the South Locust Garage and not been able to find that last third spot that's somewhere in that building.

Um so I'm big on that.

I like Councilmember Definitely, I do want to keep open the discussion about street closures long term.

I know it is a very difficult topic, and I know you get very mixed reactions from the um businesses because some benefit from it, others do not, and um, but I I do want to keep the topic as a potential because I do know that going to cities where they they have done that, it has really changed the character of the streets.

Um, just closing Broadway Plaza Drive has really changed the character of that street.

It obviously has all kinds of repercussions with um loss of revenue and stuff like that.

Um so those are my takes.

I think we're pretty good on this one.

So let's do traffic safety and DUIs.

Anybody have any clarifications here on this one?

Or strong opinions, things you want to see when this comes back to us, or is this one just mom and apple pie?

I mean, I I need more specifics, I think, when I see actual plan.

This is kind of general, I'd be interested to see how it looked when it comes to fruition.

Councilmember Francois, you're pulling with everybody.

I mean, I think the ride-sharing apps are pretty well established, and and most people are pretty comfortable using them.

I'm not sure exactly how effective it would be.

Uh uh incentives I I mean could change behavior, but uh I mean I guess I see it more for seniors and people with mobility challenges.

Uh and the safety improvements obviously sound like a great idea.

Councilmember Silver.

Thank you very much for the creative ideas here.

I think we have to think both the arrival and the departure.

If you're looking at how to curb DUIs, it's usually a spot assessment at the time that the patron is leaving that perhaps they need help.

The other half of that question is where's their car?

They and so we end up in a two-part management process.

Cars getting locked up, cars, etc.

So don't forget however they arrived may be part of the problem too, and we'd have to manage that.

This one is such motherhood in Apple Pie.

We're good.

Let's talk bike facilities, those are fun.

Clarifications, questions.

Um, I uh I guess the thing that really stuck out to me was that probably the biggest conversation going on in the city right now are e-bikes and the problems with e-bikes and speeding and going through the wrong way and stop signs, the whole thing that we've been hearing about.

So now to add electric charging areas downtown feels like mixed messaging here.

Um I think a lot of us would like to see electric the electric bikes and scooters not downtown.

So um well, I don't know.

Then we have another problem, but uh so I'm not so sure about that one, but I do like the fact that corners that there are uh places that people can put their bikes and just the bike racks.

I think that makes sense, the scooter racks and uh and I'm certainly open to that.

Other things here seem a little bit like um uh hopeful, like a staffed bike repair station, or um, or some of the different uh different devices.

It sounds like apps could somewhere be used in here, but uh that's the thing that stuck out to me was the electric bike charging.

Yeah, and let me I guess uh do further clarification.

So the electric charging for vehicle or for bicycles, uh it's it's a lot, it's a huge um financial cost, and so it'd be something that would be opportunistic and implemented along with say the enhanced network.

So it's imagine these uh these bikes, these cargo bikes, family bikes, some bikes that just happen to be electric on a facility that they're intended to be on, and it's right now downtown doesn't really have any.

So it's like that's kind of where we're seeing this user conflict where it's if we can provide a facility for them, they'll be they will be there.

Councilmember Francois?

Yeah, I I think the the primary kind of issue or concern here seems the the secure bike parking.

I mean, I think people would bring their bike downtown if there were bike lockers or a safe place to store it.

And we are trying to encourage the behavior so I understand how electric charging goes along with that and then we're also trying to encourage people not to ride these things on sidewalks which is the second column there but I'm I'm a little hesitant to take a travel lane out of commission or a parking lane out of commission to accommodate a dedicated bike lane in the downtown area.

I think it it's it's challenging especially in the core with we don't have a lot of width and the width that we have is being used by people driving or parking.

Yeah and um so in this implementation part this that that line item we have the timeline with a green and a red and the same thing with the funding so we already have a couple um bike facilities already funded and planned and that includes Newell Newell Avenue we have our North Broadway road diet we secured funding for parkside a park side cycle track and arroyo some of these other segments where say our bike and pet plan doesn't call out bike facilities we we fully acknowledge that and that's something that can be reviewed as part of the general plan.

That's helpful.

Thank you.

And my clarification on this one is when we did the West Downtown plan we talked a lot about you know I'm assuming that the biggest problem with bikes is not once they're downtown it's getting them downtown.

And so in the West Downtown plan we spent a lot of time looking at the different streets and talking about what you could do with each of the different streets that were in that plan is the assumption here that where we have already done the work and come up with a schematic for a street that it's really just a make a way of going out and finding a way to to make that bring that vision to life.

Yeah correct and that's something just operationally that staff does as grants come up it's what's a great project that you know what's a great project that would be perfect for this grant yeah yeah and I think the other thing I I know the e-bike question right now is very stressful because we're seeing a lot of poor behavior um I would like to see it um finding ways to make micromobility more viable by both and you know educating the users on safe use and making it easier to use them safely because um while the current crop is a problem we do want people to switch over and use e-bikes to get downtown but we want them to not run anybody over and to wear their helmets and a few things like that.

So stressing both education as well as making the street safer making the operators safer and making the street safer I think would be something I'd want to see um I am not a big fan of staffed bike repair stations.

I've seen ones in different cities and I've never seen one that had any to make something like that work you would need a full-time staff person there.

And I all the ones I've ever seen have been in very poor repair and so I'm not a huge fan of that one.

You'd have to really work hard to convince me that that's viable.

Council Mr Silva So with regard to the e-bikes I think we need to make sure that we our implementation plan on this reflects what's happening at the state level hopefully so that we're all have the same set of rules for the road otherwise we're gonna have road rules signs all over different communities with different messages and that's not going to make riding a bicycle easier or pedestrian walking on the same streets.

I laughed because I was trying to think of what city I've been in that could use a bike repair station.

Amsterdam.

Yeah.

They're at a whole different level.

They're at a whole different level.

You take your hands, your life in your hands when you're walking on the streets of Amsterdam.

It's lovely, but um and I think if we have to have consistent style of bike lanes and paths, that the ones that you use to get to downtown and the ones that you're using in downtown somehow seem to be in the same network, and because you don't want to have to stop at every corner and go, okay, what are the rules here?

Do I have to watch for cars pulling out?

Even if you think about Locust Street versus Main Street, it is a different driving experience and parking experience versus the angled diagonal parking versus and if you could do what they do in Seattle, which is you have to back into angled parking spaces so that when they are coming out, it is safer for all of the other users of the road.

Hard to park that way, but they did that intentionally.

So anything else?

Yeah.

Bikes.

Um I think um to uh council member Silva's point, having fewer but more robust um bike lanes that do have some curb or protection.

Um they don't even necessarily have to go all the way into downtown, but just some way to to get to the periphery and then maybe utilizing our uh parking structures to have um like e-bike charging or uh parking in those structures and sort of um I I think that they're they're they're here and they're they're gonna continue to to grow.

I think all these mobilities, whether it's the scooter or the uh the bike, and so trying to get dedicated lanes that take people to designated areas where they can um charge and store and then walk into the downtown for the time being.

Um, now we get to talk about parking meters, and I can shuffle back to the other slide if you prefer.

Councilmember Silva.

I'll go first.

Um the wayfinding I think is important.

I think we don't have a um we I think we should be looking less at raising rates and more at marketing and telling people that the garages are there and that they're good and they're you don't have to worry about feeding the meter, etc.

And free for the first hour.

We've lost since COVID, we were we needed people to come downtown no matter, and we didn't care where they parked.

Now we care more get back again about where they park, and that's so I think we've lost let's try to market our way to the solution, not penalize our way to the solution because when people they'll pay that extra dollar per hour and then they'll complain about us on next door, and people will they will not come downtown and park in a garage after getting a ticket.

They're going to go to Lafayette or Danville just to punish us.

It's the behavior, personal behavior.

So that's my um thinking on that.

And I think we need to be, I think our hours of operation were very carefully thought through.

I think extending hours beyond eight, most of the market who is here to buy a dinner can get in and is is paying the rate.

I'm not quite sure what's happening after eight o'clock, that needs a meter.

Yeah, so we we do have some restaurants that are open until later, nine or ten, and it's it's getting those additional seatings into there.

So it's I think that's going to be perceived as a as a m money grab.

So uh I completely agree with just about everything that council member Silva said.

Uh we've gone through these things with a fine-tooth comb.

Uh we know exactly what is said about Walnut Creek as soon as we raise rates by a quarter, and uh whether or not they they get a ticket.

Um I don't think that we're marketing the free hour in the garage as well as we could.

I think people are surprised when they get in there, but a lot of people aren't looking there first, so uh I would love to see more more um pushing that out as well.

Uh I also think, and I can't remember right now what a meter looks like on on the pole of it, but if it doesn't say in operation seven days a week, we are shooting ourselves in the foot because the most of the complaints that come in with uh about parking meters where people get a ticket is you're the only city that does this on the charges on Sundays.

Not true.

I was just in Mill Valley, they charge on Sundays.

So there are cities that do that, but I think that we really need to let people know as they pull in, operate seven days a week so that we don't have that headache afterwards.

Uh, but I do think that our hours are good.

I um I think that we just need to get people directed in the garages more, and you're absolutely right.

I mean, those of us that sat here during COVID, it was like come downtown and park for free anywhere you want.

Middle of the road.

We don't care.

Um, the other thing is the meters are hard to read.

Sometimes I have to walk up and help people read the the way it is because of the solar panel on top and it's glare and light.

I don't know how to fix it.

Well, we've got to figure out so to clarify it's it's the actual screen and less about the directions, or is it both?

A uh a usability challenge.

I think it depends.

I haven't done that kind of research.

Yeah, that might be a good thing to have um some testing done.

I know my husband didn't understand about the check mark for the longest time.

He's like he couldn't get from step A to step.

We just press the check mark that yeah, that's what you want.

Um, but but just you know, we would learn a lot just by having some test cases there.

Um, one of the other things that I was gonna look for when we come back to this is um we've talked a little bit about the elasticity of the pricing on the meters, and I do think that there are people in Walnut Creek who you could make it five dollars every half hour, they would pay it, but then they would complain on next door that so if we can look back at our historical record and say when we have increased the price of the meters or change the operation, has it changed behavior?

Because I have a sneaking suspicion parking meters are the salt of Walnut Creek.

You it doesn't matter.

I mean, other than wanting to complain about it.

Um, but I also would like to see one of the things that is wonderful about the Broadway Plaza new garage, and they had a big discussion about this when it first went in, was how long should you be able to park for free?

And they were originally looking at a shorter time period, and they heard from people, no, no, no, we want to be able to park for three hours.

How we should be we should look at whether or not increasing the is it one hour free or two hours free?

Because a lot of times when I go downtown going to get my nails done, go pick up a couple errands, I end up paying the dollar twenty-five.

And it's like, oh shoot, I was 10 minutes over.

Um, sorry about the garages.

The garages, yeah.

Looking at the garages and seeing if if looking at whether or not a two-hour free window would a well advertised two hour free window would um drive people into those garages.

I think a lot of people don't realize that they're free even for one hour, but maybe it'll also understand garages.

Oh, not not the South Locust Garage.

Yeah, and maybe understand how that would impact us financially and and the management of it and the maintenance and everything.

That's clearly something we'd have to look at, but it's you know it's something that if it if it changes behavior and we get more people into the garage, you know, maybe we're meeting our goal.

Yeah, I just agree with my colleagues in terms of the rates and the hours.

Uh not only because of the negative feedback, I think we're already dealing with seven days a week of enforcement and people feel like that's a lot.

I and San Francisco doesn't do it.

I think Lafayette doesn't do it.

There are other cities, I mean Danville, I don't even think has many meters.

So I mean, I I want to be sensitive to that issue too, and I asked the thing about going from two to three, and if that I'd like to see the data on that, like if there we were going to make an adjustment, maybe it'd be interesting to look at that data again.

But I like generally the approach council member Silva laid out with promoting encouraging other behavior versus penalizing uh parking at the meter.

There are areas in San Francisco where it's seven days a week around Pier 39, those areas.

So uh it's not unusual.

And as we've heard from Park Smart many times.

Uh Sundays are just busy as every other day, and it's primarily it's the restaurants because a restaurant will have 15 to 25 employees or big or more in a retail establishment will have two or three.

So when people come up and ask to me, ask me when we're at the farmers market, why are you charging for parking on Sundays?

And I said, So where would you park?

Well, I'd be able to park right in front.

I go, nope, because the employee gets there first.

Right, right, right.

Yeah.

We can we can all talk about it.

Look at me and go, uh we're a little sensitive.

We've had these conversations in our sleep, right?

Anything else?

I think one of the cooler things that that's uh got a green check mark on it as far as having funding is the enhanced wayfinding to direct visitors to garages, and I think that's what you're referring to as well, like maybe app-based to to do that.

Like you're monitoring the the parking garages and the different areas that are how how does that get rolled out?

I didn't get clarity on that.

So the that that one with the funding enhanced wayfinding, it's it's about the signage paired with technology.

So yeah, we do have a grant funding pot that can use the technology, like maybe at each corner to your uh point about like uh having like one-stop shop give information for multiple locations.

We have funding for that type of a wayfinding sign program.

Yeah.

All right.

Anything else about meters?

Yeah, I I really want to see, I would echo what my council member, fellow council members have said, I want to see an increase in parking fees be a very lower priority, and you'd need to make a strong business case that the price elasticity is not gonna make it irrelevant.

Um, so um but overall you guys are you've done a great job, you've thought of a lot of things.

There's a lot of work that's gone into this, and we really appreciate it.

Any other last-minute things?

Uh oh, Kevin has eaten his bubble off his microphone.

Um, so this is when is what's the timing on this coming back to us?

So timing-wise, the the grant requirement is to have a plan done by fall.

So we're using that as we're gonna take all the input that you received, we'll update the draft accordingly, get to transportation as soon as possible, get to you all as soon as possible.

That's the plan, but fall 2025.

Fall usually ends in December.

I was gonna say December 22nd is when fall has we always say December 15th because otherwise people start thinking crazy things.

But anyway.

So it's not at the end of October.

Yeah, all right.

Well, thank you guys.

I think um hopefully our input has been helpful for you, and um you guys have a lot to go back and chew on and think about, and um we look forward to seeing it in the fall of 2025.

Thank you.

Oh, is there any public comment?

Did we already do that?

Okay, we've turned it over to the council for discussion, and with that, we are adjourned until we come back for our regular meeting.

And where is food?

Good evening.

I'm Sydney Darling, mayor of the city of Walnut Creek, and welcome to the regular meeting of the Walnut Creek City Council.

The city council is conducting this meeting from the city council chamber.

This meeting is being video streamed and can be viewed live or later on the city's website.

As some attendees may be participating in their first Walnut Creek City Council meeting, I wanted to welcome everyone and talk briefly about the public comment process.

For each agenda item, there will be an opportunity for public comment on that item.

Thus, if you desire to speak to an item on the agenda this evening, please hold your comments until the city council considers that item.

Additionally, we have a section on the agenda titled Public Communications, which is for public comments for items not on the agenda.

Any comments during public communication should not relate to an item that is on the agenda this evening.

Consistent with section 9.5 of the city council handbook.

30 minutes will be initially allocated for public communication for items not on the agenda.

Additional time for public communications for items not on the agenda will be provided at the end of the open session portion of the meeting if necessary.

If you desire to provide a public comment, please complete a speaker identification card and line up behind the lectern at the appropriate time.

Wait your turn, and then when you approach the lectern, please state your name, City of Residence for the record.

You will have two minutes to address the city council.

Please keep in mind that this is a city business meeting.

The City Council has adopted rules of decorum to ensure that meetings are conducted efficiently and effectively, and that all members of the public have a full, fair, and equal opportunity to be heard.

The City Council handbook outlines decorum expected in the council chamber and can be found on our website.

All remarks should be addressed to the City Council.

Please do not use threatening, profane, or abusive language, which disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of the council meeting.

Again, each speaker will have two minutes to make your remarks.

Written comments submitted and received up to two hours before the meeting have been posted to the city website for public review and are included in the meeting record, but will not be separately read into the record.

Alright, you know, I'm waiting for my Oscar on that one.

Um good evening.

I am Cindy Darling, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek, and welcome to the Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025 regular meeting of the City Council.

Please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

One nation under the individual liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

City Clerk Susie Martinez, would you please call the roll?

Councilmember DeVini.

Here.

Councilmember Francois.

Here.

Councilmember Silva.

Here.

Mayor Pro Temwell.

Here.

And Mayor Darling.

Here.

All right.

At this time, we're going to be doing a proclamation on disaster preparedness.

And this is something it is emergency preparedness month, and it's a great opportunity for us all to think about what our plan is and what we can do to be ready.

We as a community are committed to emergency response.

We have some tremendous volunteers here that will call up in a minute to accept the proclamation.

But in the case of an emergency, it really is going to be residents helping their fellow residents, looking out for your neighbors, and making sure that everybody comes through this safely and together.

We promote public awareness, we educate about how to prepare your home, and it's incumbent on all of us to sit down with the resources and make sure we have our go bag.

We know what our plan is.

We know what not just our plan A but our plan B and maybe even a plan C, because you that's the thing with emergencies, you can just never tell.

Anyway, some of our local volunteers with the CERT, I would like to call up Don Prosnitz and Mark Peters to accept this proclamation and share a little of the information about CERT with us tonight.

Well, thank you for inviting us today.

It's an important month.

I thought I'd mention one or two things about CERT.

CERT started in 1985 in Los Angeles.

People there learned some lessons from what had happened in subsequent earthquakes in Mexico City and a number of other places that had a lot of volunteers.

Untrained volunteers.

Which resulted in probably not as efficient use, and some of the volunteers also got hurt.

So it was not a very wasn't as best situation.

So they started training their volunteers.

A few years later, FEMA picked up the program, and that's where it sits today.

It's an official program.

So it's an official program.

Sir today still serves the same function.

As we all know in an emergency, the first 24-48 hours are critical.

And these days it's not clear when we're going to get help from other places.

So it's the local volunteers that are going to be there first.

We hope, depending on what happens, uh situational awareness.

We'll survey the city.

We have communications to provide that back to the EOC.

Uh basic first aid, that's all we're trained for, and that's what we can what we can do.

Uh communications.

Uh in Walnut Creek, we certainly want to very robust emergency communication system that's based on amateur radio.

It'll work in the absence of anything else.

Once other help arrives, the CERT folks will turn into volunteers at uh at shelters, and to support the Red Cross, who I guess is not here today.

I guess not, but that's that's sort of the our function once once things settle down.

And in Walnut Creek, we've also um supported the police department and uh searching for missing people, missing persons, and we've helped uh Rich, who's I guess sitting behind me here with uh sandbagging.

So there's a number of other uh services that this art folks can provide.

So we're happy to be here.

Our volunteers love the city and uh we hope we can keep doing the work.

Hello, and thank you for having us this evening.

I I'll be very brief because Donna's given a very good summary.

Thank you for this proclamation.

Um I'll just let you know that I uh joined CERT in uh the fall of two thousand uh seventeen.

At that time, my son was uh in training to become a firefighter, and one of the courses that he had to go through was CERT, and he said, Dad, you should do this, you're gonna love this.

Well, he he was right.

He I think he's now a paramedic firefighter in the city of Fremont.

So um I did that.

I took many, many courses.

I worked with a number of very amazing dedicated people here in the city.

We we m you know march through the muck and sometimes we find ourselves in places where we didn't want to be, but it's for the purpose of training, we do what we need to do.

I think the most interesting time you may not like this was when I found myself on the roof of your public works building.

But I I had good reason to be up there.

Anyway, anyway, we knew about it.

You know about that.

Um, we feel very committed to what we do, and we ask that you help us so that we can help you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I wanted to enter or share this with you guys, and thank you both for what you do.

It's an honor to be here.

And invite my fellow council members up to do the picture thing.

The photo op.

It's picture thing time.

Thank you.

And that's very timely for us because we lost our go bag this week when the washing machine power uh water line broke and sprayed the entire cabinet.

And I opened up the drawer where the the kit is.

I thought, oh, there's an inch of water all over everything.

So we need to go work on that.

Now, next on the agenda is the consent calendar.

Does any council member wish to pull any item for discussion?

And does any staff member need to pull an item?

Seeing nobody pulling anything.

Does any member of the public wish to comment on an item on the consent calendar?

As a reminder, each speaker will have two minutes for the consent calendar to make their remarks.

Written comments submitted have been posted to the city's website for public review and are included in the meeting record, but will not be separately read.

So hi, good evening, Jan Warren.

I can't figure out.

I think it's maybe I on the consent having to do with the pension.

I can't find it on my phone.

Just wanted to uh comment about um our good track record of uh making sure our pension fund is uh fully up and ready to help people when they retire.

And I I did the you know review on it and saw the the years that we had last put in, and I remember the whole spiel about we needed to do this because we were gonna be, you know, it was gonna be a tough six or seven years with the budget.

Um, and so I was just curious how we are percentage-wise in terms of our percentage of how funded we are with our employees.

Thank you.

Anyone else for public comment?

I think what um Jan, what we can do is we can get you the number.

I've got the number somewhere, but it's not at the top of my brain.

But we'll get to we are we are doing well with our pension, and that's item two J was the one that you're commenting on.

Yeah, all right.

Seeing no additional public comment, um, does a member of the council want to make a motion?

Move move to approve the consent calendar items two A through two J.

Second.

All right, roll call, please.

Mayor Protumwell.

I.

Councilmember Silva.

Aye, Councilmember Davinny, Councilmember Francois, Mayor Darling.

Aye, motion carries.

All right.

Next on the agenda is public communications.

This portion of the meeting is reserved for comment on items not on the agenda under the Brown Act.

The council cannot act on items raised during public communications, but may respond briefly to statements made or questions posed.

We can request clarification or refer the item to staff.

Consistent with section 9.5 of the city council handbook.

30 minutes will be allocated this time for public communication.

And for items not on the agenda.

Additional time for public communication will be at the end of the meeting if necessary.

Written comments submitted have been posted to the city's website for public review and are included in the meeting record, but will not be read separately into the record.

At this time, it is 6.12, and so we will go now till 6.

I can do the math, 6 42.

So anybody that would like to address us for public comment, please step up and um take your turn.

Everybody gets two minutes.

Hi, Jan.

Hello again.

Uh 40 year resident of uh the woodlands.

I see my buddy Barbara out here probably come up here to speak too.

I went out to look uh and see who uh had sent public comments and here it all is.

I haven't seen one of these signs yet, they look great, and I haven't gotten my um nutcracker or so uh I haven't gotten the updates on all this stuff, but I am aware of the confusion with all the different kinds of bikes and all the scooters and all the the kids that are uh uh I don't know, chasing each other going through stop signs coming from Northgate.

And so it's not just a matter of educating the kids.

We really need to educate the adults because the adults don't know what's allowed where either.

And unfortunately, you get some people who are being dismissive of young people sometimes, and they know more than the person who's calling them out.

So I just think just a general good, you know.

We used to do um trainings at the the police would do trainings at the schools.

I don't know where you're gonna train all the rest of us, but uh maybe videos or some night out when we're all uh out to see a movie and you put it up there first.

I don't know, but uh be creative because we could all use the education.

Thanks.

Thank you, hello.

My name is Barbara Guinness, and I've been a resident since 1996.

My comments are similar to what Jan just talked about.

I got the fall uh nutshell newsletter, and I saw the police department launched a comp campaign to improve e-bike safety.

And I want to thank the police department for doing that and for anybody else that's involved with it.

Uh over the past few weeks, I've observed the posting of the ride safely signs, which maybe Jan just showed you on the Natio Canal Trail and also at the entrances to our open spaces.

So it makes me wonder, and other people have asked me, does this mean the police department?

Because it has a police logo on it, will begin enforcing the municipal codes in the open spaces question.

Uh and also the ride safely signed uh points to a website which has a lot of e-bike information.

And we all know our valuable open spaces have been inundated with mountain bikes, e-bikes, and other e-vehicles.

We all know our parks and open spaces are regulated by municipal codes that I have listed in my email that I submitted.

Uh, and they do not allow the usage of e-bikes and e-vehicles.

So, although um, but the ride safely sign being posted at an open space entrances, outlines class one and two bikes as allowed on bike trails and class three as allowed on bike routes, not bike paths.

So, with this ride safely sign prominently posted at open space entrances.

You can be assured that the e-bike riders will look at this and see oh, allowed on bike trails and bike paths in the open spaces, and there they go.

So, um I have some suggestions on how we may change the website.

You don't have to change the sign, and you can look at my email if you'd like to know that.

I know this is a complicated situation, and it's wonderful that the police in the city are taking this issue seriously.

Thank you, Barb.

Okay, thank you.

All right, any additional public comment?

Step on up.

My name is Julia Maxwell.

I own the house behind the library.

I come here way ahead of the fact.

I'm gonna be 87 a week from today, but I want to talk about three years and one week from today when I turn 90.

Because my daughter's gonna want to pull out all the stops and have a huge party.

I have to submit myself to that.

But parking, we always used to have our parties on Sunday.

Free parking, no tickets.

Is there some way?

Who do I talk to ahead of time to get maybe 20 things to fit over parking meter to say four hours free parking and celebrate my 90th?

I guarantee you I'm gonna be here.

Who should I talk to?

We can um have somebody from staff reach out and talk about that because I know your daughter and I know.

There will be very fine China at this event too.

So, you know, we're ready for this.

Well, we've we've lived now in a fam as a family in that house six generations since 1933 to to talk about the stuff I need to do in Swedish death cleaning on that house.

Thank you very much.

I'll await some help.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Happy birthday.

And I'll tell your daughter to go easy on you.

Because sometimes daughters get a little excited.

Anyone else?

And um Captain Slater is in the back of the room, and you he might be able to step out with you.

Um that we are to the end of public comment.

And I missed flip the page and get to.

We are at um city attorney.

Any report outs from any closed section?

Uh no, there was no closed session and no reportable auction.

City manager.

Yeah, good evening, Dan Buckshire.

City manager.

Uh two things.

One, just a quick follow-up to Ms.

Warren's question about the pension and funded ratio.

It varies from day to day depending upon the status of the investments, but we're basically in the mid to high 70s in terms of percentage for funded ratio, just to close that out.

And then some of the public comments about e-bikes are well timed, as we know, we're receiving a lot of correspondence relative to e-bikes and for good reason.

There is a lot of concern about uh how they are being ridden in some instances, and whether it be on sidewalks and parking lots, on streets and trails, whatever the case may be.

A lot of folks who are just not observing appropriate behavior in terms of safety.

So, just a few updates I wanted to mention, similar to any other type of enforcement or PD does enforce e-bike or any bike riding, not just e-bike if uh for that matter.

There was a targeted enforcement event uh a couple weeks ago on August 23rd, similar to what our police department does for vehicle speeding.

They set up uh basically targeted enforcement.

They did this for e-bikes over a four-hour period, and uh effectively pulled over nine individuals, issued a citation, several warnings.

I believe one bike was impounded.

So I do want folks to know that enforcement is occurring.

Obviously, officers cannot be everywhere.

Uh I'm not sure people want officers on every street corner candidly.

Uh, might be a little different type of uh environment.

So keep that in mind.

But uh we are are targeting this.

It is a challenge.

Uh as your council is aware, and for public benefit, on October 16th, uh, we being city staff in the city here are planning to bring an update to your council on what's occurring.

As you can imagine, it's a discussion not only in cities in the region here in Contra Costa, but throughout the state and frankly throughout the country.

What we have is effectively a new technology that's creating disruption in terms of societal impacts and how to regulate appropriately, and what's occurring is there are a lot of considerations amongst different cities, amongst different counties about enacting new regulations, which frankly I don't think is a very good way to go about it if we have different regulations in each city.

Can you imagine riding your bike or if it were a vehicle of similar instance, you cross the city line and the regulations are different?

In order to help address that, the state legislature back in 2023 did enact SB 381, which had directed a study be done.

The Maneta Institute at San Jose State University is due to complete the study by the end of this calendar year.

I've heard it's due to be released to the legislature in October.

The idea being they'll receive that information.

The study is targeted on e-bike safety uh particularly.

Hopefully, we'll see some statewide legislation come out because that is the best approach for addressing this, possibly being um taken up during the 2026 legislative cycle, put into law to take effect either in 26 or at the beginning of 27.

But a lot between here and there.

The studies due out in about a month or certainly no later than about three months from now.

In the meantime, we'll provide an update to your council and obviously to the community on what city won, what the city of Walnut Creek is doing, what we're looking at regionally, what other cities are doing, so that we can continue to address this challenge.

Thank you.

And now we'll turn to Michael.

Go ahead.

A question.

Sure.

When we get our update in October, and I appreciate that truly, I do.

This is coming up everywhere.

Um will it cover speed limits, safety measures, where they can ride, where they can't ride because what including even it's unclear because the state didn't regulate it.

Yes, we will be addressing those types of issues as well.

That's very helpful because you don't know what how to answer it.

Yeah, and to add to it the risk of going into too much detail.

It's not always easy to tell what type of bike it is from a distance, and there are different regulations for the different uh classifications of bikes, which adds to the challenge, and we'll speak to that as well.

Okay, thank you.

We're gonna have fun time in October.

Um who wants to go first?

Um, Councilmember DeFinny, as far as nothing to report, you are, yeah.

Well, I mean, not a lot.

Uh it's it's been a few weeks, and uh it was the council break, and a lot of people were on vacation, but there were a couple of things.

One which uh the mayor and I hosted the KETA students who were out here for the week with their families and went to Northgate for a week and did a whole tour of Leisher Center and uh the police department and city hall, so uh that was great.

And uh the mayor hosted the you were the MC for the entire shebang, so great job.

And uh and and just great to see the enthusiasm of the families.

People may not remember they were supposed to come out a year ago, and there was a typhoon in Tokyo.

They canceled all the flights.

Nobody could rebook in time to come out here, and families on both sides of the Pacific were ready for them to come out, so it had been a couple of years.

Uh also, I guess I'm gonna take all of your stuff here.

The mayor, the mayor and I had a uh tour of the Heather Farm Project.

Of course, that's uh the big project that's coming up that's gonna be starting uh in a few months, and on uh well, actually, it's already started with the draining of the pond.

So thank you to Rich Payne, the uh director of public works, and just to see how great this is going to be, but also there's gonna be a significant impact to Heather Farm in the meantime.

We're gonna be getting more information on that and hopefully a lot of answers because I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of resident questions as soon as things start getting uh dug up.

And then lastly, I participated in the uh Contra Costa County Transit Authority Transportation Plan Focus Group, and this is for looking at how transportation everything from multimodal and uh some of the things we heard earlier in our study group of how we're going to see plans for biking paths in different areas throughout the county.

So a lot of good information.

There was a lot of elected officials and transportation officials that were there for this, and I think there's going to be a lot more outreach.

Uh but there is a lot of discussion throughout the county and state about how to improve transit in general, so more to follow on that.

Thank you.

Councilmember Silva.

Thank you very much.

Um, I will start by saying I think all five of us have had an opportunity to um take a tour of the Heather Farm um park.

We just can't do it together because otherwise it'd be violating the Brown Act or potentially, and it was very interesting, and I want to thank staff for the work that they're doing with the consulting team on getting this project up and running, and um, it's going to be very exciting.

At the August meeting of the board of directors of the Rossmore community, um, they had a number of questions about e-bikes, so thank you for the nutshell did its job and encouraged people to talk about it, but they are as as concerned as other members of the community, so thank you for what we're going to be doing on working on that.

The um the East Bay Regional Communications System Authority.

I am a member of the board of directors of that.

It is the East Bay Radio System, public safety radio system, and it represents all the agencies in the two counties of Alameda and Contra Costa.

I have been on this board for more than 10 years, probably closer to 12 or 15 years, and this will be my last meeting.

As this Thursday night, I am handing the reins over to a new member of the board representing us from Contra Costa County.

I will say that this Friday's meeting, we will be adopting more robust fiscal policies, kind of merging everything together, and also we will be asked to approve the funding to for the tower in Antioch on Walton Lane, which there's a gap in the coverage of the system in East County.

We've finally convinced Antioch to loan us their tower.

We'll provide the equipment, they've got our provide the structure, and it's been a long negotiation, but I know fire and emergency services and police will appreciate it and the communities themselves.

And I will um make an announcement that community service day this year is hosting for their fall event, a citywide community food drive.

It will be at the end of September, so everyone should mark their calendars.

There are opportunities to volunteer as well as to donate food.

The um week of September 22nd through 27th, people will be collecting distributing bags around neighborhoods and collecting food donations, and also there will be collection stations at our local schools and community facilities, and you can find all of that information on the city's website.

And then on Saturday, September 27th, we will be collecting food donations from shoppers at the seven grocery stores in Walnut Creek, the Four Safeways, the Lernardis, and the two Whole Foods.

And we do need volunteers to help and man those staff those stations.

And you can go to WWW dot walnut creek.

CA dot G-O-V, and click on the banner that's running across the top and find more information.

And hopefully everybody it will be a bang up job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And the importance of the food drive is especially present because hearing from Caitlin Sly, the director of the food bank, they are undergoing significant funding cuts because of the federal changes and are coming up way short.

So we don't want to leave people hungry.

And thank you for reminding me because I should mention it is the recipient of the food donations will be the food bank of Contra Costa and Solano counties.

Thank you.

Councilmember Francois.

Okay.

I was at the Farmers Market booth.

For those of you who don't know, each of us take a turn and staff the city council booth at the farmers market here in downtown on Sunday morning.

We're typically there from 10 to 12.

Former mayor Loella Haskew was there precisely from 10 to 12.

The rest of us kind of are there for two hours on or around 10 to 12.

And it's an opportunity for any member of the public to come up to a council member, say, Hey, I've got a concern, I noticed a broken bus shelter across from Safeway, or what's the status of the bike to school improvements over in the Larkey area.

And what's most helpful is if I can give you my card and you can email me, then I can actually get you the answer.

I I in real time I tend to email staff and I get answers typically by Monday morning, and it's nice to be able to get back to residents and let them know what the answer is.

Um along those lines, I wanted to thank Rich Payne, our public works director for for uh hosting us at a site visit at uh the community new the site of the new community center and pool.

It's still the currently our community center out at Heather Farm, and it it was interesting to be out there and to get a real sense of the scale of the project, and then also to see some of the um the natural improvements that have already been taken actually.

We part of the cement pond in front of the community center is getting a little smaller, but the natural pond is getting a lot bigger, and that work has already been done, and it's not open to the public yet, but the views are much more expansive than they were before.

I think it's really going to be a positive amenity, and we're just getting started.

That's just phase one.

So thank you for doing that.

I along those lines, I want to thank staff.

Um Rich not only for the site visit, but I know we had some concerned neighbors over uh in the Marchbanks area with the construction of the Glen, and you were proactive, you and your staff were proactive in meeting with them and the contractor in terms of construction staging and management and talk to them about putting up a noise wall once they finish the work next to the residents.

I know we all appreciate that.

And um Matt Redmond, who left, he had an item on consent and was here earlier.

Had sent out a proposal to residents of the woodlands about proposed traffic calming measures in their neighborhood and seeking feedback, and I know that's an item that we had heard a lot about previously, so I wanted to thank him for doing that.

And then I want to thank a staff member that I've never met before, but I'd like to meet her, uh Samantha Sampson.

It's not often that people take the time and send an email thanking staff for something that they've done, but but this resident did and said she had the best experience at the permit office and high high praise for Samantha for all her assistance, both on the phone and yesterday in person.

I'm a senior and had spent many, many hours trying to use the portal with no success.

Without Samantha's help, I would never have completed my permits.

She was so kind and helpful.

So obviously, gold star to Samantha, that's what we're going for here at the city.

And she's making us look good and the city look good, and we appreciate we appreciate that.

And that's my report.

Alright, thank you.

Kevin didn't steal all the I've been busy because I'm gonna take off next month for my son's wedding.

Um, we got together at the Mayor's conference earlier this month up out in Antioch.

Uh Congressman DeSalmier was the presenter there, and he presented some interesting statistics.

One of the things that we should be proud of here in Contra Costa County is that we have implemented a lot of peer-reviewed, time-tested gun control or not gun, gun safety measures.

And so we have one of the lowest in the country.

8.1 deaths per 100,000 people.

National is 14.2.

California as a whole is 8.8.

And I think that stands to the commitment that we all have to teaching our keep our people to handle guns safely.

Um, none of us really mentioned it.

We had a great opening for original Joe's, and um we look forward to them opening again.

I know we just want to have another opening.

Um, just let everybody know they are working very hard.

We have issued them the permits to do the repairs.

We are hoping that they will be open again shortly because the time that I got to go in there and experience the restaurant, it is going to be amazing.

Um the city manager and I had a chance to sit down with the governor's office and talk about some of the things that are important to us to make sure that they understood.

We did bring up e-bikes and the need for consistent state legislation.

The two representatives of the governor's office are from Oakland, and they're like, what is this e-bike?

It's like, we'll just go to Danville and you will learn about e-bikes.

Come downtown Walnut Creek.

We also thank them for the work the governor's done.

There's been a lot of things coming out of Washington, DC, and rather than each individual city responding to the different inquiries, the governor's office has done a great job at running point for us.

Um I got to work with the great Molly Klopp and Trinity Center.

We hosted a um dinner that was at the auction this year, and we've had we actually auctioned off two of them, and we got to host one out at a beautiful house out in Northgate.

Um, and um Eric Harrison and his new friend showed up, and so it was great.

There was a lot of people there that I hadn't seen in a long time, and it was a great chance to raise money for Trinity.

Um the chamber board had their meeting and um the women's conference and all that, as well as the funders and founders event are coming up, those should be really good.

Um, but they also talked a lot about the impacts of the changes that are happening at the federal level on the medical um business here in Walnut Creek, and we heard reports from both Kaiser and John Muir about the challenges they're gonna face with both Medicare and Medicaid changes because such a large proportion of their patients are in that category, and so that is a challenge that we're gonna look at.

Um I got to go out to Rossmore and Dinah Becton and um newly mentioned Captain Jeff Slater got to present.

Um they did a great job.

One of the interesting things, the facts that uh were presented was people in Rossmore were asked what do you think the crimes are in Rossmore?

And the point was made to them that all the crimes in Rossmore are fraud, and so that and they advertised the coffee with the cop that's coming up where they're gonna cover in much more detail what you can do as a senior citizen to prevent elder fraud.

What's the questions to ask?

I we all know friends and family, older people that have been preyed on, and it's not it's not fair and it's not nice, and I don't like it.

So thank you for doing that.

Education effort.

Um, last couple things.

Oktoberfest is coming up at the end of September, 27th and 28th.

Um, it will be out at Civic Park again this year, and it'll be a heck of a good time.

Um, you covered Keda City, everybody's talked about Heather Farms because it is toes in the water in 2027, right?

He's making eye contact.

And last but not least, the MCE executive committee met um earlier this week or earlier late last week to um get ready to present the full audit to the MCE board later um this month, and we were talking about what notes we want to have on there and um energy costs are very volatile right now.

We have made it through on budget and managed to preserve our net position, but we at MCE are committed to continuing to find innovative ways to help match supply and demand for electricity so that people can continue to have affordable rates for electricity.

And that is the end of public of us sharing what all we do.

And now it is time for the first um public hearing, and next on the agenda is the public hearing for the consideration of consideration of a mitigated negative plan amendment and waiver of reading and introduction of plan development PD ordinance.

Oops.

Did I go ahead one?

5A.

Never mind.

Authorization of city manager to enter into an agreement.

I knew I flipped the thing over too fast with partners in public innovation to provide process improvements and lean training services for the development services team looking for a staff presentation on 5A, not 5B.

Good evening, Mayor Darling, Mayor Pro Tem Wilk, and members of the council.

I'm Kathy Arana, an analyst here with the City of Walnut Creek with the community development department.

And I'm presenting on the process improvement efforts within development services.

To start us off, I'd like to give you a quick overview of what we'll be covering tonight.

We'll begin with the issue we're working to address, then we'll take a look at where we're headed, our vision for what we want to achieve.

Then you'll have the chance to meet our consultant who's supporting this effort, and from him, we'll learn more about lean and explain what it means in the context of our city government.

We'll then get highlights from the proposed scope of work, followed by the benefits we anticipate from this initiative.

Finally, we'll close with our recommendation to council for recommended action for council's consideration.

So why is this project needed?

Each year, Walnut Creek processes hundreds of development applications from small home remodels to large mixed use developments.

Customers' feedback is that they experience a process that can feel disconnected with unclear requirements and unpredictable timelines.

Behind the scenes, development services spans multiple departments and divisions, some of which are building, current planning, public works engineering, and economic development, each with their own systems, priorities, and procedures.

As part of our vision, we're focused on advancing key council goals, especially driving economic development by streamlining the process the permitting process and improving customer experience.

The city is also committed to a one development services approach, meaning that regardless of which department touches an application, the customer's experience is seamless, clear, and efficient.

We've already made progress through recent restructuring, adding positions, and making technology upgrades.

Now the next step is to standardize processes across departments, improve communication, and empower staff to continually improve the customer experience.

To assist us in these efforts, we've chosen our consultant, partners in public innovation.

Partners in Public Innovation specializes in public sector process improvement, utilizing project management methods like lean and six sigma.

They work side by side with staff, embedding skills and tools, so improvements are sustainable long after the engagement ends, and their program with us provides leadership certifications.

They hold a California multiple award schedules contract, also known as a CMAS, and they are a registered public benefit firm with the state of California.

And now I'd like to bring up Ryan Hunter from Partners in Public Innovation, who will share more about the organization partnerships and walk us through the key highlights of the agreement we're looking to secure.

Thanks, Gabby.

Well, good evening.

Thank you all for uh inviting me to come and be with you tonight.

My name is Ryan Hunter.

I am the co-founder and principal at Partners in Public Innovation.

I was a 12-year resident of the East Bay.

I'm up in Sacramento now, but it's nice to be back down here with you all today.

Um we uh so I came at this work first from time that I spent working for the city and county of San Francisco, where I co-founded and then built our first citywide program in lean process improvement, which is just a fancy way of saying we uh kind of found uh places where they were real bottlenecks to the public services that the city was trying to provide and built a program that was designed to break those bottlenecks down.

While I was in San Francisco, we trained over a thousand city staff.

We did strategic improvement in about a dozen city departments, built that program out to the point where I started to have other cities and counties calling us and saying how do we do this kind of thing in our city?

So out of that, we co-founded Partners in Public Innovation.

Um I built uh partners on public innovation with uh my co-founder was the chief people officer at the SF Public Utilities Commission.

Uh she was my favorite client at the time.

Um we had done work on uh the SFPUC's hiring process to cut two months off of their time to hire not of the pandemic.

Said, do you want to come and do this work with me to help other cities do the same kind of thing?

Uh so our mission, as you see up here, is to transform public services by empowering staff to create a culture of continuous improvement.

So, you know, what that means when I talk about transforming public services, I really mean about how do we make a measurable impact to the kinds of services that our citizens are expecting us to provide.

And I think what's unique about us is that we really believe in doing that through empowering the staff who do that work every day and understanding that real change, long-term change to the way that we deliver our services as the government, only happens when we have the people doing that work every day on board.

Um, and then we do that in a way that creates a culture of improvement, which is to say it's not a one-shot deal, we we improve this one thing and then it's done, but to say how do we sort of build the skills and the habits of improvement into everything that we do so that that work continues even after an initial project is over.

And the primary ways that we do that are through kind of training and capacity building for staff and understanding how to do that kind of uh in the weeds process improvement work.

Because if you really believe that the people who do the work every day have to be the ones at the forefront of changing that work, then you'd better give them some skills in problem solving and innovation.

And then facilitated process improvement, and that doesn't look like us coming in and writing a report with recommendations.

It looks like getting the people who do this work every day, even if they're from, as Kathy said, multiple different departments, getting them around one table, focusing together on what's not working and building a future state that works better for both staff and the people that we're serving.

We do this work exclusively in the public sector and primarily with local government.

So most of our clients are cities, counties, and special districts, and our roots are here in Northern California.

That's most of the folks that we've worked with and work on a variety of issues, but I like to say that our big three are the three that I hear most folks complaining about, and they're in their uh their own municipalities are uh permitting civil service hiring and procurement.

So those are it's kind of our our most our biggest bailiwick.

Uh so lean is a little bit of a jargony word.

Um it's the sort of foundation of a lot of what we do.

It's a process improvement methodology that came originally out of manufacturing.

Um, but we've also done a lot of work in trying to figure out what works from a lot of different methodologies, whether that's Six Sigma, whether that's um design thinking, human-centered design, um, uh results-based accountability, any of these things.

I like to say that at their core, any of them that are doing their work right are really boiling down to something like this.

Uh it's just a way of systematically saying, first, what's the problem that we're trying to solve?

Can we define that problem really clearly?

And by the way, if if we're defining it clearly, we should also be able to say how we would measure it.

And I would argue if we can't figure out how to measure it, we're not actually sure what the problem is yet.

But if we know what we're trying to do, what it would look like to do it well, uh, and then where we are now, then we say what's the gap between where we want to be and where we are and what drives that gap.

And let's look carefully at not just the sort of surface level problems, but what's really driving those things underneath.

Um and then try stuff to get better at those things.

Try implementing some solutions and see what works.

And then some of it will work, some of it will get better, some of it will not, and we will that'll be feedback for the next iterative cycle.

Um this is really the core of what we do and implement a lot of tools at each step of this process to help people kind of go through these cycles of improvement.

So for Walnut Creek, I've been really excited by the conversations that I've had with city staff about um improvement in development services.

Um the sort of 30,000 foot level of the scope that we've talked about with the city is um sort of fundamentally about improvement in development permitting.

Um what that often looks like for us is kind of going through that cycle I just showed you.

So defining and measuring what does a world class development permitting uh process look like, and then can we sort of lay out what this looks like for us now?

Can we map that current process, um kind of understand what the biggest obstacles in that process are, try to get at why those obstacles are happening, and then co-create uh a future state uh that's gonna work better for staff and for your residents.

Um, and then we stick around and coach people through the implementation of that work too.

Um that we're also building capacity for staff.

Um so the scope includes introductory process improvement training for really everybody who's touching development services, and then um kind of an in-depth uh improvement certification for emerging leaders who could actually then um lead uh sort of smaller scale improvement projects on their own.

So that uh it's what we call our lean leaders certification.

Actually, everyone who does that will own some subprocess piece of um development services permitting where um they'll be focused on solving those problems while we uh give them some skills and coach them through implementation of uh those solutions.

Um and then finally embedding that improvement culture.

So that's again making sure that that sticks.

I always say that um the best uh indication that we've done a good job is that um things continue to improve after we are gone, uh, and the staff that we've worked with are able to innovate um further in the thing that we're working on and in other city processes as well.

So we have some tools that we um use to do that, um, including giving people uh a huddle, which is like a small uh regular meeting where people come together to understand progress against their strategic goals, um, to develop new ideas, uh, and to kind of rapidly uh implement new ideas uh for staff at every level.

Um and then we'll also work with the executive leaders who are um on city staff in the relevant departments to um talk about how do we build this in a way that's sustainable for the city.

I think with that, I'm gonna give it back to Kathy.

Okay, thank you, Ryan.

Um so next, here are the outcomes uh that this initiative is designed to deliver.

Uh first is a permitting process that's not only faster but also more clear and more predictable so applicants know what to expect at every step.

Second is a stronger coordination across departments, reducing delays and improving communication.

Third is staff will be equipped with proven tools and methods to tackle challenges effectively.

And finally, we're building long term capacity so the city continues to improve and adapt over time rather than treating this as a one time effort.

And together these improvements position the city to provide more efficient and consistent customer service.

And so in conclusion, staff recommends that council authorize a city manager to execute a consultant services agreement with partners in public innovation for this work.

We believe this investment will significantly improve both the customer experience and the city's operational efficiency and development services.

And staff is happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

That's an interesting presentation.

Questions that we might have.

Hey Kathy, I think I had one for you and maybe one for Ryan.

So I know recently we've invested in software improvements and the development services.

Is this work complementary to that, or how would these two initiatives kind of work together?

It is complementary to it.

There is a separate effort to that, and I could defer it over to our director to provide more detail.

Hello, Erica Van and Brand Community Development Director.

So yes, these pieces are intended to work well together so that the process improvements are intended to deal with the physical um you know interactions, etc.

But then also to take a look at the um online experience, the online experience consultant effort.

There's some work that's being done right now to you know take care of the low-hanging fruit, but then the next tranche of that will happen subsequent and in parallel with this, so that we're um you know, undoing all the pipes to get them right um for the process improvements.

Okay.

That helps.

And and then uh for Ryan, just I'm wondering if you could speak to kind of some some of your work with other agencies and kind of at the at the end of the process, sort of what would be the metrics for success once once we've gone through this program, what what should we would we expect um from having gone through it?

Yeah, I mean, so what those success metrics are is one of the things we'll define right at the very beginning.

Um I would say almost every project we do has some measurement of time, right?

So the uh well, not not always the easiest to measure, but the sort of easiest thing to put a finger on is to say can we issue this permit faster?

Can we get people building the thing that they're trying to build you know appropriately for the city um more quickly?

Um so I don't know.

I mean, one example um we did a permitting project that was actually um on um child care uh licensing for new in-home child care facilities.

We did that a few years ago with the city of Boise and spent some time with them looking at a few different metrics.

Some of that was the fees that people pay when they get a permit, some of it was um how much effort is taken from staff and from the public, how many hours they have to spend going through the process, and then how long it took them, you know, in days to issue a permit.

So uh in that project, we were able to work with them to design a process that I think it took 90 days originally to issue those permits, and we ended with a process that took 25.

Um that's just uh that's one example of what that can look like.

Does that help?

Yeah, it does.

In terms of the delays, that makes perfect sense, and I think that's that's something that we're hearing from our business community in terms of wanting to be able to measure success in terms of reducing the time to permit.

What are the other kind of major obstacles that you see in most agencies that are preventing them from timely issuing permits?

Um that's a that's a big uh question.

I mean in some ways it um there's uh I feel like in some it's certain kinds of things are um idiosyncratic to every every agency.

Um but then I I think commonalities are things like um I don't know, one of the things I think a lot about is have we have we given people the right roles?

Do we expect someone who's applying to have the sort of knowledge about laws or permitting that only staff would have um uh something like that?

Can we can we make this process as easy as possible for the applicant?

Um often that excuse me, often there's a lot of just um getting the right people around the table together, um, often just the process of sort of unpacking what the um what a permit process looks like end to end, not just my department's piece of it, but getting everyone there to see it all put together.

Um by itself can be quite powerful.

You say, Oh, I didn't realize that we made the applicant do um uh that Boise project, um, they had applicants uh they had to have two different inspections.

Um but it turns out those inspections were about 80% the same.

But the agencies, one was in internal to the city, one was an external public health agency.

They never really talked to each other or even had a venue to interact, right?

So being able to see all of that in one place, giving them a place to talk together, and then doing the sort of hard work of okay, well then what would it take for in that case the city to delegate its inspection responsibility to an outside agency working through the like legal pieces of that?

Again, those are just some examples.

That's helpful.

And typically, how long does it take for you to see some kind of measured improvement?

Oh, the I think the scope of work, I think we scope this thing to be a year-long project.

Um so uh, you know, like big picture changes can take some time, but we're always looking for what the sort of quick wins are, the things that we can do in the short term that start to um that start to free up time for staff and for the public.

Um the quicker that you can implement some of that, you both kind of get staff's time back, and that helps them have some more time to be invested in the work, and you can sort of show the the power of the improvements.

So I I'm thinking about um work we did on time to hire with the city of San Diego last year.

Um through the huddle, um, one of the city staff identified um a problem on their conviction history form that uh long story short um was requiring basically every job applicant to fill out this form twice when we sort of did the math on how much staff time that was taking, it was like like a third of an FTE, right?

And they were able very quickly to make a simple change to that form that um suddenly freed up a third of an FTE's worth of time that was just spent um correcting something that could have been done more simply in the first place.

So um those kinds of things we can often find uh, you know, with with the staff who are in that work every day, find those things um quite quickly.

So I know it's not the most straightforward answer.

No, it was but helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I had a couple quick questions.

Um I know that sometimes um helping create a culture where people can take a little bit of risk can make a huge difference in that.

How do you go about dealing with risk making and and risk taking and um helping people make decisions and getting out of analysis paralysis?

Oh, I like I like that question.

Um yeah, I mean partly I think that um comes from leadership, right?

So it's one of the things we always work with leaders on, is um how do you reward not just the people who have the best results, but the people who are trying things and the people who are surfacing problems and then finding solutions to those problems?

Um some of that is making real proactive choices to celebrate failure, as long as that failure came from experimentation and and trying, right?

And risk.

Um so things like the um uh like I I mentioned the huddle a couple of times as a venue for staff at every level to um bring new ideas forward.

Um I always make a real concerted effort when we first launch a huddle to find some ideas that we can really rapidly implement from sometimes even from folks who haven't felt like they could bring ideas forward before.

Um sometimes I I say, if you if if you uh if you have a a staff and you tell them they bring you ideas, uh you don't have to tell them to shut up very many times before they do it.

Um so you know, how do you create a culture in which you say, like, cre please surface this thing, even if it's not um the there's a problem on the website, and you're not the web designer.

Do you have a place where you can come and say that and it's okay for you to say that, and then bringing it up creates a channel for it to get to the web designer to to fix, right?

Okay, and then um it sounds like you have looked across not just our decision making process or permitting process, but um complementary agencies that are issuing permits on the same project.

Do you anticipate doing that here too?

Cause I know there's interaction with Confire and some of those other permits.

Are we gonna you're asking if uh if the scope is gonna include Walnut Creek's relationship with other agencies?

Yeah.

I don't uh I mean to some degree I might defer to staff about this.

Um I don't think that we've gotten to that specificity in the scope.

I think it's probably what we need to define more as we as we get into um yeah, defining the scope in some more detail.

Okay.

And then last question um are there things that we as the council can do to help build the idea of a a culture that innovates.

Um I love that question too.

Um yeah, I um feel like I should be prepared with an answer for that.

But um Yeah, again, I I think it's about um how do we encourage creativity and and problem solving from city staff, right?

Um, and you know, how do we sort of charge them with solving problems and then figure out how we support them to um to get those things done.

Um I don't know.

But you know what?

I want to I want a stronger um thing about that.

You'll be here for a year, so you can be here and tell us what we should be doing.

Um once you've seen us in operation too.

I I know that.

Yeah, well, and I think um, you know what?

Um there was uh, I don't know if any of you read Jen Paulka's stuff.

She was uh she worked in the Obama administration, she ran the US um oh digital services agency.

Um she had a newsletter a few weeks ago that was um had a a tweet from the mayor of San Jose.

Okay, it was actually about permitting, because um someone on Twitter had like tagged the city because um their like major permitting project um had uh button been rejected from the city because the margins in the in their submittal were the wrong size, and they rejected it with a picture of their submittal and a picture of a ruler, and they like sent that back to the person.

So this person was pissed, right?

And um sent that, you know, like tweeted that at the mayor, right?

Um and the mayor, to his great credit, said, um, that's concerning, let me get back to you.

And then later that day, um had you should go find this thing.

It's like the most thoughtful response that I'd ever seen.

So he said, okay, I talked to my staff, and I found out that um the reason that my staff rejected that was because when we approve things like that, the county turns around and rejects them because the county will reject your submittal if the margins aren't correct.

Had we passed your submittal on, um, the county would have rejected it, but they would have rejected it three months from now.

It saves everyone time and energy to do this now.

Of course, this is ridiculous, and of course we could have communicated with you about this better, but we're frustrated about this at the county.

Here's a kind of people, you know, here's what I'm doing with the county to try to advocate for a change.

And you know, if you want to help with that, talk to me and let's go talk to this person at the county.

Which, you know, that to me showed curiosity about what was happening, not jumping to the conclusion of either defending the thing that the city was doing or throwing your staff under the bus.

We would never do that.

We would never.

Your council meetings are so much calmer relative to the ones that I'm used to.

Um I suppose to say that out loud.

Oh.

AI's taking notes now, we found it.

Um yeah, but just uh, you know, it demonstrated curiosity, it demonstrated trust in staff, holding them to a high standard, but also really genuinely understanding why they were doing what they were doing and actually enlisting the public in productive change.

Um I don't know.

So do do that, right?

Okay, we'll do that.

Other questions?

Councilmember Sulla.

Um thank you very much, and thank you for very much for taking the time tonight not only to make a presentation to us, but to answer these questions and to answer them as thoughtfully as you have.

It speaks volumes as to your level of experience and what we can expect to get, so thank you.

I do have a couple of technical questions.

Tell me about the training, the lean 101 training for 50 staff.

I'm not sure I consider 50 people in a room.

Is the are these separate sessions, how long is that training, or is this one big lecture hall?

Um I don't know if we've determined whether we're gonna do it all at once.

I think we could probably do it uh either all at once or in two sessions, uh, depending on what makes the most sense for the city and your facilities.

Um that's usually a full day, which we'll come and do in person.

Um we teach the psych here.

Can I kind of click back to the cycle?

Um at work.

Oh, you turned it off.

That's right.

Um, identify define a problem, yeah.

Identify the causes.

At lean one on one we kind of move people through this cycle, teach them a little bit about problem definition, teach them some things about how they um buy it.

How they can uh define some metrics to understand how to measure a problem, we teach them some tools uh on obstacle identification.

So we teach them uh process mapping, some root cause analysis tools, uh and we give them a couple of uh a couple of tools uh in solving problems, um, and then um how to sort of brainstorm and prioritize solutions.

Um it's one day um and we challenge everyone at the end of lean 101 to um to implement one small change to their daily work.

Um and that's that's that's lean 101, that's the sort of outcome of lean 101.

I think it's it's useful for building a common language for improvement among everybody who's doing the work.

Plus people like it, they get excited.

These must be cross-functional across these six work areas engineering and planning and all of that.

They're mixed together.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean I think these these tools are really broadly applicable.

Um, you know, in one of my trainings back in San Francisco, I had a a group of people from uh from the the Department of Technology who were working on Microsoft Office 365 licenses, and I had a group of people from public works who were a bunch of plumbers who were trying to figure out how to organize their space better.

And I had them sitting at the same table, and they told me, do you know how our processes are exactly the same?

We're working on the same thing.

Um because the even when the topics are really different, the sort of the kinds of problems that people encounter are often quite similar, and there's some really real benefit to getting people from different domains unpacking that stuff together.

So I'm glad the mayor brought up the other agencies that are directly involved in the permitting process in relation to Walnut Creek businesses and residential projects.

I suspect you're not being ch charged to go help them solve their process problems.

I don't think am I doing that?

I hope not.

But hopefully people will from our organization will discuss the fact that the more you that things break down at our end with our customers when they think that we're involved in the problem.

It's almost like the story of the Sam San Jose Mayor, being able to admit to the customer that this is the county's issue, but we need to tell you about it.

We need to not mask it.

And I think sometimes that is a problem in itself at our level.

Yeah, I mean, I I I am sure that you will have issues in your permitting processes that are primarily primarily the responsibility of some of these other agencies.

And I am sure that once you sort of open all these cans of worms, you will find plenty of issues that are uh your homegrown ones that are yours to fix.

Exactly.

Um, is there an opportunity during this one-year process to engage with us as a council to get reports and s success stories because this is going to be exciting for the business community and s exciting for our residents and homeowners who have projects and have frustrations and but if we go off and do things for a year and then come back and say, okay, we're done now.

I'd love to hear about it iteratively a little bit so that we can celebrate the successes as they're going along.

Uh I mean I think the short answer is yes.

Thank you.

Yes, and and I will say, Good answer.

Uh maybe just the one other context I'll throw in there is that I think I I mentioned earlier I'm sort of allergic to writing reports with recommendations.

I like to say that our um our main deliverable is an improved process.

Um, but what we do usually do is um present back here's the here's the work that uh you know here's the problems that we uncovered, and here's the solutions that people are working on.

Uh and I hope that you mostly won't hear from me about that.

Um, I usually cue those presentations up so that the staff who do that work every day are the ones who are able to talk about.

I hope I'm not telling you right now I'm throwing your people under the bus.

But um, but those should be really primarily driven by by staff.

Uh so that's who you'll hear from.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's gonna be a fun year.

I think council member defini had a question.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation.

Um I think you you get the sense we're excited that this work is going to be done.

Uh, it's something that we've been hearing about for a while, and I'm I'm glad we're at this point.

Um I just a question about scope and how we, you know, I I know we set aside some money in the budget for the the program, but you know, sometimes like uh when you go shopping for something that you haven't shopped for before and someone says, you know, what's your budget?

You don't really know because you don't know where the value lies.

So you might be willing to stretch or you might need to downsize, and so I heard you talk about you're still working on defining the scope of work, but you know, what is that?

I just want to make sure that our budget aligns with what is the most we can accomplish with this process.

And so I guess that's not something that would need to be like necessarily answered right now, but did is this a like best case scenario from the services provided, or um, maybe staff will like to speak to that.

Maybe I can address that.

Uh good evening, Mayor, member city council Charles Chang, the assistant city manager.

The scope of the work is defined already.

Um I think what Ryan was alluding to was on how the the work will be delivered.

Um just get this gonna be this is gonna be a process getting to know who staff is, how big the team is in all of that.

The scope of the actual work is already defined.

And was that made independently?

Was that was the scope of work tailored to the budget, or did the budget just happen to match the scope of work?

So we've been talking to Ryan and his firm for for a while now.

And we've been talking about um, you know, the issues that we're we're encountering and whatnot.

And so even through the uh the two-year budget cycle, um, we were already anticipating that this would be around the amount that we would do.

So you already have that defined.

Correct.

Okay.

Yeah, because I I think this um like I'm excited for the program.

I think uh you know the benefit is uh hope to uh it's and to second um uh council member Silva's uh sentiments.

I'd love to hear updates as we go along too.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

All right, thank you guys very much.

Now we'll open up the public comment on this process and the gentleman that stood up was not coming forward to do public comment so I'm assuming no public comment and we'll close that and bring it back here to the council for deliberation I'm very excited about this we've tried to do this internally ourselves a couple of times over the course of time but sometimes bringing in experts to guide the process and teach you how to have a better process are going to be more effective and so I'm happy to make the motion to authorize the city manager to enter into an agreement with partners in public innovation to provide process improvements in development services in an amount not to exceed 2900 two hundred and ninety thousand seven hundred and twenty dollars.

Second all right I think I I think all of us are generally really looking forward to the year and we will get things updating as as we go along so we can hear more and now we will call the roll council member silva aye council member Davin Councilmember Francois Mayor Pro Temwell.

Aye okay and now we'll come to the slightly delayed 6A which is um a public hearing for the consideration and consideration of a mitigated neg deck general plan amendment waiver of reading and introduction of plan development ordinance mayor could we take a five minute break while they're resetting up yes we will take a five because this is the community development department show tonight all right five minutes and we'll be back at 72.

All right and with that we are back and I am not going to read 5A again because I started through it several times now but um I will turn it over to staff for the presentation on item 5A 6A sorry it's been a long day.

Hi.

Hi thank you mayor mayor pro Tim Council my name's Chip Griffin I'm an interim planning manager here for the city of Walnut Creek and I'm here to talk about or present a general plan amendment of PD rezon for 1200 Rossmore Park Parkway.

The project is is legislative in nature and includes a general plan map amendment from from one parcel from office to general retail and also includes a rezoning of that parcel from what's currently PD 1140 to PD to be determined.

There is no land development application with this with this project.

A little context um you can see my fine artwork there I'm not a very good line drawer but you can get the idea of where it is that's 1200 1200 um Rossmore Parkway circled in yellow you can see the one building on that 1.35 acre site it's surrounded to the north by more medical office to the east to Grace Presbyterian church south is Rossmore we have new lights or Tice Valley where we have new lights and the shopping center is to the west.

A little background the um project is currently zoned PD 1140 that was adopted in 1972 which includes both let me go back both 1200 and 1210 so 1210 would be the right to the right behind him you can see that long linear building with the square in the middle of it that's the second story yes right there.

So the PD the current PD and encompasses both of those properties.

And 1994 eight PD 1834 was adopted which r was was was r really addressed the the property at 1210 um but what it did to 1200 was really lock in the use that that the prior the PD um I'm sorry PD 1140 allowed which was the bank use the the next PD 1834 locked it in um when they said it will be a bank and a bank only in kind of you know what's what it intent the intent of what it was so it left the parcel just really limited to what it can do and that's to this day is the same in June 2023 the city council uh uh heard a pre-application for this general plan amendment and said sure makes sense go ahead and apply which they did um in August of 2023 and then this year earlier this year we filed a notice of intent to adopt a MND which you're um considering this evening the uh MND went through its noticing period now it's complete in June August this year the planning commission provided positive recommendation there was not a a a lot of discussion it just made sense and they recommended they recommended um to the council to uh a positive recommendation with with no changes so that's where we're at tonight this is what the general plan map amendment looks like on the left you can see where it's blue um and that one corner parcel it's uh land use designation of office OF and the proposal is to change it to GR general retail and you can see that the shopping center um across the street and then the other parcel um caddy corner which is savers is both as general retail as well so it's it's not really a spot um designation or and we'll get to zone zoning here here it wouldn't be spot zoning um and you can see here we would just go from PD 1140 1834 to and that's parcel alone 1200 would have a new PD number to it what what are we doing here?

Well the plan development ordinance is modeled after the city's community commercial zoning ordinance with a few changes and those changes are to the land use table and to the development standards table and they're lined out right here specifically would allow without a conditional use permit a bank of over a thousand feet ground floor medical office ground floor office and a standalone restaurant with a walk-up takeout service that's not a drive-thru that drive-thru would still require CUP for the development standards the FAR is changed here um where community commercial allows a 0.3 FAR this would allow a 0.5 FER which is well within the GR land use designation also the building height the community commercial zone allows 20 feet unless otherwise specified uh this new PD would incorporate the current allowance of 35 feet which is similar in it's the same as the shopping center same as 1220 Rossmore up the street where there's been some entitlements there recently CEQA there was a mitigated negative declaration was prepared for this project it identified in the initial study it identified six uh categories where there might be substantial um uh substantial impacts uh but with mitigation measures and those mitigation measures are outlined in the MMRP that's attached um there uh they be are lessened to um not non-significant and those items are air quality cultural resources gelage and soils all these items are in are uh construction related and also greenhouse gas emissions transportation and tribal cultural resources um the some of the greenhouse gas and the tribal are also associated with construction whereas the um transportation vmt is really an operational item and and as well as the greenhouse gas uh with with uh I should also say that um we have um the applicant's representative Eric Erickson is here with colliers, he's got a short presentation, and Liza Debbie's here from Placeworks, with this for any CEQA questions that you might have.

With that, staff would recommend uh to uh for the council to uh draft uh make a motion to adopt the uh draft resolution adopting the MND and the MMRP first and back that up with the uh resolution amending the general plan map amendment and then introduce the um plan development ordinance for the subject property.

Um if there's no questions to staff, uh Eric Erickson is here.

All right, um why don't we go ahead and hear from the applicant and then we'll see if there's any questions.

Okay.

I believe he is going to use this maybe this slide.

Okay.

Good evening everyone.

Thank you for uh um considering this uh change of use and the general plan amendment.

Uh we started this a couple of years ago in 2023 uh with the pre-app, and um we've been collecting interest on the property um and not totally uh decided what we're gonna do with it, uh but the general plan amendment and the uh new zoning um for the new PD is gonna really open up uh this uh this corner to allow for some uh really interesting development to happen and potentially some new businesses to show up on that corner, and that's a really important corner for the Rossmore community, think.

Um I didn't really have too much to add.

I just wanted to say thank you for hearing us.

Any questions?

Don't feel like you have to keep going on our account.

Um thank you and questions on the part of staff or on part of council, whoever you are you guys are council member Sola.

And I think my question is for staff.

Thank you very much, Chip.

So if you could go back to the chart that says the uses that are will be allowed, or these are in addition to we're taking this to GR, which is general retail, these uses plus these is that plus these that are listed here on the land use table?

No, this um the general retail would be the the land use designation and but the the zoning is based on the community commercial zoning.

Okay, and the community commercial zoning has a list of land use or land use table and development standards table, and these are the only changes.

So could somebody put in a boutique?

Yes.

Okay.

So I have a question on the standalone restaurant with takeout for locally serving businesses, and it's the phrase locally serving businesses.

Somehow in the way that's phrased, it actually is talking about businesses that are locally serving.

What do you really intend to say there?

Well, this is the this was a discussion with the um with the the city engineer and the traffic engineer and the um uh well I guess the can the traffic consultant from placeworks was was did was that done announced?

It was not, right?

And it it kind of came down to what kind of traffic do you typically attract?

In and out burger is not a locally serving business, but Amy's might be so you're talking about a restaurant that is locally serving, not a restaurant that is a with takeout for locally serving it's it's it's the structure of the sentence, and I'm sorry.

I I so you're so this would not be appropriate for an in and out besides that there's no drive-through, but or a chick-filet, is this I mean, correct?

What are the ones in the with the in list and what are the ones that are in the out list?

I do not know where that line is.

I don't know where the threshold is.

Is it clear in the land use table?

Or is this what's in the land use table?

I mean, how will the owner know what they can and cannot?

Well that uh that would that that would be for the that's for the CUP.

I mean that's that's if if a if a if a restaurant comes in and it's determined that it's not a lock locally served served business, then it would require a C UP and the VMT analysis that goes with it.

So there's another step in the approval process for what this will eventually be.

I'm excuse me.

There's another step in this process they're gonna have to come back for whatever the first business is that will be tenants.

Maybe the way to ask this question is if a if they have a restaurant that they want to bring onto the property it will go to staff and staff will determine whether or not it fits this category in which case no CUP is required.

Right.

But if it doesn't fit this category then a C UP is required with the additional traffic analysis.

Right yep correct if the if the city traffic engineer determines it to be local locally serving then it's then it would not require a C Up is this a typical I'm want to go back to the previous item on the agenda and go, really this is not very seems arduous but is this happen often this yeah um well with with some of the new regulations in CQI.

So it's CEQA that's triggering this it's essentially VMT yes.

Is that their definition CEQA?

They're defining what a locally serving is or how how are we defining what locally serving is I is that in the I I don't I'm not sure it's don't talk from your seat.

Yeah I was gonna say come on up.

Come on down join the party uh hello thank you.

Um state your name Liza Debbie is an associate principal of placeworks so um the piece the CEQA piece that he was talking about there's a mitigation measure for um when the next step comes in right so this is just for the legislative piece there's not actually any development proposed um at that next step you'd have a VMT assessment and because it's not you know 100% clear what the end use is going to be there's with six different options evaluated um I think it was retail um uh administrative office um general office a bank and a restaurant and so to figure out how to do that analysis you need specificity around the like the transportation for them to be okay what is this actually you know what are these numbers how do you quantify this and so in that piece um that's you know a different bit of a quantification is um what is the locally serving use in order to do that VMT analysis so and I'll point out in the mitigation the way that it would work is that you'd have again as like sort of the second step right before you know once you know what the project would be um you do a uh VMT assessment see what those numbers bear out and then there's ways if they're over the threshold there are ways to mitigate that down so that's why you know Trippin mentioned it's operational and there's actually a program to evaluate that um yearly to make sure that those um operational like behavioral changes actually are reducing the VMT.

Does that answer the question I can go into more detail I think I understand how we got here and how after being here for 19 years I've never been looking at words like this but I think we're early in this process we ordinarily are not sitting here j judging what restaurant will go in and how it would impact VMT.

So okay thank you for clear clarifying this.

You're welcome.

Other questions Councilmember Francois Yeah and thanks Chip so I think I followed the maps and the different lines so the neighboring property remains its own separate PD and this becomes a new PD for the former B of A site correct okay on the height limit um thirty five feet is that the measure a height limit on that side too uh well it it refers to uh there's a there's a PD that's not listened there's a a PD that's not listed here.

It's in a uh I think it's attachment nine in your staff in this agenda report uh it's a um uh I believe it was an ordinance that defined building height in certain areas in certain situations.

And in this and and for PDs it's 35 feet.

Okay.

And that's right out of that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And then technically the FAR is being increased from 0.3 to 0.5.

Correct.

Yep.

And then the most you know we're gonna have a locally serving restaurant use or there'll be more traffic analysis if it's not that.

But if it were like a medical office or some other kind of high parking generating use would there be a I assume there'd be enough parking on the site for that type of use?

To the point five FAR, correct yes yeah okay.

Um and then it's I mean I'm interested in Mr.

Erickson's opinion too he's talking to people but what is staff hearing or thinking about what the potential use or users of the site would be.

We there's it's purely speculation.

Okay.

Yeah I'd be interested in hearing kind of what sort of interest you're getting from about the site.

Well there's there's uh a bit of medical that's still in demand up there.

There's really only one dentist that's at the shopping center.

There we think there's room for more dentists uh serving that community part of the community um there's um there's other medical services that I I meet all the time and they're looking to land in Walnut Creek and they can't particularly go downtown um and they don't want to go all the way out to shade and so the Rossmore area is actually a good in between and it does give them access to the law La Marina community.

Um from a a retail standpoint um you know we just seem to think that this parcel is uh is gonna act more or less as like another out parcel of the shopping center and draft off what the shopping center could add.

Um you know the the local serving restaurant could be something as as large as a family restaurant like a hickory pit for example or but it really is probably going to be something more like a small takeaway restaurant to fill in.

I mean the the applicant the owner of the property we've talked about um going as large as as a as a 2000 foot um you know commercial property that would have mixed commercial office on the second floor and retail on the first floor uh this is sort of project he owns in Concord um but it could be as as easy as um just retrofitting the existing shell maybe doing a small expansion on it preserving the existing parking ratio parking map that's there we're not really sure yet we've been holding off on making any commitment to interested parties until we actually got through these steps um thinking that we didn't want to have users come up to staff or come uh come to the city and say we're gonna land our flag here we just didn't want to do any of that yet and the markets changed completely I mean from when we first met in 23 to now you know I think generally office is in a little higher demand uh there still aren't banks looking in for five thousand foot locations but they're looking for two thousand foot locations and there's a couple of banks that want to come to Wanna Creek.

So I think we'd very well see another little bank there in half the space.

So at twenty thousand square feet if it were used exclusively for medical office how many spaces individual doctors, dentists would you expect?

Um I always think in terms of ratio that's sort of how my my business I need about a five per thousand ratio to make it park comfortably um out in shade lens we have a four per thousand net usable which is like five per thousand um I think we can make it park comfortably I've been involved with uh with commercial development we've been under we've underparked we've stayed to the line of the development code and it's just just really not an operational so you know if we do get that large of a user we definitely size the parking to service the all the people who need to come to the property both employees and and and clients would be able to park on site.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I had a quick question don't go anywhere.

Is there anything besides an in and out that you would want that you had interest in here that is not allowed by the land use the McDonald's double car drive through right no we we're not doing that.

Yeah no that's that's not that's not the sort of project that that the applicant wants to do.

That's that's really not in line.

Really wants to keep it conforming to the neighborhood.

You know if we if we come to the city with the use that needs a use permit you're sure going to hear from the Rossmore community.

Yeah.

And we're sensitive to that.

So we want something that's gonna be successful um something that community's gonna want to want to uh go to um so no we wouldn't plan anything that wasn't going to be fit to that thank you any more questions councilmember defining uh I live around the corner so I just want to make a plug for a restaurant you want to rest you're also right across the street from the gym and that the park facility so you'll get a lot of walk traffic from all the families and visitors that go into the TICE gym which is substantial that's great yeah no you we um thanks for sharing we um definitely are gonna hit the hit the ground running is after we get the approval of the of the PD could we go back to the slide that shows the general uh land use um not the one with your your beautiful yellow line but the that one uh no no yes that's it so right now it's office use you you just are looking at that one just that one area to general retail not it's one parcel the one parcel the rest all remains office there's no suggestion of changing that to also general retail the the the other parcel 1210 it was it would remain in what it is now and by it moving to general retail does that also continue to offer the office opportunity for for uh land use designation could it be one or the other are we just taking away office and it's all retail well if we take back go back to here it would allow ground floor office and ground floor both yeah great that's it all right thank you um with that thank you and I will call for public comment anyone anyone hearing seeing nobody getting up I'll bring it back here for discussion and potential motion.

Yeah I think that you know we we heard this as on a gatekeeper item in 2023 and um it made a lot of sense then uh we were patrons of the bank it was super convenient I I'm not sure I quite understood how restrictive the zoning for that site was and and I you kind of scratch your head and that probably didn't make sense when it was imposed and certainly doesn't make sense now I could see this being reused for a higher and better purpose probably of a medical variety and I understood kind of the building being located more toward the the intersection which I think provides that good pedestrian connection and access to the shopping center depending on where the building's situated on the site so I'd like to make a plug for that or at least uh let's I'm sure that activity's gonna happen already but I'd like to see it happen safely uh for people crossing the street over to the shopping center and if that slide comes back on I'm prepared to make the motion uh I can wing it with the staff report so I'd move to adopt uh the draft resolution adopting the mitigated neg deck for 1200 Rossmore Parkway and the draft resolution amending the general plan map from office to general retail and introduce and waive the first reading of the plan development ordinance for the property second roll call please council member francois council member silva council member Davin mayor pro Tim Walk.

Well I'm going to vote aye but I didn't even have a chance to have any conversation about it before you made the motion so I just want to say that while I'm on the record as typically stating that uh re changing zones is one of the areas that I think is most important on this council because people buy their homes next to areas based upon the zoning so changing any kind of land use designation I really take a sacrosanct but this makes perfect sense I went to high school right across the street when there was a high school right across the street uh it's next to a retail shopping center and I think that making this into a general retail makes a lot of sense so I will be voting I and I too will be voting I I when I was Golden Ring foundation um I mentioned this to them, and they're like, oh yeah, that needs to be something.

So yeah.

Hi.

All right.

And now we are done with 6A, and I will turn the thing, and we are now on 6B, which is consideration and adoption of a resolution to approve FY 2425 CDBG Annual Action Plan substantial amendment.

And I invite the staff to come forward and provide us with a staff presentation.

Perhaps your first staff presentation to council.

Third.

Wow.

I'm not paying attention that one.

It's okay.

My name is Alison Restick.

I am the housing planner with the community development department.

As mentioned, tonight's presentation will be on an amendment to last year's fiscal year 2024-2025 annual action plan.

This is for our community development block grant program.

So tonight we will just quickly go through a few things to cover this.

We will discuss the annual action plan process for the community development block grant program, our 24 25 annual action plan, and the substantial amendment to that 24-25 action plan.

It's a one-year plan that addresses the needs, goals, and priorities that are set in our five-year consolidated plan.

It lists projects, scopes of work, funding allocations, and anticipated outcomes, as well as opportunities for public participation in the project selection process, which is based on competitive requests for proposals.

Once an action plan has been submitted to HUD, it can be modified through an amendment process, which is outlined in the city's citizen participation plan.

Amendments, whether they are minor or substantial, are not uncommon, and they can even happen after the fiscal year ends.

This is because scope and objectives of projects may change throughout the year.

Allocation amounts may need to be adjusted, and sometimes occasionally we add projects or programs to the list of projects in the action plan.

Specifically, though, the Citizen Participation Plan identifies changes with the use of program funds from activity to activity when there is an amount of $25,000 or 10% of a project, which if ever is greater.

So any amount over those would trigger a substantial amendment.

In addition, a substantial amendment does require a public hearing and a 30-day public notice.

So last year's action plan was adopted by the council in June in 2024.

It included a placeholder project to meet HUD's submittal deadline because at the time there was CDBG funding for uh economic development, infrastructure, and public facility projects that required a competitive RFP to allocate that funding for the fiscal year.

Staff posted that RFP immediately after that June council meeting and returned to council in September, at which time council authorized two new projects, one for Trinity Center's employment pathways program and one for the city's Civic Park Community Center ADA improvements on the exterior of the community center.

Um the addition of these two new projects to the action plan as well as redistribution of funds from the placeholder project to the two projects, which is greater than 25,000, means that a that this change qualifies as a substantial amendment.

The amendment shifts funding from placeholder project to the new projects, which brings our action plan into alignment with the actions that the council has already approved on our funding allocations.

And the proposed changes to the annual action plan do not impact the placeholder project, nor does it change or impact the budget for fiscal year 24-25 of CDBG funds.

This is essentially just an administrative exercise to bring our action plan into compliance for HUD.

The edits to the action plan are provided to you as red lines in attachment two to the staff report.

So with that, staff are requesting that City Council adopt a resolution approving the substantial amendment to the 2024-2025 annual action plan for the community development block grant program.

Thank you.

Available for any questions you have.

So I just wanted to be clear.

The placeholder project was the 699 YVR.

Yes, it's listed as 699 YVR site improvements.

Site improvements, and we have found other funding because 699 YBR is under construction.

And so we're good there.

Yes, the funding that was.

That's the technical term for that.

We're good there.

Exactly.

Alright.

Um, other questions?

Clarifications.

Councilmember Silva.

Thank you for doing all this work.

Just a quick clarification.

Have we allocated these funds already and we're just correct in the records?

Yes, correct.

It's kind of it appears to be after the fact, but it was approved last September, and the funding was allocated to those two projects in September.

Thank you.

Yeah.

All right.

Seeing no further questions, thank you for that.

And uh we'll open it up for public comment.

Please step forward and tell us who you are.

Hi, I'm uh Molly Klopp, uh Walnut Creek resident and board chair of Trinity Center of Walnut Creek, and I just want to take a moment to thank the council for your ongoing support of our organization.

It's invaluable to us, and this is a perfect example of performance improvement as we talked about earlier this evening, finding new ways to address the needs of our members and helping them get on the pathway to employment.

So uh the funding for last year and again this year is greatly appreciated and important uh to our members.

So thank you all.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

Jam?

I just also want to say thanks.

I heard about the program and how well it was doing, and all I had no idea where the funding came from, so this is great.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

All right.

With that, we will close the public hearing and we'll turn it over to the council for discussion deliberation or motion.

Kevin, do you have anything you'd like to share about this?

Sorry, we have to sit on.

No, no, no.

I was just last time we just whipped through it so fast.

No.

Thank thanks for the information.

This is really helpful, and obviously the uh I mean, these are the kind of projects that we are happy to, or we're happy to see have these conversations and uh as somebody who comes down ignacious and makes that left turn on the civic every day.

I'm very happy to see 699 ignatio at this phase, and I'll be really glad when one of the lanes isn't taken up every single day.

But in the meantime, I'm glad to see it raising from the ground.

All right.

Any other comments or a motion?

Move to adopt the resolution approving the substantial amendment to the 2024-2025 annual action plan of our community development block grant funds.

Second.

All right, thank you.

Roll call, please.

Councilmember Silva.

Hi, Councilmember Francois, Councilmember Divini.

Hi, Mayor Pro Tem Well.

Hi, Mayor Darling.

Hi.

Well, thank you all tonight.

That is it for our meeting, and so now we are adjourned before eight o'clock.