Good afternoon.

I am Mayor Sydney Darling, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek, and welcome to the Tuesday, October 21st, 2025 special meeting of the Walnut Creek City Council.

This special meeting is called for the purpose of holding a closed session related to the conference with real property negotiators for the property at 1540 Marchbanks Drive Walnut Creek, California, and under negotiations with the price and the term for the lease of the property.

Does any member of the public wish to make a comment?

Seeing no one, seeing no speakers, the city council will reconvene in closed session.

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.

All right, after that stirring intro video.

Good evening.

I am Cindy Darling, the mayor of City of the City of Walnut Creek, and welcome to the Tuesday, October 21st, 2025 regular meeting of the Walnut Creek City Council.

Please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I love it every day.

Thank you all for doing a good job with that.

Um and now City Clerk Susie Martinez.

Would you please call the roll?

Councilmember DeVinny.

Here.

Councilmember Francois.

Here.

Councilmember Silva.

Here.

Mayor Pro Temwelk.

And Mayor Darling.

Here.

All right.

I would like to invite, is it Brianna's going to come up?

All right.

Our first proclamation tonight is on pedestrian safety awareness night or month.

We have a whole month of this.

It's something that we work at tirelessly in the city with our vision zero plan and our pedestrian planning, bike planning, and probably a topic of conversation later.

So I just wanted to welcome Brianna and ask you to give a short um spiel on what we do for pedestrians.

Of course.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council members.

So again, my name is Brianna Byrne.

I'm an associate traffic engineer here at the city of Walnut Creek.

For the larger crowd, Walnut Creek, we are Vision Zero City.

We are trying to eliminate fatal and serious injury collisions within the city.

This includes drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists.

And as pedestrians and cyclists are more vulnerable, they're more susceptible to these types of collisions.

So as engineering, we're looking to improve our streets, and we do work with our community partners.

So with me today, just for a very quick couple of words, is Kate Ming.

We have a Walnut Creek walk and bike group.

Thank you.

Welcome, Kate.

Hi, yeah, I'm Kate Ming, and I'm with a pedestrian and bike advocacy group here in Walnut Creek.

We're relatively new, and we're all very excited to make Walnut Creek safer.

Fatalities due to car accidents has increased something like I think I read today 80%, far more than any other country.

And we really need to work on that.

And I really would appreciate working with the city of Walnut Creek to make our place safer where we live safer.

Um I think one of the biggest things to do is actually slow cars down and create more sidewalks would be something I would very much advocate for.

But thank you.

Thank you.

And we'll come around and do the picture with you now.

But first, since I have so many young people in the room who are going to be learning how to drive in just a little bit.

Do you see what I'm holding in my hand?

Should you be scrolling and looking at TikToks while you are driving?

Should your mom be scrolling and looking at TikToks while she's driving?

No.

So that's my um pedestrian awareness thing for and now we'll come around and do the proclamation and join for a picture.

Right here.

I don't mind where we're proclamation.

First one?

There we are.

Okay.

Yeah, we'll be the first to go to that.

So we'll see.

And now everybody.

And doesn't want to be blowing out?

It's about three years.

Three years, you just started recording this stuff.

Life long.

Life long.

Okay.

This is just a equivalent there.

Thank you for volunteering on this.

It's really important.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's okay.

We're glad you guys you could make it.

Is this for me?

That's good.

Now, our second proclamation tonight is on domestic violence awareness month.

And this is something that I know many people think, well, that's not a problem in Walnut Creek.

But domestic violence knows no boundaries.

It doesn't limit itself to one socioeconomic class or anything like that.

It is everywhere, and it's something that we as parents need to make sure that we're educating our children as they're developing relationships to look for in a relationship.

Is the person treating them with respect?

Are they controlling them?

Things like that.

And it's important to educate it.

And it's also important to reach out if you see somebody in your family in your friend group that seems isolated to make sure that they know that if they are experiencing somebody trying to control them, somebody trying to bully them into doing things they don't want to do, that they know that there's a place and a pe group of people that are willing to help and help them safely because it is literally, I mean, we all as women think that we are in danger walking the streets at night, but unfortunately the statistics bear out the most dangerous a woman is dad is with their domestic partner.

And we'd wish that was not true, but it is.

We've been recognizing it since um 1989.

And it's just a chance this year to say we are with survivors always, and we believe women when they come forward, and we recognize advocate for victim service providers and organizations, and tonight I would like to invite Stan for Families Free of Violence who work tirelessly to help prevent domestic violence and extend hope and healing to the survivors and victims of domestic violence.

So come on forward, introduce yourselves, and then we'll come around and do the proclamation of the picture afterwards.

Well, I just want to thank you for that intro.

Rather than just calling us up, you really highlighted the importance of this issue, and I really appreciate that.

Um, especially with so many young people in the room.

I think it's really important.

Um, so my name is Robin Binder.

I'm the client services director, one of two client services directors at Stan, and I'm joined by Leah Johansson, who is our clinical coordinator.

Um, and I just want to thank you for having us and for participating in this proclamation and for recognizing domestic violence awareness month.

As you said, it's an incredibly important issue.

It's important that the community is aware of some of the risks, but also some of the services.

I just wanted to share a little bit about some of the work that we do very, very briefly.

Um, so Stand for Families Free of Violence is an agency that serves all of Contra Costa County.

We offer a 247 365 crisis line, crisis and resource line.

You can you can reach out any time.

We receive between 12,000 to 15,000 calls per year for people looking for support or resources.

We serve approximately 240 families in our emergency shelter, 10 families in our transitional housing units, and assist five to ten families in finding permanent supportive housing following our services each year.

We also offer a wide variety of services for community members who don't reside with us, including prevention-based support groups for approximately 1,000 to 2,000 teens a year, a youth against violence leadership program, and individual therapy for 100-ish children that are exposed to domestic violence each year, and roughly 100 participants in our in our nonviolence program, which is our batteries intervention program.

Another way that we serve the community is through our lethality assessment protocol, which is a differentiated response aimed at decreasing the domestic violence homicide rate in Contra Costa County.

We've seen a 50% reduction in DV homicides in jurisdictions that partner with Stan in our LAP program.

Walnut Creek Police Department is one of our active partners in the LAP program since 2020, and we're so grateful for the partnership and so grateful to be here.

Thank you.

Did you want to say anything?

Just introduce yourself.

What she said.

I'm Leah, and I manage the children's counseling program, and um it's very taxing and very fulfilling work.

And I can't see myself doing anything different.

All right, thank you both for the work you do.

I think we should give them a big round of applause.

And now we will do the whole picture thing.

Great.

Let's do it.

You got it.

Thank you.

Thank you were using it.

Thank you so much.

All right.

And now it is time I'd like to invite the chaperones, Amanda Landis and Jen Pickett up to introduce the next presentation.

I'm not sure I think anything.

All right.

Good evening.

Thank you to the council for the opportunity for all of these amazing young uh ambassadors to speak to you tonight.

My name is Jennifer Pickett and I'm a teacher in the Walnut Creek School District.

This year I had the privilege of serving as a teacher chaperone for the Walnut Creek chapter of Sister Cities International's Youth Ambassador Exchange, or Yay.

An extraordinary life-changing experience for Walnut Creek students and all who participate.

WCSCI is a community-run nonprofit dedicated to fostering peace through mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation, one individual, one community at a time.

Since 2012, the year that many of our participants were born, WCSCI has organized an annual youth ambassador exchange for eighth grade students, connecting Walnut Creek with our two sister cities, Noceto, Italy, and Sheofolk Hungary.

The two exclamation points in Yay represent the connection between our sister cities and in my opinion, the enthusiasm of all who are involved in this program.

Through a 10-day home stay abroad each fall, students live with host families, attend local schools, and experience life as teenagers in another culture.

Although not organized by the city or the school district, the exchange enjoys strong support from each.

We are grateful for that, as well as from parent and teacher chaperones who help ensure a safe and enriching experience.

The program is entirely volunteer run with coordination from WCSCI members and each year's participating families.

During host week the following spring, our Italian and Hungarian guests visit Walnut Creek.

It's a chance for the American families to reciprocate the warmth and hospitality their children received abroad.

My name is Amanda Landis, and I was honored to go with these young children and my fellow chaperones to Shia Folk Hungry.

Um I'm also a proud uh Walnut Creek's uh teacher at Tice Creek.

I teach seventh and eighth grade.

Um and I got to meet, I had a couple of my own students, but I also had more and got to learn more about uh more of the students here in Walnut Creek and it was a life-changing experience.

I had the most amazing time, and uh I am so grateful for the support of the city and for Deborah and Kristen and all of your hard work.

Uh I can't even put into words how much this trip meant to me, even though I didn't even have any of my own kids with me.

Um, but it makes me want to plan for my youngest child to be able to do something like this because it is an incredible opportunity for all of these young human beings and for the young human beings in Chiafolk and Nochetto.

So thank you.

Thank you.

So first up, sorry about that.

Uh in for uh the Hungary um ambassador group, we're gonna start with uh our people.

We've got eleven people who came to Hungary with me, and we're gonna start it off with Coulter Eisenberg.

No pressure.

Hungary, I can't stand over the space.

Hello, my name is Colter Eisenberg.

Uh I go to school at Walnut Creek Intermediate, WCI.

And one of my favorite memories from um from Sheo Folk Hungary was the Telpoco Lake Cave.

Because.

I have never done anything like it, and it kind of traces back to the fact that I wanted to be a marine biologist when I get older.

Um the water in the lake cave was extremely clear.

It was naturally filtered as well, so you could just pick it up and drink it.

And every once in a while you see a fish one by, so uh thank you for your time.

Thank you.

And very brave to go first.

Hi, my name is Donna Asani, and this is, and I went to, you know, Hungary, and I go to Tice Creek Middle School.

This is a photo of me and my match piana on our first day, and I chose it because we really bonded and clicked that day, and I really enjoyed how she took me to explore Nochetto together.

She folk together.

And it just reminds me of like our time together and all of our fun moments on this trip.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Lisa, and I go to WCI.

I chose a Topolka cave as my most memorable moment because it was very fun and it showed teamwork.

Even though only one person had the paddle, we all helped out, and it was just a really fun experience.

Thank you.

Um die I go to Tice Creek School, and I went to uh Shia Folk Hungary.

My favorite experience was going to the ranch on the second day because I got to bond with uh every Hungarian, and I had a lot of fun there doing ranch activities and uh just having a great time and bonding.

Thank you for your time.

Um my name is Kai Steinberg.

I go to WCI.

Um, I went to uh Shia Folk Hungary, and one of my semi-favorite things were meeting all the Hungarians, they were awesome.

The Americans were awesome too, meeting new people.

Um, and I really like seeing how they do things differently, like across the world.

That was really it was an important experience for me.

And I don't know if I've ever laughed more ever in my life than on the trip, especially on the train with Gavin.

Thank you for your time.

Hi, my name is Kira.

I go to WCI, and my favorite moment of the trip was we me and the Hungarians and the Americans, we all went around and gave each other hugs, and it was really sweet, and I miss them.

Hi, my name is Kevin Yoder, and I go to WCI.

One of the most memorable parts for me was when I visited the shoes on the Danube with my match on Family Day.

The story behind it is in World War II, they lined up the Jews and shot them into the river.

But before that, they took their shoes off because they're expensive.

And it really just stuck with me that they valued the cost of the shoes more than the lies of the Jews themselves.

And I still think about it to this day.

Lila unfortunately is not with us tonight.

Hi, my name is Rhea Lokesh, and I go to Foothill Middle School, and my favorite part of this trip was the farewell party because we got to perform our dance that we made for the Hungarians.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Reese Devine.

Um, my favorite part, I go to Fit Hill in eighth grade.

My favorite part of the trip was going to Budapest.

We learned a lot about the history of the Parliament and a bunch of the history from the King's era.

Thank you.

My name is Spencer Regenstein.

Um I go to Foothill Middle School.

Um my favorite part of the trip was family day because we got to see some really cool places like this castle right here.

Um, and I also just um really liked the group dynamic of the whole group.

It made um it made the trip a lot more fun and memorable for me.

Thank you.

Alright, so we're moving on to Nochetto.

Our delegation traveled to Nochetto, Italy, a sister city partnership established in 1987.

Nochetto, meaning walnut tree, is a picturesque town in the Emilia Romano region near Parma, known for its historic charm, welcoming community, and rich culinary traditions, including Nochino, a nut liqueur, its world-renowned ham, prosciutto di Parma, and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

Our 14 incredible student ambassadors were each paired with an Italian host sibling, joining in school visits, cultural outings, and family activities.

Watching them form genuine friendships and grow in confidence was truly inspiring for the three of us chaperones.

After one group event, several American students rode bikes home through the town with their host families.

Many of the kids enjoyed exploring the city after dark without an adult.

On the train home, after a day spent together exploring Cinquitera and swimming in the Ligurian Sea, we couldn't help but smile as the American and Italian students bonded over music lyrics and talk of celebrity crushes, including romance apps.

They are teenagers, after all.

At Chaperones, we were especially proud of how our Walnut Creek students came together as a team, sharing openly, supporting one another and problem-solving with maturity and kindness.

Traveling abroad isn't always easy, but they faced each challenge with empathy, empathy, excuse me, and courage, reaching out for guidance when needed.

Seeing their growth in confidence, compassion, and collaboration was one of the most rewarding parts of the journey.

An unforgettable moment of joy came when our students performed their self-choreographed dance and rocked it.

And the Italian crowd began chanting dip wee dip wee, which means more, more.

Their host siblings jumped in for a second performance.

A spontaneous celebration of connection that captured the very heart of this program.

These are the memories we'll hold forever in our hearts as they embot excuse me.

They embody the sister cities Yay mission, creating transformative opportunities that foster independence, global awareness, and lifelong friendship.

Before the Nochettin ambassadors speak, I, on behalf of the 25 incredible Yay ambassadors, six magnificent chaperones and their families would like to extend our deepest gratitude to the Yay coordinators, Kristen Decker and Deborah Nip.

And Walnut Creek Sister Cities and all involved in putting on this program for your dedication and countless hours ensuring this program continues.

It continues to create meaningful lifelong memories for Walnut Creek students and their families.

Hi, my name is Alex Hill.

I go to Foothill Middle School.

I'm in eighth grade.

Hi, my name is Amelia Pickett.

I go to WCI.

Well uh Walnut Creek Intermediate, and my favorite part was meeting my um host's sister, Marta, because she was just really special and um most of our talks were like in um on our phone, so it was really fun to see her in in person and I really miss her, yeah.

Hi, I'm Benny Giardini.

I go to Tice Creek Middle School, and I went to Nocetto.

Um, one of my favorite experiences from the trip is going to Milan and getting to walk around and talk with our ambassadors and really getting to know them.

Thank you.

Um, my name's Callie Dudley.

I'm an eighth grader at Foothill Middle School.

And something I learned on this trip is you need to live in the moment, and don't be constantly taking photos because the memories you make and the memories I made while I was in Italy for this week are going to last so much longer and be so much more vivid than the photos I took.

Uh hello, my name is Kieran Panel.

I'm an eighth grader at Foothill Middle School.

Uh, my favorite part of this trip was just being a part of something that was bigger than myself, getting to truly be in uh someone else's shoes and just uh change as a person.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Luke DeVinny and I go to Tice Creek.

Uh one of my favorite memories from Italy was probably going to my uh matches grandparents' house because I felt like I really bonded with them and we played soccer and frisbee and I just really got to know the family.

I also really enjoyed the history and just meeting all the people in Italy.

It was uh an amazing experience.

Hi, my name is Madeline.

I go to WCI and I'm a part of the Italian delegation.

This is a photo of me and my ambassador and her f and my host family at the farewell party.

This moment was so meaningful to me because it really summed up my week.

Um I care so much about them, and I will never forget moments small moments like making peso pasta from scratch or watching the wicked movie, but in Italian.

And I actually told my mom the other day that I was feeling a little homesick and I just missed them so much.

And I want to thank you, Wanna Creek Sister Cities for such an incredible experience.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is uh Oliver Brady.

I go to Wanna Creek Intermediate Middle School.

Uh my favorite part of the trip would probably be swimming in Cinquatera with all of the everybody in the group, uh including the Italians.

Uh I feel like everybody just really bonded in that moment.

We played games on the beach after like volleyball, and it was just a really fun moment.

Thank you.

Hi, my name's Peyton Butler.

I'm a thirty I'm a thirteen-year-old student who goes to Tice Creek Middle School, and this photo is me and my ambassador with my ambassador's little sister eating lunch at the grandpa's house.

And my favorite memory was probably Cinquetera because I spent a lot of time with my ambassador and a lot of time like exploring Italy, and I feel like it was just a really great experience.

Thank you.

Hi, my name's Victoria Jenkins.

I go to Tice Creek Middle School and I went to Nateto, Italy.

And my favorite memory was an afternoon in Cinquetera because this was the day that I feel like me and my match Sofia really clicked, and I ate so much focaccia, and it's one of my favorite foods now.

Hi, my name is Willa Pickett.

I go to Walnut Creek Intermediate, and one of my favorite memories from the trip was meeting my host family and getting to know my host sister Julia.

Um, we um had so many fun times together, and they even taught me how to eat pasta the authentic Italian way, which I was terrible at.

But I had so much fun on this trip, and I want to thank everybody.

Hello, my name is Javier Contreras.

I am a 14-year-old student at Warner Creek Intermediate.

My favorite part of the trip was going to the Parmesan factory in Parma because uh it is a important part of Italian culture being exclus exclusively made in Parma for reasons I do not know, but I wish to find out.

Thank you.

Uh my name is Xavier Montero.

I attend Warnut Creek Intermediate.

Uh my favorite part of the trip was the beach day in Cinqueterra when we oh, sorry, when we went to the beach and explored which town was it that we walked around?

We went to your thing in on the beach in Monteiro.

No, to Veneti.

Yeah, that one.

I can't pronounce it.

Um but it was really amazing, especially the old church that gave such a good view of the ocean and all the fascinating places that we went to over the trip.

It was a really good time, and I will never forget it.

You can do it for sure.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Yuval of Vimarouk.

I go to Foothill Middle School.

This is a photo of me and Benny over there on top of a castle on Friday that we went to.

Um, but my favorite part of the trip was going to Milan and walking around for nine miles.

And and then, you know, so fun.

The train station was closed because there was a soccer game, so we had to walk to another one.

So yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Hi, good evening.

My name is Kristen Decker and I am one of the co-directors of the Yay program.

And I hope that what each of you can take away from this is that we're not only uniting the Walnut Creek kids, but we are definitely uniting the kids with their um hosts in both Nechetto and in Shia folk.

This is definitely like Hallie brought up, a life-changing opportunity, and we really enjoy the support of the city in this, and our hope really is that we bring um empathetic kids and families to this program to get this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

So thank you again for your support.

Yeah.

Um guys wanna do a picture?

Of course.

Okay.

Callie, is that okay?

Thank you guys for all being here.

Now all the young people can come up and you guys can be the short people and and we'll be in behind you.

There's too many of us.

Well, I guess that's a good one.

Or is there a slightly?

You were like everyone, we should come here.

So far.

You guys get closer together, please.

Okay, I can then do that.

So I'm sorry, I think.

Okay.

Okay, so we're going to all connect to the uh after that.

Yeah, I'll probably try to think about that.

I don't know.

Okay.

All people from Nochetto and Shia folk.

Next on the agenda is the consent calendar.

Does any council member wish to pull an item for discussion or any member of the staff wish to pull anything?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Would like to make a comment about one item.

Um you would like to make a comment, but not poll.

I can't think what the amount of noise that's in the hallway.

I know.

Um why don't you just go ahead and make if it's just a remark?

Why don't we go ahead and do that and then we'll do it as a whole?

Well, if anyone from the engineering staff or arts and recreation staff can hear this, I really want to thank you for all of the work that you did on the Tice Valley fields and the lights.

It has been a long time coming.

I was on that soccer board for six years, and that's all anybody talked about was lights and all weather turf.

So it's finally great to get one of those items accomplished.

Thanks to measure O.

And would you like to make oh does any member of the public wish to address us on anything on the consent calendar?

It's a two-minute limit.

Anyone seeing no one, I will bring back up here for a motion.

Move to approve consent calendar items 2A through 2E.

And I'll note there is an addendum changes for 2D.

So would that be incorporated into your motion?

Well, she's still discussing a second.

Alright, roll call, please.

Councilmember Silva.

Hi, Councilmember DeVinny.

Aye.

Councilmember Francois.

Mayor Potumwell.

Hi.

Mayor Darling.

Aye.

All right.

Next on the agenda is public communication, and this portion of the meeting is reserved for items.

Comments on items not on the agenda.

And under the Brown Act, the council cannot act on items raised during public communication.

But we may respond briefly to statements made or questions posed.

We may request clarification or for the item to staff.

Consistent with section 9.5 of the city council handbook.

30 minutes will be allocated this time 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 meeting.

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, I will note that it is 6 39 and we will go till 6 7 09.

So step on forward and you get your two minutes.

Good evening, council, mayor, council members, and other fine people in front of me.

I'm Linda Reimack Colberg.

I'm here this evening representing Shade Lands Walnut Creek, which you'll be happy to hear is hosting once again its annual Made in the Shade Fall Festival this year on Sunday, November 2nd, 11 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

at the Shade Lands Sports Mall, 2640 Shade Lands Drive.

It's free and family friendly, and it's a popular all-community made in the shade fall festival.

And you're wondering what to expect.

And I will tell you non-stop live music, food trucks, ice cream, craft beer, Calicraft will be bringing its best craft beers and and uh drinks to the table.

Exhibitors representing shade lands and businesses and nonprofits outside of Shadelands, giveaways, face painting, demonstrations, sports activities for all ages, including yoga, soccer, gymnastics, basketball, taekwondo, and batting cages, and again, free and family friendly.

Making special appearances will be the Project Pink Wheels Pink Fire Engine.

A big pink fire engine that goes around different locations, bringing awareness, cancer awareness to people and populations out there.

It'll be out there, honking its horn and rolling its siren, and uh the doors are open, and the kids can jump on in and see what it's like to sit inside a fire engine.

And the joy-bound people and pets mobile adoption ban.

Also, branded Made in the Shade sunglasses will be available as long as supplies last.

So visit made in the shade.

That's visit shadelands.com/slash made shade for more details, for more descriptions, for a list of food trucks that will be there, and exhibitors.

Thank you so much.

I will add that Made in the Shade is presented by Shade Lands Walnut Creek.

Hope to see you all there.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members and members of the public.

My name is Kayla Turnage, and I'm a field representative for Assemblywoman Avila Ferrias of District 15.

And with the conclusion of the legislative session, we wanted to provide you all with an update on the legislative work the assemblywoman has accomplished.

So eight of her bills have been signed into law by Governor Newsom, each inspired by the needs and voices of the Contra Costa community.

The Assembly Member has put forward policies that make a real difference, expanding access to affordable housing and child care, supporting families experiencing homelessness, protecting voter rights, and a strengthening our education system.

These new laws will build stronger, more equitable communities and ensure that every Californian has an opportunity to thrive.

Working with her colleagues, the assembly member helped secure $3 billion in annual electricity bill credits to help lower utility costs during the hottest months of the year.

Additionally, she worked to extend California's CAP and Invest program to stabilize gas prices and clean energy jobs.

Beyond policy, our district office is engaging in the community and hosting several events in October.

Our fall festival and pumpkin giveaway on October 24th in our district office from 3 to 7.

Uh our coffee meet and greet in Brentwood on October 5th from 9 to 11 a.m.

And lastly, our immigration town hall on October 27th at Los Medanos College.

And that is from 6:30 p.m.

to 8 30 p.m.

We look forward to seeing you all there.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And let the assembly member know that if she ever wants to come and do a tour of Walnut Creek later when we get to announcements, we'll talk about Senator Grayson came and did that.

And we are always willing and eager to host any of our elected representatives who want to get a little tour of Walnut Creek and want to see you so much.

Thank you very much.

Any other public comment?

Okay.

And seeing no other public comment, we will close that and bring it back up here.

Um, City Attorney, is there anything to report out from closed session?

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

The um city council this evening in closed session authorized by a five-zero vote, a settlement agreement with the Heather Farm Gardens, and also directed that we bring back a lease agreement for council consideration and public input at your next regular city council meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now on to the city manager.

Anything to report?

Yes, good evening.

I have three updates tonight, and they're all positive news, which I think is a first for me in all the updates that I have provided.

The first is that uh your council may recall quite some time back the city applied for pro housing incentive program or PIP funds from the state for a million dollars.

Pleased to announce that we were awarded that funding.

And it's nice that the information embargo is finally lifted that we can share that information.

So this is a million dollars to be used to support affordable housing and homeless related programs.

We're working through all the details.

It'll be a little while yet before the money is actually received.

But wanted to thank your council for all the policy guidance related to this matter to staff for working through the application.

And I'll just note you may recall that Walnut Creek some time back received a pro housing designation, and that was really instrumental in us receiving this grant.

So it was a culmination of efforts.

And most importantly, we'll be able to use this money to help folks in the community.

The next two are folks that I'd like to recognize.

I just thought I would uh it's a bit unusual, but give a shout-out.

You may recall our consultant Ken Hampion, who's done our priority setting for several years with the council.

He is receiving a lifetime achievement award from the International City County Management Association for his over 30 years of contribution to the profession, not only as a former city manager, but as an author as an instructor and certainly as a consultant and a mentor to many, including myself.

So uh congratulations, Ken.

I guess there's a good chance he's watching this because he is still a government nerd.

So uh thank you, Ken, for all that you've done.

And I should also note he is a walnut creek resident, possibly most importantly.

And then last, want to recognize our city clerk, Susie Martinez, who recently received acknowledgement from the International Institute of Municipal Clerks for her continuing education and contribution and uh setting and meeting the high standards that are required of that accreditation, accredited organization.

And she just received that acknowledgement today.

So thank you, Susie, for your commitment and your great work.

Alright, and congratulations to all the staff and the Ken because he is our resident and he helps us every year.

Um we wouldn't be able to do the things we do without the staff, and whether it was figuring out what to do about Heather Farm, how to run the meetings.

We couldn't do it without you guys.

So next on the agenda is um City Councilmember reports on AB 1234 activities and a chance to brief us all on what you've been doing.

Councilmember Definitely, you want to start tonight.

Sure, thank you.

Um good evening.

Um had a few uh few fun events over the last couple weeks.

Uh we um most of us here were down at uh Cal Cities in Long Beach for uh uh sort of city education advocacy, um, connecting with different uh cities and council members and mayors across the state, and uh I had a great time there, and um I had a uh a short story from there.

We were listening to a parking lecture, which may not sound interesting, but I was actually quite intrigued by the lecture.

And the woman who was running it said she started off by uh writing tickets to college students at UC Santa Barbara.

And as soon as she said that, I was like, oh yeah, I know this lady.

She's written me tickets before when I used to go to college there, so that was a small world.

Um attended uh Taste of Walnut Creek, uh, which had 30 different restaurants, uh, so an annual event.

You buy one ticket and then you get to walk around town and sample all the restaurants uh downtown, or almost all of them.

Uh it was uh a really fun event, and it's a great way in the future to get to know all of our restaurants downtown.

I found where a couple were located that I'd heard the names and hadn't quite figured out where they were.

So had a good time doing that as well.

Had a tour of the uh leisure.

Uh, thank you to Carolyn Jackson and uh to uh Emily Enders as well, who uh who did the uh Bedford gallery portion of the tour was uh very interesting to go backstage and see, especially in the main theater, the the size of the equipment there, the scale of it is just quite impressive.

You don't necessarily appreciate that when you're out in the um in the seating uh area.

So um there are many other interesting areas as well, and the uh observations of life um art exhibit is uh still at the Bedford, it'll be there till December 14th.

So, um, go check it out.

Let's see.

Attended coffee with a cop at Rossmore.

This was a very impressive event.

What totally exceeded my expectations.

Uh, we had let's see, uh Chief Knox, uh Captain Hibbs, Captain Slater, and maybe 20 other members of city staff and police there.

Uh about a hundred and fifty um residents, mostly from Rossmore, broke out into tables.

Um police officer sat at each table, and it was a great uh connection event between uh law enforcement and um our residents.

So I look forward to attending more of those coffee with the cop events.

And uh finally got a tour of uh Heather Farms Phase One.

Um, thank you, uh Rich Payne, for the tour.

And um, what I would say is at this point you don't see a lot because it's a lot of sort of like infrastructure upgrades, but it really expanded the natural lake there uh and opened up the visibility.

So that's something you'll appreciate immediately when you walk through the space is really that lake that it's always been there, but not quite as visible as now very prominent and uh quite pretty.

Thank you.

Councilmember Silva.

Thank you very much.

Um, on the same note as the annual conference of the League of California Cities.

Um, there were a number of good sessions.

I agree with you.

The parking session was very interesting and very good, but it was most important was that basically we do 95% of the things that the consultant recommends.

So we are a top performer.

And they had a police officer captain.

I was police chief of SEAL Beach, explaining how they were managing parking, and they were doing it the inverse that we would do it downtown, and they realized they were doing it incorrectly, and so they've changed their methods.

I'm also attended two other sessions, one on Santa Anna's streamlining efforts relating to building and permitting, and I passed that information on to our staff, and one on the general plan update process and how to be more efficient with that.

The mayor was there, the city manager, and we were in three different parts of the room, and we came away with the same impression at the back of the room at the end of the session.

So hopefully that brings in some new ideas for that.

Also during the conference, this board of the League of California Cities had its fifth meeting of the year, and I was reelected to sit as a director at large and sworn in on Friday at the general meeting.

And then also as an announcement, I have been appointed to the board of the Institute for Local Government, which is a nonprofit that represents and provides services to local government across the state, counties, cities, and special districts, and I will be serving on that board.

And finally, I will mention, and we will be talking about it later this evening.

There have been a lot of meetings over the last few weeks and months related to the M A Bag and the MTC transit oriented community strategy, and we'll talk about that later.

Thank you.

Councilmember Francois.

What do you have been up to?

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, as uh liaison to the chamber's economic development working group, I attended their October 15th meeting, which was in person, and we had a wide-ranging discussion about the future of business in Walnut Creek.

We talked a lot about AI, and I think it was uh a discussion that uh there's interest in attracting AI to Walnut Creek, and it's what type of AI, where, and it might take the form of a satellite campus.

We also had kind of discussions about the vacancy rates with office space in and around downtown with the office complexes on California and Mount Diablo being almost pretty well leased up, and same with Grower Square, given its proximity to downtown and the amenities and the services, and then just a few blocks beyond, kind of near the BART station of the golden triangle.

It's a it's a bit of a different picture.

We're still doing well, relatively speaking, compared to some other communities in the Bay Area, but it opened the conversation to what could it be, how can we reactivate that space.

There was some conversation, AI was part of that discussion, also education and the future the evolving nature of it of uh higher education, community college, uh four-year colleges that may be looking beyond the traditional campus uh environment to splitting that up and offering um instruction in a more traditional office setting.

So I think it's it's interesting thing to keep in mind as we go through our general plan update and associated rezoning process.

There's also a fair amount of conversation about flexible zoning and parking standards.

A little bit of a discussion about measure A.

I think we'll have a further discussion on that at our next meeting, which is uh November 19th.

Um so, all in all, a great group, but you know, they we we show up bright and early at 7:30 in the morning, and Bob feeds us, and people really brought a lot of great ideas, and I thank um Erica Vandenbrand, our community development director for being there as well, and touting our down our housing forum that's coming up a little later this month.

Okay, I think I covered that one.

Um, then on Saturday, and I won't steal the mayor's thunder on this.

I did have the opportunity to attend the No Kings rally that was held at Broadway Plaza, and was very impressed with really seemingly.

I know the police were there, but I didn't see them, and there were uh estimated 5,000 peaceful protesters, uh, pro-Americans, uh exercising their first amendment right, and the mayor spoke, and I'll let her speak to that.

But uh, was glad to see that go off without any issues or uh hitches here in Walnut Creek, and then just finally right after that I went to the uh farmers market on Sunday and I had a good uh good conversation with several folks there.

I did misplace my license though on the way to the farmers market, and I was getting a little panicked because I have a trip planned later this week.

So I where I'm going with this, is I'd like to give a shout out to Officer uh Greg Swift, who's a relatively new member, I think, to the department, who not only tracked down us at home and called us and said, I've got your wallet, I've got your driver's license.

I uh got it from Starbucks this morning.

And I said, Okay, I albeit he had no idea who I was.

I at least he did he has a good poker face, he didn't let on at all.

He said, I'm right outside your door.

I I drove over and I delivered your license to you.

So I thank you for going above and beyond, and I know that you guys would give that treatment to anybody in the community, and it's really well appreciated.

And that's my update.

Thank you, Mayor Pertem.

What you've been doing.

Thank you.

And I actually heard from several people that there were so many people that were downtown for the No Kings rally that they couldn't actually make it up the sidewalk and walking.

They had to pretty much stand uh Stan Putin.

Going upstream was just about impossible.

So it's great to hear that there was truly just a terrific community um rally for that.

Uh, as we heard from some of the other council members, I attended the League of Cities annual conference.

What's great about that of is the sessions are terrific, but it's really understanding so many of our colleagues that are other council members and mayors up and down the state that are experiencing the exact same issues that we are, whether it's parking, whether it's e-bikes or fire mitigation, all these kind of things that we're able to work together and collaborate and come up with somewhat either whether it's solutions or movement in the right direction.

And so I really get so much out of that, and it's it's great to see that level of involvement.

We had four of our council members as well as our city manager and assistant city manager, and uh I think we we represented Walder Creek well.

Uh as a liaison to the Diablo Regional Arts Association, we had the board meeting last week, and on Broadway was the most successful fundraising night that DRAA has ever had, exceeded everything that we'd ever done previously.

Uh, great to see that uh that because we we know how important the arts are, and after everything that's happened in the last five to ten years, COVID in there, the Lesser Center uh of the arts is the major arts arena and area in the entire East Bay.

It really is.

Uh there are a couple of places in Berkeley that would probably argue with that, but for for what I hear from not just my myself and my wife, but from people in the community, this is really where it's at.

So it's great to see that uh that those donations and the DRA continue to thrive.

Uh and along with that, the center rep has its next production, Woman in Black, that'll be from November 5th through November 23rd.

Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as a white knuckle thriller.

So we'll find out.

I attended then there were several of things that I attended uh with the mayor in tenants as well, and I won't go into detail in all these, so you'll still have something to talk about.

One of them was the Rossmer Diversity Festival, and again, I think that this is terrific to see in our community with hundreds of people that come together, a variety of different whether it's ethnicities or cultures, all coming together to help understand and educate what their upbringing was and what it's like in the areas of the world that they're from.

And the mayor spoke about uh again, it's just a terrific festival and so needed at this time.

As the liaison for county connection, I mentioned at their last meeting that we were reviewing the Route 4 and that we're gonna be voting on some slight changes to our free shuttle on Route 4.

The board did approve those changes.

There was a couple of people from the community that had some outreach uh mentioning this could be a little bit more inconvenient for them.

We're working with them.

Hopefully, they understand a little bit more now that by it being lead times now of every 15 minutes for the shuttle rather than every 20 minutes, it'll actually be more convenient.

And if it's not stopping right where they were before, which is typically at uh South Broadway and Newell, it's a couple of blocks to where the stop is.

So it shouldn't be a problem.

Uh that said, County Connection staff will be working to make sure to listen to any kind of resident concerns that happen once this comes into effect in January.

So uh beware of that if you especially if you take the uh whether you get on or off the bus at the south end of Broadway Plaza.

And uh we CCTA County Contra Costa County Transit Authority had a workshop yesterday looking at some of the vision that's happening in the future.

We're talking long-range vision, 10 years, 20 years of of how we can work together to make sure that transportation works most effectively and get people out of their cars and onto public transit or make it more efficient for whatever they're doing.

And then lastly, today I was joined with the mayor at White Pony Express, where we helped them to onboard some food that came from where they do I guess there were donations from Whole Foods, okay.

Donations from Whole Foods.

We loaded the van, off it went to help feed those people that uh are in need, and that it's great to actually have hands on with some of these events where we know what we're doing is turning into immediate uh solutions for people that are in need.

So that's my update.

Thank you.

Um, it's been a busy couple weeks.

Um, as I mentioned to the assembly member staff, we did a tour with Senator Grayson, the city manager, Mayor Pro Tem and I took them around.

We uh walked around Broadway Plaza and talked about smash and grab, you know, Prop 36, all the different kinds of things that we're doing to cut down on crime in that area.

Then we jumped in the van, and this is the point at which it started to rain like nobody's business.

And of course, we had left all of our umbrellas in the van.

But we took him down to Trinity Center, and he had never really been there.

We got to show them the the clothing closet and the process that they use to get resources for the homeless folks.

Um, and then we and the Trinity Center has since reached out and invited him to come and do a bigger tour there.

We toured a couple of the um new affordable housing projects, including the one over um across from um TICE, where it's built off-site and airlifted in, and it's the five units in Hope Village for seniors that have been experiencing homelessness, and um he was really excited to see that.

We also stopped by this was this is where the mayor pro tem earned his money.

We were driving down the street, and he goes, Wait, stop here, we're at Planned Parenthood.

So we got to give them an update of the challenges that we've heard about um from Planned Parenthood and the ordinances that we've passed and the reactions and the the balancing that we're doing with public safety and first amendment rights there.

So it was a it was a good tour, and uh we only got them a little bit wet that one time, so it was all good.

Um, and we promise if anybody else wants to come and tour, we won't get them wet.

Um Rossmore Diversity Fair.

It was a really it was a great event.

Um they had my favorite part was the um Korean American residents got up there and enacted a traditional Korean wedding, including the part where the groom has to carry the bride piggyback.

And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, we're in Rossmore.

How's this gonna work?

It worked, it happened.

Um the MCE annual board retreat, MCE is Marin Clean Energy that provides most of the electricity here that the city uses, and most of our residents here in the city, along with uh many other cities in Contra Costa, Solano, Napa, and Marin, and highlighted they've been in business now for 15 years.

Um, and in that 15 years, they've acquired over 400 million dollars worth of customer programs to help people with their energy bills, to help people go electric, to help people add solar to add um installation and make their homes more comfortable.

Um, the goal that they've had has always been to keep the rates very competitive with PGE, and they've been able to do that, even in the face of great volatility and energy prices, but we have not raised our rate since 2023.

And the best part of it is originally we set out some modest goals for getting to fossil free greenhouse gas free and renewable energy, and we've blown right past all of those.

MCE right now, it's about 70% of the power that they serve to the customers is renewable.

Of that, 45% is solar and 20% is wind.

They're working to build a lot of the solar storage that will help us meet the need once the sun goes down.

One of the things I did not know that the staff told us is that even if we build all the storage that we're planning on, we still need additional solar resources in the state because we don't have enough to charge all the batteries that we're gonna need.

So it's they're continuing to develop new projects and learn as they go.

So that was a really good retreat, lots of chance to celebrate, you know, 15 years of really making it up as they went along.

Um I went to the chamber board meeting.

Um I did a couple things of importance.

One is I told them that on October 23rd, we're gonna open the bids for the Heather Farm pool and community center, and so they are all now praying with us that that bid opening goes well.

And I think Linda's already talked about made in the shade on the 2nd of November, and then funders and founders is on the 12th, and um the chamber is going to be hosting a great event there.

Best of Walnut Creek voting I think closes on the 29th.

It's coming right up.

So if you haven't yet voted for Best of Walnut Creek, that is coming right up.

Um last night I got a chance to go to a ribbon cutting for a new home care provider.

It's home watch caregivers, it's run by a husband and wife team who are nurses and recognize the need in the community, and so they are working to bring resources to people that need help at all different levels in their houses to help keep people safe in their homes.

So that was really good.

And last but not least, we'll get around to the the No Kings.

I had been asked to speak at that as you know, somebody with a stake in what's going on in the world.

Um, and I did reach out and check with Broadway Plaza because this is obviously something that's really impactful to the businesses in Broadway Plaza, and they said they had been working closely with the police and with the organizers, and they didn't give me special dispensation, but they said they understood what I was doing.

But I focused in my talk on the oath that we all take to the Constitution and what we here in Walnut Creek do to make government work at this level by listening to each other, by listening to our staff, by listening to the public, by working together to find solutions that work for everybody, and I think that is a powerful message that can help us get beyond where we are in this world.

It's uh it's such a challenging time.

I must admit, when Congressman DeSalnier showed up with a couple of federal marshals, I did feel a little better, but I'm sure Walnut Creek PD was on top of everything, and the event really was uh well run, well organized, and I felt fine, I felt good about it.

But I really thought it was important to get out that message that what we do here in Walnut Creek is special, and it it gets beyond all of our differences.

We do not all see the world in the same way, and that that is a good model for everybody in the world and in this country to adopt, and so now next on the agenda is oh five minute break.

Sorry, Erica.

I know I forgot about closed session.

Okay.

Okay, we are back in session, and next on the agenda is consideration of the item to approve transmittal of a comment letter to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission regarding the transit oriented communities policy and its implementation.

And I invite community development director Erica Vanderbrand forward to provide us an excellent presentation.

Thank you very much, Mayor Mayor Pro Tem Council.

Again, I'm Erica Van and Brand Community Development Director.

And I'll just start with the presentation.

So overall, to share with you the TOC policy requirements, its implementation, and then call for flexibility.

To increase affordable housing supply in transit areas, increase the density for commercial office development, and prioritize transit and active transportation near stations.

And then also to create equitable and transit oriented communities.

Most recently about eight million dollars through OBAG 3.

But there's also the potential to apply it to other discretionary funds, transportation funding as well as regional housing bonds if they're ever put on the ballot and passed.

So this was a concept that was first initiated in 20 or 2008.

And these PDAs, although this isn't showing up properly on on the screen.

They were voluntary.

And it was a collaborative process, and it served as the foundation for West and North Downtown specific plans.

And this was something that was sponsored by MTC and worked in concert with the city and then the community to develop further plans.

So again, the PDA is the area.

Stepping back for one second, we have two areas which are subject to this TOC policy.

One is around the Walnut Creek Bart Station, and the other is around the Pleasant Hill Bart Station.

And the area on the left that has the I guess it's bounded by the black is the PDA.

The circle is one half mile of around the BART station, the TOC area.

And then the green area is the West Downtown Specific Plan, and then the yellow area is the north downtown specific plant.

And you can see that these specific plans are a subset within that PDA.

It was done with intention to be able to focus growth around our transit station in the Walnut Creek Park station.

On the right hand side, there's also a PDA, which is the Contractor Center PDA, and as well as the city boundaries, but what you see there is that the PDA around the Contra Costa area, the station does not include the city and it's within the county.

And these are important as we go through and look further.

One other particular thing of note over here is that the geographic areas of the PDA and then also the planning areas for the specific plans were done voluntarily in concert with both MTC and the city, whereas the circle that's one half mile radius around the stations is just a blanket unilateral approach to an area around the Bart stations.

So to give you a little bit of context, around the Walnut Creek Bart Station.

So the idea of a half mile radius is intended to be about a 10-minute walk or so.

And keep in mind that it's a 10-minute walk, not a 10-minute flight, which is really important because if you look at two particular areas that on the far left-hand side that are identified in the with the two red dots, that is about a half mile radius.

And so if you walk, that's as far as you can get.

So all the rest of the area that's to the left of the 680 really is outside a half-mile capture zone.

But the policy does not recognize that.

Second thing is that if you look at the topography, it also doesn't recognize the fact that there is a freeway there that acts like a river.

So if you look at the picture on the top right-hand side, it really shows you what it's like to cross over that river and get to the one point and one walk zone.

And also on the opposite side of on the west side of 680, what we have there is a very steep terrain, and it really is not conducive to the types of land use densities densities that they're asking for that I'll talk about in just a moment.

Similarly, around the Pleasant Hill on Bart TOC area, on the far on the right-hand side you can walk.

The Google doesn't let you put a dot in the middle of the freeway, so we had to go a little bit further.

But so it's about you know six-tenths of mile as opposed to half a mile, but you can walk to the end of the freeway, cross over the freeway from the Pleasant Hill Bart Station, or you could walk to the IHOP going the other way, and that's really about half mile distance, and so all the area that is to the left in the capture zone really is far outside of what a half mile walk would actually be.

So why this matters is because there are four components that one have that jurisdiction needs to be compliant with for this policy to be eligible for funding.

One are densities for both residential and commercial, which gives you 25 points, and then there's affordable housing, which gives you another 25 points for housing policies from what they call the three Ps, production, preservation, protection, and also commercial stabilization.

And then you have the kind of the transportation side of the house, the parking management and then transit station access and circulation.

And those count for an additional 50 points altogether.

So we're okay, generally speaking on the on the transportation side.

We don't have parking maximums for most of the area, but we're not dinged significantly in terms of the number of points.

But on the density and housing, there are significant issues which arise.

So specifically on the residential side.

So we in order to be compliant, that increases the densities that are above our certified housing element quite substantially to 50 units per acre minimum over that entire area.

So the it's evaluated for the entire circle area that I'd showed you earlier, not just simply the north downtown and west downtown areas.

And we don't see a scenario that with the way that things are currently constructed that we would ever be able to meet it, and that even the area in the rubric, as we've been calling it, to be able to get partial credit, we don't even meet a partial credit because they have so many, so much area that is not zoned with that level of density.

It also requires an intensified housing capacity near the BART station, which directly contradicts the guidance that we are given by HCD, and for our housing element, that if we're going to be meeting to add additional capacity, either to have a buffer area or to have a mid-um, you know, mid-re- I guess mid-plan review, then we would need to be looking at areas that were outside of the transit area and single-family homes.

So single family home zoned area.

So just so that you're aware of that.

Can I ask a question on that one?

Eric on the 50 units and your.

So is it true that we meet that standard generally within the PDA area?

But we don't meet it within the entire half mile radius circle.

We don't need it within the half mile radius circle, and the way that we're able to get there in the PDA or the north downtown and the north downtown and west downtown specific plans, particularly, is that we have developed there are projects that have yielded that amount or greater, but they've had density bonus, which is allowed by state law, but this policy doesn't allow us to take credit for, and then also in the north downtown specific plan, there's community benefits, and upon which the density bonus can be on top of it.

And so we've been able to get many projects that would get those types of yields in terms of multifamily housing, but the way that they have it calculated, we can't meet that requirement.

Similarly, for the commercial office density, and for those of you who have been listening to our business community, we've been hearing that there's a dearth of folks that really want to actually populate, you know, the commercial office, but their requirement is that there be 2.0 FAR or higher.

And we don't meet those minimums at either the Walnut Creek or the Pleasant Hill transit oriented community areas.

On the left hand side, you know, there's a map from our general plan, and there are certainly parcels that meet it, but whenever you take the entire area that's in that circular area for um, you know, for the commercial densities, we don't meet it.

The other thing, too, is that the uh policy has not considered economic impacts, and so that the densities that are being proposed for the commercial office and the commercial areas really contradict what our specific plan strategy is to try and move certain businesses like you know the different automobile dealerships, et cetera, out of the downtown to allow density with near the BART station, and it doesn't recognize the economic implications for the city and doesn't provide for a way to be able to have an alternate pathway.

Okay.

Then there's what is called the three Ps, which in housing elements speak was affirmatively furthering fair housing.

So we went through a very substantial effort, as you are so well aware, to go through work with the state HCD to get our housing element adopted and certified.

So that the requirements that this MTC TOC policy has exceeds what was required for our housing element by the state, and this is not fully inclusive, but it highlights most of many of the policies and the challenges that are there.

So, for example, the city of Walnut Creek has an inclusionary housing policy of 10%.

The TOC policy would require 15%.

And what we've been hearing from the development community is that even 10% is you know a push.

And in order to prove to MTC that 15% is not viable, we would have to undertake a very significant and costly study to demonstrate that.

Similarly, there's um, you know, there's a group of policies that are options that you can choose amongst.

And these funding policies have a this one has a four million dollar commitment over four years to be devoted toward affordable housing, even in the best of years, the kind of revenue that we receive only accounts for up to 2.8 million, and that's assuming that we have significant commercial development occurring, so we get commercial linkage fees and then fee in lieu for housing.

Excuse me, the 2.8 million that's averaged across a number of years to see what we can.

Correct in four years?

Yes.

That's four years.

That's four years' worth.

Four million.

That's correct.

Um legal assistance, so that the policy requires 300,000 over four years, and we have over four years, 33,000 devoted from our community development block grant funds.

Similarly, fair housing enforcement, 300,000 over four years.

Uh, we have 24,000 over that same time period.

Um there's also options for foreclosure assistance, $300,000 over four years.

We have zero devoted to that, and then public and community land trusts of 1.2 million dollars over four years, we have zero because we don't have any public or community land trusts.

Um, so then going on to non-monetary policies because it's not always about money.

So there are rent stabilization, just cause eviction policies that we do not have in our housing element, but they would require if we don't choose one of the monetary elements, or there are policies that are there for single room occupancy preservation or mobile home preservation, which not we're not eligible for because we don't have those products within our community, and then there are also tenant anti-harassment protections, which again we don't have in our certified housing element.

So that's an overview and context, and so that we have prepared for your consideration a letter, comment letter to go to MTC that first addresses the TOC policy requirements, the lack of clarity about how it actually be used, the unworkable nature of the compliance options for policy implementation, and then also calling for flexibility and alternative paths for compliance that rely more on the PDAs and the work that substantial investment have been made by both MTC and our community.

And the MTC board starts meeting tomorrow, but with this topic being taken up on Thursday morning to be able to have discussion.

With that, I will end and answer any questions you have.

So what you're looking for from us tonight is in response to the challenges that you've laid out here, the staff recommendation is to put together a letter just saying that's nice, but this is this is an option that we want to have as far as more flexibility.

More flexibility and also for uh MTC's board to recognize that the implementation of the policy as MTC staff is currently recommending is not workable.

And I guess I should also clarify that there's at least some level of recognition of that by MTC staff, and that just this late this afternoon they sent up, they sent a revised scoring matrix, which re-jiggers somewhat on the transportation side, the points, but largely the points remain the same in their allocation on the housing and density side, which is where we have the most challenges.

Okay.

Questions for staff.

I know you have questions.

Well, I do because um thank you very much to staff for this and all the work that you've been putting into it, and I know it's both the transportation side and also the land use side.

Um, as a representative to the executive board of ABAG, we had an opportunity to look at this, and it I will say this.

Sitting on a regional board is very different from sitting on a board here.

Staff assumes that they're right, and that we will rubber stamp.

And so they go very quickly through every slide.

They don't pause for questions, and it's a bit hard to understand because they're stuffing 20 pounds of material in a five-pound bag.

So every slide has five pounds worth of material on it.

I don't know if you see this at MCE, but you see this at MTC and you see it at ABAG.

So some of my questions are really to try to get at the core concerns that I think we have from a flexibility standpoint, but I'm going to start with: are there other communities or agencies that are concerned about this?

There are.

So this is part but not entirely.

So it includes the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce, East Bay Leadership Council, the cities of Concord, Arinda, and San Jose, the Chambers of Commerce for Concord, Pittsburgh, Livermore Valley, San Leandro, the San Mateo Chamber, and the San Mateo County Economic Development Association, the Alameda Chamber and Economic Alliance, the San Pablo EDC, and Innovation Tri-valley Leadership Group, along with the real Realtors Associations for East Bay, Contra Costa, San Francisco, Santa Clara County, Silicon Valley, California Apartment Association, and the San Francisco Apartment Association.

What kind of response do you hear?

I know the type of response I've heard when I raise issues.

What type of response are you hearing when things like when looking for greater flexibility this doesn't work?

What are the suggestions you hear?

Flexibility has been interpreted by staff because we really haven't had access directly to the board, but flexibility manifests in more complexity, and the request for greater flexibility shows more complexity.

And so in your packet, you have the um administrative guidance that is a little bit like um putting your taxes together.

Only if you're doing alternative minimum tax.

That would be more fun, actually.

Can you go back to the map that showed where the West Downtown and North Downtown specific plans were?

I think four of us were involved in these two specific plans, probably on the planning commission on the transportation commission.

Then you came to council in 2016.

Did we just do these out of the goodness of our heart, or was somebody else partnering with us on these?

So MTC and ABAG, you know, had come up with a concept for these PDAs, and that was the impetus for doing these plans.

And MTC provided over one million dollars in match to our half a million dollars in city commitment and staff time to produce these two plans.

So the West Downtown plan was adopted in 2018, and then the North Downtown Specific Plan was adopted in 2019, which in the planning world, the ink is barely dry.

So MTC invested a million dollars of their collective monies from across the Bay Area.

Did they have anything to say about the footprint of these plans or what the goals were?

So at the time that they were being proposed and the grants were awarded, and then um the plan the plans were adopted, they were highly supportive, and um that the these plans helped achieve a transit oriented community.

So they're changing the goals, they're changing the goalposts, they're changing the game.

Yes, in a word, just yes.

So what's so sacrosanct about a half mile circle around a transit station?

Well, there's nothing sacrosanct per se, and so what half a mile is meant in um transportation in the transportation world is to represent um about a 10-minute walk, which is a comfort area to be able to walk to transit.

However, um these are as the crow flies as opposed to as the person walks, and so the in many areas that are within this um half mile circumference or radius area, um, it's actually you know half an hour or longer to be able to act to walk there, and um on the west side of the freeway, not very pedestrian or bicycling friendly conditions.

So I walked one of these, I walked up Oakvale this morning.

It took from the corner of Trinity and Oakland across just the overpass took um two and a half to three minutes.

You're huffing and puffing because it is a 30% rise at minimum, and then you have to turn and you have to huff and puff all the way up.

It was close to 15 minutes total, and even walking downhill to the BART station took 16 minutes, and that was in walking shoes and not caring about what you looked like by the time you got there.

There was a lot of density, additional density in housing units for both the north downtown and the west downtown specific plan areas.

What did that look like when we were done?

Because I think that got translated into our arena numbers.

Yeah, so it was about um, I guess 3600 units that were added, you know, through the increased density, and whenever you take into account the um the buffer, um, the buffer requirements for um affordable housing for our housing element, it's just under half.

So roughly half of the new units that we planned for in the yellow and the green equated to half of what we have the units we planned for equated to about half of what we had to produce or promised to produce for our housing element.

Correct.

So did we just throw a dart at the wall at the housing element?

Or I remember going around and around and around that there were tables and tables and tables that every site had to be certified that, in fact, it would produce the density.

That's entirely correct.

So that the work that um we had done um to produce the north downtown and west downtown specific plans formed the foundation, and then from that foundation, we needed to apply the requirements for the state HCD and go through and justify each and every site.

And that process was quite detailed.

And in fact, through the public comment process, several sites ended up having to be taken out within this same area.

And so it there was quite a lot of work that went into it.

So when you say all this to the staff at MTC, what's their response?

And that in order to comply, the one must meet the compliance requirements.

And if we're not able to or willing to make the changes, then we don't care enough about having access to the dollars.

So let me see if I can summarize that the way someone else expressed it to me as well, which is you don't care about the money, therefore you wouldn't you don't like our carrot.

When in fact, what lack of the funding is a stick.

So I would even go further, I would say that our community cares very deeply about having access to the funds because it's very critical to be able to have safe streets, safe routes to school, and a lot of these access improvements that make our community safer and more accessible to transit.

So I would make the opposite argument that based off of our past in this council's past behavior that we care very deeply.

So I think I'm gonna start getting you, Erica.

Yeah, thank I I have a question a little bit more related to the uh the staff report regarding inLU fees, and it mentioned that on one of the the point scales that uh we don't have as many in LU fees, therefore we're not gonna get as many points and why do you think the in LU fees have been less than it was before?

And is like my guess, but I is it because that more developers are including affordable housing within their developments.

So it's a combination of that and the fact there's just simply been less development because of um economic conditions.

So if I make the natural next step, we've got the state mandates which provide which uh encourages development to have more affordable housing, and if they put more affordable housing, they get bonus bonus units that they can put in them in the development projects.

Therefore, they are building those, we're getting less in loo fees for affordable housing and then being penalized for that.

Do I get that right?

That logic is accurate.

Okay, thank you.

Can I build?

Well, actually, let me build a finish going through everybody else.

So I always find when people sort of pose contradictory philosophies that like I try to get inside their head, like what and I'm I'm interested in the answers to the questions that uh Councilmember Silva brought up, but uh specifically when we talk about um proposing like two contradictory, I mean there's there's the there's the circle and then there's the planned development areas.

Did they do they do they respond to that half mile radius versus planned development areas?

The fact that within a few years they're proposing like contradictory pathways to go about achieving, you know, transit-oriented community status.

So, no, they don't.

Um, but not that I would characterize myself as getting inside anyone's head, but what I would say is that whenever this policy was being worked on and developed in the midst of COVID, it was prior to a lot of um a lot of effort that had been put in by the state.

And so this policy was adopted before we certainly, and in fact, most of the Bay Area jurisdictions had our housing elements certified.

So I guess that's one thing.

Second thing is that you know a good idea on paper and then how it manifests in the real world hadn't really been vetted because everyone was focused on coming out of COVID, and then also our housing elements, and there had been legislation that had been kicking around for quite a while at the state level, which ultimately most recently resulted in the passage and the signing into law of SB 79, which talks about half a mile radius around major transit stops.

However, in Contra Costa County is not included in that um in that uh you know state requirement.

So this puts us out of sync with what state law requires currently.

And that that SB uh 79, you had to have a city of greater than like 400,000, I think, in order to qualify for that.

So first you had to be in an urban transit county, and so you had to identify that there were certain levels of transit occurring and meet certain conditions in Contra Costa County did not meet that condition.

You know, across like I know we're getting off a little bit, but around the state, how many counties did actually do like roughly I've heard it was very few.

I was like six or seven.

So we took this this um this concept that only applied to eight counties and now we're okay.

Um so I I was curious if we based on your preliminary projections, and I know there's a lot of uncertainty, what um what do you think will be the um lack of fund or how much funding will we not qualify for?

If we were getting eight million in OBAG three, then uh what what would we what were we projecting for four and and where do we see the like how much money we would be in a shortfall?

That is an excellent question, and it's one that I can't answer.

And the reason why I can't answer it is because usually whenever a process like this goes through, you know what your you know the goalposts look like.

We don't know what the goalposts look like for what compliance level would one need in order to be eligible for OBAG4 and subsequent funds as well as for any future housing funds.

And so that's it that's an issue.

And then the other issue is that um in complying with even partially with these requirements, um, how many points um is good enough, and that goalpost keeps changing too in response to um feedback.

Because I'm seeing you know, roughly like three million dollars we'd have to spend on the the areas where we were short on our spending just to comply for points to then get maybe a few million back um did we look at it through that.

Um I'm sure that all of you as council are looking through the lens of the budget and having just most recently had to close um a budget gap.

Um, thank you.

Councilmember Francois.

Thanks, Erica.

Uh I kind of touched on it in response to Council Member DeVinny's questions, but is there a rough idea of how many points we would need to be eligible for the same amount of funding we had received previously?

No, because again, that um hasn't been established.

We were per we're confident that 51 is too low.

Well, I'm not confident of much of anything at this point, quite honestly, because the um the the point scoring, et cetera, keeps moving around, and you know, I had given you the most recent one in your council packet, and then there's a new one which was produced today.

And just generally then the the PDAs were developed uh not I mean, I think there was a proximity to BART that factored into them, right?

And it was done at a regional level, but then it was also reflecting kind of walkability and the economic factor, which I guess the straight half mile radius doesn't take.

What what properties are likely to get redeveloped that are in close proximity to BART?

So the original PDAs were um, you know, there was a flavor, if you will, that was transit oriented, and that's what you know we see reflected in our community.

And um by putting a half mile radius around an area, it doesn't necessarily mean that all the area that's there is conducive to the level of densities that they're requiring.

Right.

And I I'm in support, I mean we'll get to the comments, I guess, in a little bit.

Just kind of as a practical question, what of you know what ability do we have to influence the policy is done now, as I understand it.

So it's now the implementing guidelines.

Do we are we still in the running to try to influence those and how this is implemented?

There is a an MTC board retreat on um Thursday, dealing with this specific area, and I would say that the greatest potential is to influence its implementation, but if there's heartburn, um we should all you know about the policy itself, we should also articulate that.

Okay, I thought of another question.

Then what looking out kind of on the on the landscape, what what agencies are scoring 80 or do we know?

Like 80 or above.

So um, I guess two things.

One is that um City of Concord, even though that they um have um said that they have significant concerns with the policy, I think that they had a draft score, at least in the last go around, of about you know in the 80s, um, but they still have concerns about the policy.

Um other jurisdictions, and I can't recall them off the top of my head, but they're very flat, and um that they're not yet developed, and so it's an easy thing to be able to um imagine a future, but for areas like ours that um have existing development, have strategy in place, and have plans and focus, um it's presenting heartburn.

Okay, that's that's interesting that that Concord is scoring that highly.

One one was there any thought given.

I like the PDA comment, I think that's a really logical one and should be part of the comment letter.

Um now that SB 79 is come online.

I know Concord's a little bit of an outlier because they're in Contra Costa County too, but is there an ability to say uh it shouldn't be one size fits all, even SB 79 recognizes that some counties with more BART stations essentially uh should are subject to those higher density limits and and counties like Contra Costa are not.

That is a policy choice decision to make that recommendation.

Okay, can you clarify that last part?

You said the county is not responsible because I was wondering with the Pleasant Hill uh BART station, you're saying that the density doesn't apply to the county?

It doesn't apply SB 79 doesn't apply to Contra Costa.

So they're it's we're not one of the eight counties it's subject to.

But correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe like we're responsible for two stations, not two stations together to independent report.

I mean we have to file and be compliant with both.

That's correct.

Concord has two to be compliant with, which I can't figure out how they're compliant when they don't have access to the Concord Naval Weapons Station yet.

But um, so the county in Pleasant Hill and Walnut Creek are responsible to file for the one the Pleasant Hill BART station, except Pleasant Hill has too low of a percentage of land in the area, and so they're exempted from the station with their name on it.

I was gonna say we should be able to take the name back then.

And then the other okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

We're getting into comments.

I had a couple quick questions.

Um so thinking forward, it sounds like there is the retreat for the MTC board, and the goal of this letter is to sway them to include another option beyond what the staff has been presenting them.

Correct.

And are we anticipating so the the audience for this letter is not MTC staff?

It is the MTC board, that's also correct.

Okay, and then um so the call for flexibility and an alternative path to compliance is our desired outcome.

Yes, for example, um around the Walnut Creek Park station, if we took a different geography that went um further down on the east side of the freeway that begins to mimic our west downtown plan um, you know, specific plan, uh we got very close to the land use densities that they're asking for.

And what it also does is acknowledges the significant investment that the city has made in um putting free transit um to be able to extend the reach to BART, and um, so that's one thing.

And then the other thing too, with regard to the Pleasant Hill BART station, that if you look at it right there, um the areas of the city that are in that capture area, there are bits and pieces, and that collectively it works out to about 32 percent, um, which is a trigger because it's above the 20% cutoff that they have, so um Identif identifying an alternate pathway for that also because to comply with their requirements would um really upset the Apple cart in terms of the city's economic development strategy and our um and our growth strategy.

Okay, and then so if we put this forward to the MTC board on Thursday and ask them to consider this, um, are they likely to take action on Thursday?

They will not take action on Thursday.

They're hearing input, and so in the most recent communication that we received late this afternoon is that um it's a listening um session and not any decision making.

And so the the strategy right now is to use this letter to convey our concerns during the listening phase if they end up um coming up and basically not modifying the approach and going with the staff recommendation.

Is there any other recourse for us besides telling MTC board we don't like them anymore?

We can choose not to um apply for funds.

So it's basically there's not a way to to deal with it other than that.

Okay.

All right.

Okay, why don't we go ahead and um open it up to public comments because I think we are veering into our um comments rather than questions.

So why don't we go ahead and do that?

Is there anybody here that would like to provide public comment on this agenda item?

Seeing no one, we'll bring it back up here.

Why don't we do a round of um to see where we are on the letter?

Somebody want to start that you want to start.

No, um I think this is the age-old conversation ever since I've been on the city council since 2016, and that is that we're trying to continue to fit a square peg into a round hole that one size fits all.

We're constantly battling whether it's the state, whether in this case MTC, uh, as I said when I first came on board in 2016, we walnut creek has and continues to meet its obligations, but we can't meet every city's obligations, and it feels like in some in too many cases, we're being asked to do things that just don't make sense for the city, yet we continue to do what's asked of us each and every time.

Uh, I mean, in here in this particular example, we've got uh stations that are bordered between the freeway, county jurisdictions.

These ones don't border the open space, but we've got bordering on open space, it doesn't allow us to build there anyway.

We do what we can, and I'm in complete support of this letter.

Who else wants you want to take a shot at comments?

I mean, complete support of the letter.

I think we need to make it clear.

Well, I love the one size does not fit all really think about putting this in the middle of a render, and you will see.

I mean, it's a bowl with no downtown, and yet they have the same standards to meet.

What concerns me about this is they've taken arbitrary circle that is out of some textbook that says about a half mile when it's not a half mile, it is a reasonable walking distance that somebody would walk rather than drive their car and park.

And they're trying to cover the whole half circle or the whole circle that's a half mile, as opposed to selecting the sites that with the areas within a transit proximate area that are that are truly transit oriented, and recognizing that some are not.

So we have no way to dispose of the single family homes with no good infrastructure for walking, biking, or or even driving, really, that are straight uphill.

We're having to somehow figure out how to compensate.

I will be.

So just understand it was a different commission when this was developed with a different set of values.

So I think we've got the best shot now of counteracting this.

But I think we not what I worry about most is that they'll just slow it down when fundamentally it is flawed.

Slowing down something that is flawed is still flawed.

And so that's what concerns me most about getting them amped up the commission.

I think they'll slow it down no matter what, because I'm my read of the tea leaves, but I'm afraid that they'll slow it down, and staff will continue to just churn at this methodology that they've invented that they don't want to let go of.

All right.

Councilmember DeFinnie.

Well, um, well said, uh Mayor Pro Tem Wilk and Councilmember Silva.

Uh I I find this to be, I think it would be interesting to hear someone come in and defend this in front of us, you know, to actually apply logic to to what they're doing.

I mean, there's an intent, but the execution and the application are are poor.

So I'm in support of the letter.

Thank you.

Councilmember Francois.

Yeah, I I too am in support of the letter.

I uh you know, I thought some of the points that are raised in terms of the alternative means of compliance were compelling.

I think, you know, in addition to building upon the existing PDAs, if we can get a reference in there to and adopted specific plans that were funded by MTC.

Um, I think that's I think that that's already there using certified housing elements.

But I it's if we can't meet it, I'm really shocked to hear that Concord can because I think that we've done a lot in terms of proactively planning for additional housing in and around the BART station, both BART stations.

And so that the 10-minute walk was also something when when you use that example of shifting the pin instead of straight in the middle of the BART station that where it actually would be a radius that is an actual 10-minute walk.

I think there should be emphasis on that.

My concern is, and I also think would suggest consider adding a graphic to this letter, because I think that adds, you know, especially the one where you compare the radius to the PDAs.

I think that's very powerful.

I worry that it would, you know, letters tend to go off there.

I'm really encouraged by who the chair of MTC is, and that she's our neighboring from on our neighboring city council.

So I know that we have influence there, but I also if we don't have a spokesperson there to speak to this, or Contra Costa doesn't, I'm worried that it falls somewhat on deaf ears that that this is going to take a concerted effort, an organized effort, a lobbying effort, so to speak, um, to get them to really seriously consider an alternative means of compliance, and that would require the people on that board firmly directing staff to do that, it sounds like otherwise they will do other things, and that won't be good.

Um, thank you for calling this to our attention, bringing it to the housing committee and to the council, and for drafting this letter, and I'm in support of sending it.

And I I to him in support of the letter.

I like the addition under the um building upon existing PDAs and adding in the language about the specific plans funded by MTC.

Um, and I think putting in, I'm not quite sure where it goes, but emphasizing the amount of time, energy, and public input that went into the housing element, and that the housing element has been certified to meet our arena goals, and referencing the RENA goals might not be a bad addition.

Um I don't want to get into wordsmithing up here, but since my number my name's gonna go on and I get to, yeah.

So I I would like to see a couple a couple modifications to beef up the idea, because I I think what could be compelling for a decision maker is we're not saying we want an alternative path to compliance because we don't want to comply.

We're just saying we want an alternative path to compliance that builds upon all the site specific efforts that we've done to meet our state and local goals for housing, and that that is the path to success is the amount of time and energy that have gone into those things.

So getting that flavor in there and letting them know that we're not trying to not do what we need to do.

We're just trying to tell them that this is a much more efficient way to do it.

Um thank you.

Anyone want to make a motion?

Move to approve the transmittal of the letter with our comments tonight, commenting on the transit oriented communities policy and its implementation to MCTC in by hand because they're they're meet they're starting their meetings tomorrow afternoon at the embassy suites in Walnut Creek.

Second.

We'll call, please.

Councilmember Silva.

Hi.

Hi.

Hi.

Council Member Francois.

Hi, Mayor Darling.

Hi, and it sounds like I might be on a mission here in the next day or so.

I'm always going.

I know, but I think as mayor, I would can of us.

Yeah.

All right, thank you very much.

Yeah, this was entertaining.

Um moving on, speaking of entertaining.

I we have gotten to um consideration and direction on the city's e-bike safety action plan.

And I kind of wanted to set a little bit of a stage here because we saw a lot of questions and comments in here that came from the public about what we're trying to do here.

And we in the city have a bike master plan, we have working hard on safe routes to school, we have a vision zero plan, we have many different efforts that we're going to try to make sure that we move people out of cars wherever we can to other modes of transportation, whether that be mass transit, micromobility, walking, writing.

Um, and so that's our overall goal.

And the micromobility represented by an e-bike is a clear part of that goal.

The challenges that we're seeing really have come about as we have discovered when you take this really great micro mobility, which is really fun to ride, and then you give it to a bunch of 13-year-olds, you have some challenges, and that's what we're addressing here today.

We're not backing away from our commitments to sustainability and micromobility.

We're just trying to improve public safety.

And now I'm off my soapbox.

You may do your presentation.

Charles Ching, I'm the assistant city manager.

The item that I will be presenting to City Council tonight is the e-bike safety action plan, which outlines uh cities' efforts, cities, current efforts and future efforts around promoting the safe use of e-bikes in Walnut Creek.

E-bike use has been growing in popularity in recent years.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, e-bikes are the most popular alternative mode of transportation for the past couple of years.

And because of this, we've been seeing a record number of e-bike related injuries.

Um last year, there were 45,000 uh e-bike related injuries recorded.

That being said, I want to reiterate what the mayor said.

The idea of this action plan is not to condemn the to condemn the use of e-bikes.

Uh e-bikes is an alternative mode of transportation.

It has a lot of benefits, especially around sustainability and the environment.

Um, on a more local level, uh, e-bike trips in Contra Costa has been increasing year over year.

In 2021, it was at 3.6 percent.

In 2025, it has more than doubled to 8.2 percent, and so the popularity has has been hitting Contra Costa County as well.

Is that percent of all trips or percent of bicycle trips?

This is um percent growth of e-bike use year over year.

In compare but is three percent of what?

Compared to 2020, it's just measuring the growth of the yes.

So before I jump into the actions, I want to uh talk about the three most popular, the three types of e-bikes.

Uh there's a class one, class two, and class three uh e-bikes.

Class one and class two are the most similar of the three in terms of requirements.

They're both pedal assist bikes and helmets are required for anyone riding an e-bike under the uh under the age of 18.

There is no minimum age in in using class one and class two e-bikes, no requirement for a driver's license, and both can uh has a has a speed limit of 20 miles an hour.

The biggest difference between the two is that class two e-bikes have a throttle, uh, whereas class one e-bikes do not uh for class three e-bikes, class three e-bikes do not have a throttle.

Um, they are pedal assist, but they can go up to 20 mile 28 miles per hour, um, and that's why um there's a minimum age of 16 years old and above before you can use uh class three e-bikes.

Now I did uh reference a California vehicle code section underneath that an e-bike must have fully operable pedals and electric motor for it to be considered an e-bike.

The reason why I put that on there is because I did not want to confuse class one, two, and three e-bikes with other types of two-wheeled motorized vehicles that we're seeing on the streets.

We have e-mopeds, we have e-derk bikes and e-scooters.

Now, these three are governed by different rules and regulations around usage.

Uh, e-mopeds requires uh the use of helmets for anyone operating it under the age of 18 and must have either an M1 or M2 driver's license, and one in M2 driver's licenses are licenses required to operate uh two-wheeled vehicles.

Um e-dirt bikes, helmets are required for all ages.

These do not require a driver's license because these are not made to be operated on public roads.

These can go up to 28 miles per hour.

And then for e-scooters, these are, you will need a valid driver's license to operate an e-scooter.

You will need a helmet for anyone operating it who is 18 years old or below, and a maximum speed limit of 15 miles an hour.

So myself along with other staff with the city came up with an e-bike safety action plan, which really revolves around five pillars.

First is a public education campaign talking about safe use of e-bikes.

Safety checks and enforcement will continue to be something that will be really important as we encourage the use of the safe use of e-bikes, statewide legislation and local policies continuing to monitor statewide legislation around e-bikes, the continued improvement of bike infrastructure, and also partnerships within the community.

So as for public our public education campaign, we feel that there are four sides that we want to attack our public, that we want to deliver our message to the public.

One is a new city uh e-bike web page.

Um our educational videos.

We've we've understood, we understand that a lot of people digest information better through videos.

Social media is such a powerful tool, and we deliver a lot of our messaging through social media right now.

And uh last but not least, uh in-person outreach.

So four weeks ago we launched our new e-bike uh city webpage.

This web page can be accessed through both the city uh website and also the PD website.

Our new web page has a lot of valuable information about the different types of websites, uh different types of e-bikes, training videos, training resources, and FAQs around the proper use of e-bikes.

Um as of today, we've had 575 unique website views from the day it was launched, but we've also gotten a lot of uh success with our newsletter articles and also our social media uh social media pages.

As you can see, we've gotten over 244,000 touch points just on online outreach alone, and then finally, in-person outreach.

We've done as city staff a lot of in-person outreach.

The police department held its first ever bike rodeo uh in July.

Uh we've had several dozen uh people come out and participate.

We've also we also got a few local businesses to to donate um giveaways and and just safety supplies to the participants.

We're also leveraging our connections with the schools.

Um we feel that the schools are a very important resource that we can use.

Um, so earlier this month, uh Public Works and PD participated in the national walk and roll event at WECI, which was very well attended.

We've done outreach at Foothill Middle School, and we do have scheduled presentations for uh at local schools and also at parent teachers with parent teachers associations scheduled in early November.

So there's just more photos on the bar uh on the bike rodeo.

As you can see, we have PD personnel just teaching the kids and in the parents on proper uh bike use and proper e-bike use.

Next is statewide legislation.

There's a number of legislation out there that we're continuing to monitor, and there are five that I wanted to highlight that have been signed into law.

One is Senate Bill 381, authored by Senator Min.

This was adopted in 2023, which prompted the Mededa Institute out of San Jose State to conduct a study on e-bikes to inform future legislation.

Under the bill, the report is due on January 1st.

So we will monitor to see what the report has to say around e-bikes.

And then there are two assembly bills authored by assemblymember Davis around safety of e-bikes.

One is the requirement to equip a bike with a red reflector, a flashing reflector when you use an e-bike at night that is AB 544.

And then AB 545 prohibits a person from selling a device that enables you to modify an e-bike.

That's one of the biggest problems that we're seeing with e-bikes right now is although their speed is limited out of the box, there are vendors of kits that allow you to modify these bikes to go faster and clearly more dangerous.

So this bill goes into effect in January of 2026.

AB 875 is another bill that authorizes the impounding of two-wheeled vehicles that are not considered e-bikes that are being operated illegally, or in an instance where a class three e-bike is being operated by a person under the age of 16.

So it gives uh police or or a peace officer the authority to impound those vehicles.

And then last but not least is AB 965.

This prohibits a person from selling a class 3 e-bike to anyone under the age of 16 who is not authorized to operate a class 3 e-bike to begin with.

Like I said, we will continue to monitor uh legislation that is this that is being considered, and we'll report back to city council if there's anything that is of significance.

And then although a lot of our action plan revolves around legislation and education, we feel that e-bike safety checks and enforcement is still a very important action that needs to be taken to to encourage safe e-bike uh e-bike use.

So you can see uh Walnut Creek Police Department has done many um enforcement efforts throughout the past couple of months.

We had one not too long ago with our partner East Bay Regional Park District.

This has resulted in many stops, several dozen citations, and we've impounded uh two e-motorcycles in the process.

Um, and to further improve our delivery of service, we are actually sending uh a police officer to a post-certified e-bike instructor course.

This is a new five-day course that is being put together by post to just convey best practices around policing of e-bikes, and then bike infrastructure.

I think it's really important to highlight the city's commitment on improving the city's bike infrastructure.

Uh parks and recreational facilities is a city council priority, and under the city's sustainability action plan, the city council has committed to increasing bike facility miles by 25% in 20 by 2030.

To date, our bike network has increased by 12 percent.

Um in the next uh year uh by 2027, we have about 7.67 million in bike bike facility projects that are slated to start.

And so we understand that bike infrastructure is probably the best way to keep um bikers, pedestrians, and autos safe by separating them from the road.

We understand bike infrastructure is very expensive, but the city continues to invest in bike infrastructure.

Um, and this slide just shows the um the infrastructure that is being that is currently um in development and that are being planned in the future.

North Broadway, Parkside, Arroyo, and Walden is is already funded, is and is part of the $7.67 million project.

We have several in our 10-year CIP, and matter of fact, at our last city council meeting, City Council approved connecting the bike the bike infrastructure we have on Geary to treat.

So just furthering the city's emphasis on improving bike infrastructure throughout the city.

And then finally, we understand that a lot of the work we can't do ourselves.

And so we're really leveraging a lot of our partnerships.

The city is part of the e-bike safety coalition.

This is a group that is being spearheaded by the town of Danville.

It's made up of different Contra Casa cities and Alameda cities, tackling the use of e-bikes and the safe use of e-bikes.

We, like I mentioned earlier, we've PD has done enforcement efforts with partners with East Bay Regional Park District.

So we're partnering with legislators, schools and school districts, parents, the public, small businesses, and others, other stakeholders within the community as well.

So this is a photo of the e-bike post done by our youth commission.

And just further emphasize that we are going to tap into our partnerships throughout the community for this.

These are photos at the WCI walk and roll event earlier this month.

And then I want to take this opportunity to kind of clarify the rules of the road for Walnut Creek.

And bicycles obviously must follow the traffic laws just like any other vehicle.

Bicyclists are restricted from riding on sidewalks unless they are designated sidewalks for bikes.

And we have very few of those.

So in Walnut Creek Trails, Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes are allowed on all trails where regular bikes are allowed.

And they are allowed on all double track trails and single track trails unless it's identified that it's not allowed by signage.

So I'll repeat that.

So for class one and class two, they are allowed where all regular bikes are allowed, which is double track trails, and single track trails unless it's signed that it's not allowed.

Regardless of what class of e-bike, one or two.

This is one of many videos that we shot around e-bikes that we use that we will be using on our website as well as social media.

I'm Officer Addison.

Let's talk all things e-bikes.

I've got some great tips for you.

E-bikes are a fun and easy way to get around Wanna Creek.

Whether you're new to e-bikes or you've been riding for a long time.

Here are some great things to keep in mind before you roll out.

First thing we want you to decide is which class of bike is best for you.

For riders under 16 years old, class one bikes are a phenomenal option.

Avoid bikes with throttles and stick to pedal assist only.

If you're in the market to buy an e-bike, you want to shop at a trusted local bike shop.

Make sure that your bike is street legal and safely put together.

If you're an e-bike rider, it's important to know that you must follow the same rules of the road as cars.

Watch your speed, look out for traffic and joggers, and always use hand signals when you turn or so.

It's really important to know where you can and cannot ride your e-bike.

You are not allowed to ride your e-bike or e-scooters on sidewalks downtown.

And it's important to make sure you ride in the bike lane or use the vehicle lane if your bike lane is not present.

Make sure you protect your head by wearing a proper bike helmet and make sure it fits you right.

If you're under 18 years old, helmets are required by law.

Before every ride, it's very important that you check your tire pressure, your brakes, and your chain.

Now that you know the rules of the road regarding e-bikes, make sure you ride smart and ride safe, Wanna Creek.

And that concludes my presentation, Mayor.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

Questions, clarifications.

Council members.

Thank you very much for the presentation and all the work on this.

And I'm sure it feels like you have put in about an hour for every letter that we have received about this issue.

Could you go back to the slide where it talks about double track and single track trails?

Because I could hear the words you were saying, it says allowed on trails where regular bikes are allowed.

So if I resort the words here, allowed on double track trails in all instances, and in single track trails, if this says if they are identified by signage, not if they are not identified, if they are identified by signage to that it is not allowed, that's not what that says.

To be clear, if you're out there and there's a single track in the open space, if there's a sign at the top of it that has a little bike with the arrow through it, don't go on it.

That's correct.

Okay.

Absent the signage, bikes are allowed.

Let me, yeah, Mayor, if I may, we'll um we'll double check that and get back to it.

Yeah.

And my suggestion would be before you actually not only check it, but use the symbol to remind you whether it's a yes or a no, because I we need to get that clarified because we're gonna have people calling and phoning in and emailing us about this issue.

Thank you.

Other questions?

I've got a mayor put him.

Yeah, just uh quick question to clarify.

I think it was the slide before this one.

Um so juveniles under 16 are allowed to ride on sidewalks.

And it seems to me that that's been actually one of the big problems when it comes to before and after school, because that they're riding on the sidewalks, and uh parents are either walking or students are walking to the sidewalk, uh walking to school as well.

So that's the case for bikes and e-bikes, and is that include scooters too?

No.

So um this is only for bikes and e-bikes.

Uh okay, all right.

Um, and so either way on side, I mean it just doesn't matter.

Either way on sidewalks.

I didn't know that.

All right, okay.

Um are cities able to enact their own registration or licensing of e-bikes similar to a DMV, so that if people buy them, we have a record of whether it's their age or some kind of registration.

We've seen other cities implement this this model.

Um, so yes, we are.

We are.

We are.

We are uh we we can if we decide we want to, okay.

So we're not right now, but we can.

That's correct.

Okay.

Can I add to that just a little bit too that the law is evolving with e-bikes?

And so even if you look at the Marin example where there's specific state legislation with regards to the regulation of e-bikes, so we just should keep an eye, keep an eye on this led state legislation because there is attempts to get this to be more rationalized across the state instead of uh case by case and and when the state gives specific authorization to specific counties to do certain things it suggests an implication that the authority doesn't otherwise exist for general law cities okay can you just expand on that your question the the um registration of e-bikes in Walnut Creek like what does that look like you're saying if you buy a bike online anywhere and you want to write it in Walnut Creek you'd have to register it with the city no no what is the yeah um pro Tem Wilkes question was if there's an ability for us to register e-bikes and I said there are other cities uh in California who have done that but not in Walnut Creek.

What does that mean to register them?

Um City of Beverly Hills is a good example.

Um they have an e-bike registry program to where if you are to purchase an e-bike you will register the purchase with the city and you will sign a commitment that you will follow the rules both the parent and the child would follow the rules are around e-bikes.

Thank you and lastly um it's regarding education I assume that there's going to be a lot of outreach to schools school administration has there been thought to doing something I think they still do every 15 minutes when it comes to DUI for high schools but is there a thought to doing some kind of education that is almost a uh a quote scared straight for e-bike riding just to really get the get the uh information through to students who might think you know I'm invincible doesn't matter I can do whatever I want I'll defer to captain on that that's probably less a question than more a a thought suggestion but good evening madam mayor and members of council I'm Captain Slater your operations captain and prior to this appointment I was your traffic and outreach manager so I'm somewhat versed in this topic and I appreciate the question very much about the scared straight comment um we don't want to make people afraid to use e-bikes but we are concerned about people modifying them making them illegal making them unsafe and obviously putting themselves and other people making them unsafe by being um out on the road in pro um illegally improperly and unsafely so our target age-wise is middle schools and we are working very closely with the schools who did not have this on their agenda to have us in and do some type of public safety outreach thanks to our PTA members it looks like we're making some traction and we're hoping in the second week of November we will be able to go to our middle schools and do a small assembly maybe we were told it might be doing their um uh in lieu of PE they'll take a quick time that we can do the small groups to really get in depth and answer questions since that's the target rich environment for that age group when it comes to the high schools um we have plenty of students that are uh not quite eligible to have a driver's license and still using these things so that's likely going to be a webinar for the parents and students to do together and we're trying to do that same thing around the same week so we can be target rich with our environment for both our students on all aspects of our public schools and try to make uh a dent in this, making sure that Christmas presents that are made, the right purchases are made for Christmas, and then making sure that everyone stays safe.

I am happy to report that with all of the outreach that we have been doing, and not just within Walnut Creek, but the entire area, we have seen uh a reduced number of of it's say e-bike riding around town.

Maybe that's because it's getting darker, maybe because um it's getting um uh with school back in session, but we're liking to see this trend because it makes us easier for us to focus on the enforcement, uh excuse me, the education, and then trail back on the enforcement is necessary.

Great.

Thank you thank you very thank you very much.

And uh certainly this is probably the most hot button issue in Walla Creek right now.

I maybe all cities.

I get more emails on e-bikes than any other topic right now.

Thanks.

Any other questions or for uh Captain Slater?

Uh what's what sort of enforcement challenges is PD seeing with e-bikes?

Uh that's a very good question.

Uh as you would may expect, if uh if it happens to be a student or a a juvenile, a teenager that is riding these illegally and they see a cop, we have seen them try to run away, and that could be dangerous.

So you will not be seeing us chase down and have an accident awaiting to happen with a very inexperienced rider on our public streets.

But we do have ways with technology to try and if we have someone flee and we have the availability, we have been able to track people through uh our use of drones.

We can't do it in advance, but we can do it after a violation has occurred, such as a fleeing violator.

And then we have had some success stories in contacting those teenagers.

And the bad news, and what I want people to see with that are listening to this, uh, if you do run and we do catch you, you will be held accountable and we will receive a citation.

And you what's worse, you'll likely have your um, if it was an illegal motorcycle, impounded.

We've had that happen several times because we're here to make sure that our streets stay safe and that our riders stay safe, and that's the message that we're having to send, especially if they're fleeing from us.

So I I mean, I think you're you're looking at kind of more egregious safety issues, not necessarily is that person 16 or 15 on a class two or a class three, but is are there a pack of e-bike riders in the middle of Ignatio Valley Road?

So if that happens, that is gonna gr draw a lot of attention and is likely going to be illegal because it's not where it's supposed to be following the rules of the road like any other bicyclist, which is supposed to be off to the side or at a designated bike lane as mentioned earlier.

But we are not just focusing on someone riding a bike and making that a violation or having that be an issue.

We're looking for the behavior of the rider.

So if a if a person is committing issues, riding where they're not supposed to, um, riding recklessly, such as popping wheelies, then they will get attention and then we will make enforcement.

But for everyday use of riding, we are not going to be out there for um looking for those type of violations and making those specific enforcement stops.

That makes sense.

And the average citizen then, if they see some sort of activity like that happening, should call the non-emergency line and let PD know about it.

Uh, correct.

But if someone is doing um reckless driving, we do want that to be called in immediately so we can try to address it because there's not much we can do after the fact.

We get calls before saying I just saw a car run a red light.

Well, I'm sorry, but we weren't there, so the laws do not allow us to do anything at that time.

But that reckless driving behavior is probably going to continue as they drive around town, and please call that in so we can do our best to address it.

Okay.

Thanks very much.

All right, um, so if you were a parent, I have going shopping for a Christmas present for a first-time e-bike rider.

Which e-bike would you recommend?

I think that's a loaded question just because there's so and I know what Officer Adamson said, so you can't contradict him because we are recording a video on this.

Uh I would say if you look at the class that especially that's up there right now, you have to pick the one that's going to be best for your teenager on their skills and abilities and interest and uh and knowing where you can ride it is gonna be a big factor, especially if you want to go into the open space.

So it's gonna be between a class one and a class two is how I would say it's gonna be based on that personal preference and where you want to ride it between city streets and on our and the limited areas of our open space.

Okay, and then where on the e-bike can you look to see what class it is?

Well, when you go to purchase one, the retailer should be able to tell you exactly where.

Uh the the police department actually has four that we can use for our uh for enforcement purposes, and they're actually located on the main frame near the battery pack.

Every bike that goes for sale has it on there.

And if you're a parent, is there an easy way to look at the your kids' bike to see if they've modified it?

Or is that something you have to have a higher level of expertise to figure out?

I would have to do some more research to let you know.

I'm just doing a pop quiz to see if it's that's good.

You're testing me.

That is the one question I would have to do some more research on.

Um I I can't answer that without a little additional training, but my traffic team can tell you they know.

Yes.

All right, thanks.

Officer Adamson and I recorded a separate video on e-bikes, courtesy of Mike's bikes, and we got to go down there and show them look where the stickers were and everything.

So hopefully that one will be out soon.

So I appreciate your question about the alterations.

Is there any way we can let work with local retailers from the targets to the mics, bikes, etc., to put signage up in the bike shops that says this is what this is what the rules are, and these are the alteration packages, do not you know.

X marks the spot.

No.

So that's I believe that's already going being done, especially with uh the uh legislation that's about to be passed.

Um but we are continuing to work with those uh retailers, and we have every intention of having another um bike rodeo sometime this school year, I'm assuming next spring, and I guarantee that we will be messaging with them to make sure those signs are posted before sales are made.

I was trying to get ahead of the holiday buyings because and unfortunately I think a lot of those kits are available on Amazon.

You are correct, but I can I can promise you this.

Our uh crime prevention specialists will be reaching out to those known retailers that we already worked with to make sure that it's messages before the holiday shopping and uh maybe we need to talk to Amazon about putting a notice warning before you buy this.

Yeah, that works so well on Amazon.

Um any other questions?

Yes, thanks.

Um I was wondering why why are the class two?

I mean, I know there's these apps that allow the class two to be modified, but because I think the kids are are sort of doing this on their own.

It's not like they're going down to the store and you know, purchasing the modification kit and then taking it home.

Like they've they've figured out the hack on their own.

What is it about the class two that makes them so easily modifiable?

Because I mean some of these vehicles are going 30 plus miles per hour and don't have the brakes equipped to handle that speed, so uh, well I can't say with certainty, but uh we do have a officer going next month to e-bike training, and I believe he's gonna be given some of the most current trends that can help answer that question.

My best guess would be that with our younger generation being so tech savvy, they like to tinker, and this is just something, hey, let's see what I can do, and it's not very complicated when you get to use an app and start modifying.

But as soon as they do, um that can significantly change the speed, which makes it extremely dangerous and unsafe.

Yeah.

And then I was curious because uh talking to some parents or or some residents, you know, they'll tell you the story about I was walking down the street and that that bike came whizzing by me and it almost hit me, and they'll say something like, if that bike had hit me or injured me, I'm gonna sue the parents.

So I'm curious, and maybe this is a question for um a city attorney.

Um if if these are classified as bicycles, and you know, what what is the liability to the parents if the kids injure someone on the bikes?

And is and what's been going on uh in the state with these these types of cases, like and then what if they've modified it versus non-modified and so we we would have to look into that.

I mean, that that's that is negligence, um, whether it attributes to the parents or not.

I would have to look at what the case trend is associated with that, and we can report back to the council on that.

Okay, because I mean I'm picturing like a 12-year-old on a bicycle kind of loses control and hits somebody.

I can't imagine there's like that much liability to the parents.

That sort of just seems like what might happen in life.

But well, so let us let us report back to you because there are supervision responsibilities in it it you know, I don't we'll have to look at the case law, but I could see where it's a little bit inverted that the older that the person gets, or obviously if they're emancipated or something like that, then they have their own liability associated with it.

But we can report back to the council on that.

All right.

Mayor, if I may, if we could go back briefly to the slide with the open space, uh maybe Mike Vickers or Assistants Public Works Director can come up and clarify um Councilmember Sylvis' question there.

So I have the municipal code here or the shorter version of it, and it clearly states that um bicycles are authorized on double track trails or eight-foot or wider trails unless otherwise posted.

Um and for example, the Peg Covar Trail uh is a single track trail where bicycles are authorized and it is posted um stating that bikes are authorized.

So the signage says affirmatively they're allowed, not the reverse.

It's both.

Oh, it's both.

It's both.

So at the beginning of the PEG covert trail, if you were to go through the gate, there's a regulatory sign that says, you know, no smoking, none of this, but it also has a symbol of a bike, um, without a line through it, meaning that a bicycle is authorized there.

And then we have other single track trails where we have these four-foot um signage markers that with a line through it with the bike.

Sorry, four inch.

It could probably be that way that size would be more helpful, but it's four inch.

Yeah, four inches, not four foot.

Okay.

So and in those cases it either says thumbs up yes or thumbs down no.

Yes.

That's correct.

Okay.

So it seemed like it'd be hard to have every track every trail, every single track trail marked.

Perhaps they are, but is the assumption that they're allowed unless told otherwise, or they aren't allowed unless approved.

Unless posted.

Unless otherwise posted.

So a sign should be posted at the markers.

And if we don't see a sign, what is the what is the sort of well, so if you don't see a sign, that would typically be a double track trail.

Um if it's a single track trail, then staff should sign it.

One of the challenges we deal with often is signs are removed.

Um from my from other hikers or bikers.

Um, and we we try to stay up on that.

But the sign should indicate so all single tracks should have a sign on it that tells you yes or no.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

We have learned a lot here tonight about e-bikes and open space, any motorcycles, any scooters.

Is there any comments people want to make?

Public oh, that's right.

Public comment.

You've been waiting.

Uh I'm shocked to hear that uh mics are allowed on the sidewalk.

Here's I'm shocked.

I just want to say um make sure you state your name.

You don't have to state your city.

Um, I'm Ron D.

Christophoro living on Patello Drive 20 years.

Uh behind me is Alma Park.

Uh, before I get into the bike, uh we want speed bumps.

They they race down.

We want speed bump or crosswalk or other cities at the beginning of the street, they have a sign in the middle of the street that says this is a slow zone.

So we we demand this, we want this on Botello Drive.

I'm near over 20 years, and now getting into the bikes in Long Island in 1980, we had mopeds, 17 miles an hour, and we had a license plate, but you didn't have to have insurance, and you didn't have to have uh uh a lot driver's license, and uh this is going quick, yeah.

Well, anyway, uh, I want to say that uh anyone on the 18 should have a license plate on their bike, so we know, so we know who they are, and uh older than that, uh they don't have to.

And I don't have the time here to go all of this, uh, but I did want to say uh that uh this is gonna get worse.

The traffic downtown.

I have coffee on locust street every weekend in the summer.

I've never seen the police and never go after these kids with the bikes back and everything, you know.

Never.

The police are busy, uh, but they're not on locust street and the good weather on the weekends, and uh I only have what a second left.

I wanted to say in my heart, John William Perry from Long Island went to NYU law school and died September 11, September 1st 2011 under 50 tons of cement on the ground floor, 50 tons of cement, and all I know is uh six months later they found the whole body.

So uh I thought I would have, yeah, I couldn't believe it.

Um one of the things you could do.

If you have additional input, you're the city does accept input on via email, and so you could provide input.

This is something we're gonna keep on.

Well, I want to come to all the meetings because uh uh I'm around delicate older people that get knocked down, and they're gonna sue you for millions.

I tell them this I appreciate this.

Um thank you for your comments.

A million.

Thank you for your comments.

So and license plate.

Thank you for your comments.

You can write down thank you for your comments.

Excuse me, sir.

Can I give you my phone number?

Sorry, sir.

Your time is up.

Alright, thank you.

Uh I mean my phone number.

Excuse me, sir.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you for your input.

Is there additional public comment?

I don't know about that.

Thank you very much.

We'll go ahead and close public comment now.

Um final direction to staff comments.

Why don't you start?

Thank you very much for the thorough uh overview on this.

I'm glad to see that we're paying a lot of attention to it.

I'm sure that you're collaborating with many of our fellow cities up and down the state that are dealing with the exact same issues, and uh look forward to hearing how this goes and maybe an update in you know this time next year, how this has gone, any other potential improvements.

Councilmember DeFini.

Yes, I think thank you for the the work you're doing on this, and um the that's impressive.

240,000 contacts through the outreach campaign, so kudos.

Um, I believe this is a really important safety issue.

Um, e-bikes are great technology.

Um I certainly support their use and improving the infrastructure to use them on.

But uh as uh wearing my hat as an ER doctor, I'm seeing a lot more of these injuries.

Uh so is our local our local trauma center, and I can tell you that speaking to you know leadership at the at the hospital, whether it be from the trauma service or the ER, they're alarmed by the increase in accidents, the severity of the accidents, and um very much support um instituting good safety measures to protect our children.

We currently have a 15-year-old in the ICU right now with a you know severe head injury, and um I'm afraid we're gonna see unfortunately more injuries like that.

So I think it's an you know important to promote uh bike use and e-bike use, um, but but certainly the the one that seems most problematic uh is the class two.

Um they have 750 watt engines, they're easily modifiable by the kids, the you know the information's out there now online.

And uh, you know, these are the bikes we're seeing popping wheelies, you know, traveling 30 plus miles per hour, and you know, these bikes are are heavy, the the brakes don't um, you know, aren't uh aren't made for that, and we don't need um a lot of data and studies to know that seeing an 11-year old or a 12-year old riding a bike like that is just not safe.

So other communities have um have pushed for um changes and and it happened at the state level.

So one of the bills that that you didn't mention, but I know you're aware of is 1778 for Marin County.

And uh that was supposed to be a state bill.

So that was gonna basically ban e-bikes uh class two only uh under the age of 16.

But unfortunately, the the maybe the data wasn't quite there yet.

Uh it was um slotted for a pilot project, and Marin has instituted that, and all 11 cities in Marin have signed on to it.

So um, you know, that said, I think that one of the things that we can do is try to improve our data collection.

Um, that is something that we're currently looking at at the county level.

My role as a medical director for Contra Cost of Fire.

We're looking to um through the emergency medical dispatch system designate when something is an e-bike related trauma versus just a bike.

Right now, they're all lumped under bikes, so it's hard to tease out the data.

There's not as much out there as as we would like to see.

Um, but that with even with the sort of lack of data that we have, the commuter consumer product and safety commission that studied this issue from 2017 to 2023, looking at e-bikes and other micromobility devices, um, found that for uh kids under the age of 14, they represent 36% of the injuries, and they only um they only comprise 18% of that population.

So they're they're they're having injuries at twice the rate.

Um Marin found even uh higher rates, they they found five times the rates in the 10 to 15-year-old aid bracket for e-bike accidents compared to other uh age groups.

Um so what are some you know action items that that in addition to what we're doing, um, you know, continue educating both the the public and the parents, continue engage with uh e-bike groups.

We got comments about from from biking groups that maybe hadn't been reached out to yet, but certainly want to work with them.

Um I can imagine that while they're advocating for bikes and they're advocating for bike routes and they're advocating for e-bike usage.

They also have the I'm sure the compassion to know that we need to regulate or or be be wary of the the injuries we're seeing to our young folks.

Um so um this technology is growing much more rapidly uh than reasonable safety measures have, and um, you know, we're seeing the results of this in our hospitals and our trauma centers, and you know, look forward to uh you know hopefully moving the needle forward on this.

Thank you.

Councilmember Silva.

Thank you very much for your work in this arena, and I know it's um it's difficult to what on the one hand say this is an important means of transportation, which it is, that it helps to um reduce vehicle miles traveled, greenhouse gas emissions at the same time, that if it is being operated unsafely because it's it's fun, and it's fun and uh and then in a somewhat dangerous way if you're too immature to understand the risks, that it also has those challenges with it.

I appreciate the information about the percentage of youth, et cetera, that are using them, what the safety standards say.

I think one of the things that we have to be I'm past PTA president at Las Lomas, and one of the things that was very helpful was not to come to PTA meetings because very few people come to PTA meetings, but somehow getting the administration to tell their parents that they need to come to an assembly themselves because when parents understand the risk, including the data showing it when parents see the videos of what's happening on the Iron Horse Trail in the summer, they kind of go.

They they can take they can help take the reins.

If they don't understand the risks, they're going to buy the equipment, or they're going to let the kid buy the equipment or play with it in somebody else's garage and get on a friend's bike.

So I think it's a two-pronged education approach, not only of the writer, but of the parent who is funding the writer.

I can't imagine what the parents are the 15-year old think that something went wrong.

And I think that's important.

I would also um I would like to hear a report back on this when the officer is done with the post education.

Because that would be really helpful.

I can't what do you learn in five days that um there's got to be some really interesting information that's going to be helpful to us?

And then I would also like to hear us a report back maybe in the spring because we have to get to these parents in these schools and these the youth in these schools before summer because during summertime is when the real activity on the Iron Horse Trail and the Canal Trail was occurring.

Thank you, Councilmember Francois.

Hey, thank you for the report.

Really good information.

Uh I too read the letter from Bike East Bay, and I recall them coming to planning commission meetings when we were adopting our bike master plan, and I think they raise a valid comment that it's been a while since we've looked at that or updated it.

I I'm proud of the efforts we've made to expand the bike network here.

Um I do feel I personally would like more data and information before considering uh regulation.

So I think that the the right approach for now is certainly education and safety, and that uh ideally I think there should be one set of rules that applies to every community in California.

It shouldn't be one rule in Walnut Creek and a different rule when you cross over to Pleasant Hill.

I just think that's that's unworkable, and that uh I know the state has done the study, and so they'll they'll have a lot of data and information on that.

Could be my anecdotal view.

I am on the Iron Horse Trail quite a bit.

Uh I don't see it as an issue.

I'm there in the early morning, which probably maybe a lot of the reckless behavior is not happening, but I'm also there on Saturdays, and I see people generally on the stretch that I'm on, at least, complying with the rules, you know, if they're walking, biking, or running, they're on the right side of the trail.

They they call out when they're passing.

Uh I've also seen packs of riders, I assume on e-bikes in the middle of Ignatio Valley Road.

And I said, Who do I call I should call the police?

I should let them know that there's an unsafe behavior happening right now.

So that that gets that makes the alarm bells go off in my head that I want to stop that unsafe behavior, and I'll tell you on my drive from BART to here tonight, I was stopped at a red light going uh southbound on Oakland, and the uh traffic going westbound on Ignatio had the right of way, an e-scooter went crossed against the red light in the face of oncoming traffic on Ignatio no helmet.

And I thought I couldn't believe I just saw that happen.

So I think that it I don't know that there's a simple solution to this like ban all 16-year-olds from having a class two bike.

I think it's it's education in terms of safety and enforcement in terms of when you see something illegal like that happening, uh, there needs to be consequences for that.

I think one other thing, and and it's nomenclature maybe, but we called it an action plan, and probably Bike East Bay was like, Well, wait a minute, where's the plan?

How come we didn't reach out to us or and I I don't know if we really meant that it was a plan as opposed to kind of principles or kind of guidelines or things that we're working on, they're they're action items as as opposed to a plan.

I mean, I think it's a great technology.

I I guess I do have a class two bike.

Uh I and just learning the differences between the three, and it's really convenient to be able to go kind of from my house to downtown or out on the trail, and I enjoy and I see uh my uh neighbors using it to commute to work as well.

So I I think we definitely wanna promote the behavior and you know ideally have it be done in a safe manner.

Thank you.

And I think just my summary, I think you guys are doing a great job.

I think the impetus is to work on education first and enforcement as a secondary basis.

I think targeting um the the captain did target talk about targeting behavior, and I think that's the appropriate way to go.

As far as regulation, I think I would like to see us see if there's possible once the Moneta study is out, see if there's a push for state legislation rather than trying to do it on a citywide basis.

I do want to keep our eye on the importance of micromobility because teenagers have been hurting themselves in a million different ways with their desire to test the boundaries.

Teens are hurt in vehicle accidents as well as e-bikes.

So recognizing that it's the age group and the behavior that they are prone to that we want to try to help them understand how to be more safe about it and get that message across to parents.

Um I think you guys are doing a good job.

I look forward to hearing you guys come back in the spring sometime, perhaps, and um hopefully the message gets out before Christmas.

So thank you very much.

Um if there's anything else for the good of the order at this point, and with that we are adjourned.

Thank you very much for everybody.