Good afternoon.

I'm Kevin Wilk, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek, and welcome to the Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026 special meeting of the Walnut Creek City Council.

This special meeting is called for the purpose of holding a closed session related to the following conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation.

Under California law, public comments at special meetings were limited to subjects on the agenda only.

Therefore, public comments will be received at this time for the item previously mentioned.

I don't see anybody here for public comment, so we will now reconvene in the closed session discussion upstairs.

Two or three.

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 the 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 communications 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 lector, please state your name and 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's website for public review and are included in the meeting record, but will not be separately read into the record.

I'm Kevin Wilk, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek, and welcome to the Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026 regular meeting of the Walnut Creek City Council.

And if you'd all please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Councilmember Darling.

Sure.

Councilmember DeVinny?

Here.

Council Member Silva.

Here.

Mayor Protein Francois?

Mayor Wilk.

Here.

All right.

So before we start off, I just want to make a quick uh housekeeping note here that agenda item 6A is the assessment report and intend to levy assessments for the Walnut Creek Tourism Business Improvement District, and that's being pulled from the agenda tonight and will return at a later date.

So if anybody is here for that item, you won't be here, but you can actually talk on it during public comment if you would like.

Anyway, and I'll mention that again prior to that uh item coming up.

So first on the agenda though is our proclamation for gun violence awareness day.

And I want to, well, actually, we'll invite Kathy up in a minute from um from Mom Demand Action.

I want just to uh first mention that people wear orange on Gun Violence Awareness Day, as I have my orange kerchief here, to raise awareness about gun violence to honor Hadia Pendleton, who was a 15-year old girl who was shot and killed in 2013, just days after performing at the 2013 presidential inaugural parade.

Her friends wore orange to honor at her because it's the color that hunters wear to signal safety and protect themselves and others in the woods.

And the movement grew to a national campaign with the first wear orange weekend in 2015.

And the proclamation states that whereas each year in the United States, nearly 46,000 individuals are killed, and nearly 97,000 individuals are wounded by gunfire.

More than 19,000 individuals are killed by in homicides involving guns.

Nearly 26,000 individuals die by suicide using a gun, and 500 individuals are killed in unintentional shootings.

And it's the highest responsibility of our elected leaders to protect public safety and cities across the nation, including Walnut Creek, are which are working to end gun violence with evidence-based solutions.

Local elected officials and law enforcement officers in partnership with local violence intervention activists and resources know that their communities best, know their communities best, are the most familiar with local criminal activity and how to address it and are best positioned to understand how to keep their communities safe.

Whereas we support the support for the second amendment rights of law-abiding citizens goes hand in hand with keeping guns away from people with dangerous histories.

Gun violence prevention is more important than ever as we see an increase in firearm homicides and non-fatal shootings, increased calls to domestic violence and suicide hotlines, and an increase in city gun violence, and we renew our commitment to reduce gun violence and pledge to do all we can to keep firearms out of the hands of people who should not have access to them and encourage responsible gun ownership to help keep our families and communities safe, and therefore I, Kevin Wilk, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek, on behalf of the Walnut Creek City Council, do hereby declare the day of June 6, 2026, as National Gun Violence Awareness Day, and I encourage all citizens to support their local community's efforts to prevent the tragic effects of gun violence to honor and value human lives.

And with that, I would like to invite up Kathy to uh Kathy Maloney with Mom's Demand Action and uh the end guy gun violence groups of Ross more forward to accept the proclamation and if you have a few words to say.

Thank you.

When I looked up the data as you instructed me to do before I came up, um I found something a little different than what you're saying.

So I'll just leave what you say.

So I'm the president of the um gun violence club of Rossmore, and I'm also a member of Mom's Demand Action, and they kind of fostered our club.

So I'm very, very grateful that you're doing this for us.

And I wore gr orange today.

You say this?

Orange.

So uh yeah, thank you so much.

And I do want to say one thing quickly.

Uh in our research and our speakers that we've had over the three years now that we've been in in operation, um, one of the key uh organizations and programs that do help stop gun violence are the community violence prevention organizations, and we have one in Richmond.

We have one in Oakland, Youth Alive.

We have uh a very interesting and counter Costa County Health program.

Uh it's not this, it's not a neighborhood program, it's the county program, part of the health department.

So I always like to say that, and of course their funding has been decimated, but they're managing all of these clubs, all these organizations.

So thank you on behalf of mothers and seniors at Rossmore.

Well, thank you, and then we'll take a picture here with proclamation.

I say take a picture, right?

Oh, I just oh God, yes, it's that time.

I think we're talking about it.

All right.

Next, we have the oath of office for Pete Sutherland for the Measure O Citizens Oversight Committee.

And I invite City Clerk Susie Martinez to administer the oath of office to our newest commissioner.

I, Pete Sutherland, to solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

To the Constitution of the United States.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

That I take this obligation freely.

Without any mental reservation.

Or purpose of evasion.

And I will and faithfully discharge the duties.

Upon which I'm about to enter.

Yep.

Oh, just introduce yourself to uh who is going to be our newest member of the Commission for the Measure Oversight Committee.

So Pete Sutherland, and I have been in Walnut Creek since 1988.

I'm a retired teacher, so taught 35 years, half of those in at Northgate, and half at Los Lomas.

And the majority of those times I've lived in Walnut Creek.

And so that's almost 40 years now.

Although my wife exceeds me, she moved here in 1968, and we bought the house from our mother, so I'm excited to be on the Measure O committee.

Uh I've lived here, as I mentioned, a long time, and we love it.

We raise three children here, and we're excited for them to be able to also enjoy the benefits of the city that Measure O will provide for us.

So thank you for the counsel, uh Mayor Wilk, for this opportunity.

Thank you, Pete.

And uh to have a teacher who taught in both of our public high schools is impressive.

I think I may be coming to you for some advice on uh some of the issues coming up.

Thank you very much for applying and now becoming one of our commissioners.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Next we have a present presentation, and we have the pleasure of welcoming Dwayne Dahlman, board member of the California Association for Local Economic Development, or CalEd, known as California's Premier Economic Development Association with more than 900 members and is one of the largest economic development associations in the country.

And I'll just quickly mention uh that this award recognizes the City of Walnut Creek's partnership with Walnut Creek Downtown, resulting in strengthening downtown vitality by enhancing the pedestrian experience, supporting restaurants, and increasing street level activity.

Khaled recognizes the city's outdoor dining program's meaningful role in promoting downtown and advancing an experiential experiential, not I almost said experimental, but uh experiences, economic by vibrancy in Walnut Creek and the impact of the program to incentivize and expedite the delivery and installation of code compliant outdoor dining structures under the city's outdoor dining policy.

With that, I will give you the floor.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the city council.

As was said, my name is Dwayne Dalman.

I'm the economic development manager for the city of Alameda.

Uh but tonight I'm here in my capacity as a board member for Calette.

So every year, CalEd does economic development awards.

Uh these are voted on by our peers and then presented at the annual conference.

So, as was said tonight, I'm excited to be here.

And actually, this is the second year in a row.

So I was telling Mike, I just keep on coming back to Walnut Creek, and I need to have my city uh get some awards.

But I'm excited to be here to present this Caliot award of merit to the city of Walnut Creek in the programs and promotions category for the outdoor dining uh pods grant program.

And pod stands for permitted outdoor dining structures.

So just a little bit, I also wanted to reiterate um some of the highlights of this program.

This program um delivered a parklet, eight parklets over a period of eleven months, and just to give the council credit for encouraging the outdoor dining through their vision and establishing the fund that went to pay for these outdoor dinings $100,000.

Also wanted to give credit to staff for their collaboration between departments and the exceptional customer service that they had of helping restaurants through this process, and that collaboration involved economic development, planning, building, public works, and finance.

So overall, this was really uh um an amazing cross-department collaboration effort where the city's outdoor dining program continues to enhance the quality of life in downtown Walnut Creek.

So I'm happy to be here tonight and really happy to present this award for a great job for for economic development and for all the departments that were involved in this.

Great.

Well, thank you very much.

And I will say that uh while we all had very difficult and challenging times during the pandemic and with so just trying to save our businesses.

I heard over and over again the silver lining in Walnut Creek was the outdoor dining, and it was like Europe walking down the streets.

I've heard that so many times.

And now that we've got another dozen plus outdoor dining areas, more to come.

Uh it we I'm very happy this becomes a permanent part of Walnut Creek now.

Thank you for being here and presenting this.

Sure, thank you.

And yeah, uh, and Michael White, yeah.

Let's let's uh have a picture with all of this and have the economic development team here too.

Who?

Yeah, can't be here.

I know it's there we go.

All right.

Okay.

I think that's it for the pictures.

Uh next on the agenda is the consent calendar.

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

And is any member of the staff wish to pull an item for discussion?

All right.

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

As a reminder, each speaker will have two minutes to make their remarks.

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

Looks like no speakers either.

So seeing no speakers, I'll ask the council if anyone would like to make a motion with regard to the consent calendar.

Move to approve the consent calendar.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

And City Clerk, would you call the roll, please?

Mayor Pro Tem Francois.

Hi.

Council Member Silva.

Hi, Council Member Darlene.

Hi.

Council Member DeVinny.

Hi.

Mayor Wilk.

Hi.

Motion carries.

All right.

Moving right along here.

Next on the agenda is public communications.

This portion of the meeting is reserved for items not on the agenda.

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

Request clarification or refer the item to staff.

Consistent with section 9.5 of the city council handbook.

30 minutes will be allocated at this time for public communications for items not on the agenda.

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

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

And at this time I'll note that the time is 620, which means that public comments on items not on the agenda will last until approximately 650, and then the remainder of any such comments at the end of the open session portion of the meeting if necessary.

So if you're here to speak during public comment, now's the time to come on up.

Race.

And actually, if you're gonna you can just line up against the wall too.

And please state your name for the record.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name's Florence Weddington.

I am a longtime resident of Walnut Creek.

I've lived here since um 1990.

And I am also uh the Walnut Creek representative and board president for Central Contra Costa Sanitary District, and I'm here to personally invite you and the residents of Walnut Creek to Central Sands 80th anniversary celebration.

Central Sand is your friendly neighborhood sewer agency and so much more.

And we and we have proudly surfed Walnut Creek since our inception, and we're hosting a once-in-a-decade sewer party where we'll pull out all the stops to engage and say thank you to our customers and for entrusting us to safely collect and treat their wastewater and protect public health and the environment.

So on Saturday, June 13th from 10 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

Um Central Sand will host this 80th anniversary event.

The party's gonna be multi-generational, family friendly, educational, and of course, fun.

It's gonna feature educational displays, treatment plant tours, big trucks.

I'm a huge fan of big trucks.

I love big trucks.

There's gonna be free food and uh poop emoji ice cream, so you can't miss out on that, right?

And then to go along with that, there's gonna be a one-ton toilet.

You can actually get inside.

And who doesn't want their picture taken on a toilet or in a toilet, right?

And then there's gonna be racing toilets and so much more, and it's all free to the community.

So if you want more information about the event, I um left um invitations with you all up there, and there's also invitations in the back, but you can check out our website at central sand.org for more information.

Thank you, Florence.

And do people need to make a uh reservation or SCP to be able to come?

No, they can just show up.

You sure you have enough toilets for everybody to raise?

Well, you'll have to take turns, you have to play nice, but if you get there at the right time, you will see me race against the uh board president for Contra Costa Water District.

So I think I my money's on you.

Well, I've been uh mentally practicing, so it should be fun either way, but I hope to see you guys there as well as the uh Walnut Creek residents.

Thank you.

And again, that's CentralSand.org.

Great.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Wilk and City Council.

My name is Ross Hillassime.

My company is 1850 properties.

I live in Alamo, and um over the last couple months I've been working with the city staff regarding a preliminary application for development that we're proposing or that we're proposing to redevelop at 1700 uh Mount Diablo Boulevard.

That's the Chevron gas station that was built in 1962.

My message tonight is really just of gratitude so far with the city and and the staff.

Really appreciate the communication, the emails, the phone calls, the zoom calls that I've been able to have with staff.

I feel like it's been very collaborative.

I look forward to submitting a formal application here in the coming months.

I also wanted to let you know that you know I I'm I'm a millennial, and so I'm I'm in the service station gas station business, and I try to be very forward thinking about sustainability, connectivity, pedestrian, um what access and safety.

So what we've been doing over the last couple months is with some of the recommendations from some of the leadership here was to reach out to CCTA.

And we've basically developed a framework right now where we're going to be redeveloping the Chevron gas station, hopefully, um, reducing the amount of fuel dispensing islands.

So I think right now there's 14 or 16 fueling positions at that site.

I think we're gonna cut that in half, and we're also going to be including what CCTA is calling mobility hubs, where there'll be EV charging, bike charging, uh improved bus shelter, other things like that that basically I don't want to speak for CCTA, but they're they're excited to partner with us uh on a mobility hub aspect at the site.

So really I see my time's already running out, two minutes is fast.

But I I guess I'll just leave you with my my message tonight is just of gratitude.

And if any of you would like to reach out to me, my information's here in the card.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ross.

Actually, I do have a quick question for you.

So it's uh the site has not been sold, is that correct?

This is all development under the current owner.

Yeah, and the current owner is Chevron.

Okay, yeah.

It's not owned by a franchisee or developer or dealer.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, good evening, Mayor.

Um, good evening, members of the city council.

My name is Sakura Kriota, um, and I go to the public high school just down the street, Northgate.

My name is Alina Lang, and I go to the same high school as correct.

Make sure you're speaking to the microphone.

But like I I heard it, but the people at home.

Um, we're here tonight on behalf of IES Abroad and Northgate High School itself.

Um, in August, in this coming August from the 15th to the 24th for one week, we have a small group of Japanese international students coming.

Um, originally we were asked to speak today um to ask for your help with promotion, um, as we weren't able to find enough accommodation for the international students who are visiting, but we kind of just got an update that we were able to find the host families.

Um, but tonight I wanted to ask if any of you would be interested in promoting or assisting us in promoting the program itself.

Um, so I wasn't able to participate last year, but Alina did, and she hosted okay.

So Alina hosted um a student named Nahotang for one week last year, and I've heard a lot of different feedback from different American students who are able to host and Japanese students, and they all described it as really a life-changing experience, a life changing experience.

Um, I think the program itself really lets students from across international waters build deep cultural bonds and reduces these stereotypes that we might have about each other, as well as builds empathy and lifelong global friendships.

Um I don't really have much else to say, but my message tonight is one of promotion pretty much.

You did great, thank you.

And uh so this is with Kita City.

Yes, and uh in fact, two of my council member colleagues, Councilmember Darling and and Silva uh joined me with the delegation.

We went to Kita City in March, and uh they were just so gracious.

The mayor and council and the staff there, they're gonna be coming out here actually, next year, and we look forward to their visit.

But we also have multiple exchanges with Key to City students.

There's one at Northgate, there's one for Los Lomas, and there's one at Seven Hills as well.

So this is the one for Northgate.

Sounds like it'll be at the beginning of school, which is great.

And uh this is I think we've all worked in one way or another with the Kita City representatives here, and I'm happy to continue to let people know how wonderful the program is.

And uh and how and again how warm uh and gracious hosts there and visitors here they are.

I think your your mother is Heroku, right?

So she knows how to reach me.

Feel free to send me any information.

Uh you can also send it to Mayor at Walnut Dash Creek.org.

That way we all get it.

And we look forward to seeing the students when they're here in August.

Incredible.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, my name's Donald Shivel.

I was here in February.

I showed you guys some stuff.

I have uh I have uh an issue with now no investigations being done on anything.

Uh when I was here last time, I talked about the dozen implants in my head.

John Muir Hospital did and traveler's insurance corp executive David J.

Chetsuti.

Here's an attorney general letter in response to my 160-page IP PIU to investigate.

They said, exhaust all attempts at Walnut Creek PD, trying to get an investigation into what was done to me in the hospital.

Uh also I was poisoned in that surgery I was threatened into.

All my injuries I told you about, fractured chest left broken.

Never got any medical care for any of my work accidents, nothing.

So the attorney generals, that's why I'm here.

I'm following their process.

So uh I've got uh affidavit here.

You can go over it.

I wanted to give it to you because I've been to the police, been there, went and talked to Slater out there.

They didn't even want to look at nothing.

And I understand their situation, they're in the situation because this involves FISA 702, it involves a terrorist watch list scam being used to cover up organized crime in the hospitals where people are now subjected to being poisoned, contract killings, bounties on people's heads.

I got all the evidence, and it's all gonna come out in court.

So what I want to do is I want to give this to you.

Give this to you.

That's you.

And you know you want to go to X.com.

Please come back to excuse me, sir.

Please come back to the podium and finish up there.

Uh you can go to X.com, S-H-I-V-E-L, Shivel 425 46, and see all the evidence.

Um so I I appreciate you coming here.

I'm not sure uh you've been speaking with our police department, it sounds like I've been there a dozen times trying to get an investigation going why I'm being ran off the road, staged accidents, direct energy attacks, the injuries are right there.

So we'll we'll take a look at this, and if there's any further action on our end, we'll contact you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Seeing no more public communication, we'll close public communication now, and we'll move on to council member and staff announcements, reports, and activities or requests.

Start with the city attorney if uh any closed session announcements.

Mayor, there were no reportable actions from closed session this evening.

City manager.

Yeah, good evening, Dan Buckshaw.

I see you manager.

I do have one fun update uh this evening.

Hopefully, I'm not stealing any of uh your thunder on this one.

But uh you may recall a couple months ago there was a class of uh fifth grade students from Buena Vista Elementary to raise funds for Odyssey of the Mine for their traveling to the national event in Iowa.

It was the first time I think anybody locally here had qualified for the national event or at least recently.

I received an email just earlier today that they play second out of 51 teams at the competition.

Wow, that's so a great moment for uh those kids and for that free president.

So I'd pass that along.

Um could you be a favor and uh whoever the contact is there, um have them come into a future council meeting.

Let'll set us know and we'll give them recognition.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

Um, Councilmember Davin.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Um, real relatively uh short report today from uh a few weeks ago.

But um I had the pleasure of meeting with the weebelos, we be loyal scouts.

I think that's uh right before Cub Scouts um a couple weeks ago, and we talked about uh city governance, uh how our election systems work in Walnut Creek, how ordinances are passed.

So very uh very current topic, and it was uh interesting conversation and um enjoyed meeting with them.

We uh attended uh both uh Mayor uh Pro Tem uh Francois and I attended the um Gala for Joy Bounds uh Unleash Happiness this past weekend.

That was uh uh really great event.

We raised uh or they raised a lot of money for um for the organization that connects uh people with their pets, but also provides a lot of therapy and community service as well.

So uh really appreciate what they're they're doing out at uh Joy Bound and uh that was a pleasure to attend.

We um were able to attend uh Mayor Wilk and um the city manager Buckshai and I were able to attend uh Chief McAllister's um uh appointment as um chief of our uh Contra Costa Fire Department uh this uh just a few days ago.

So that was um here in um or just just over the border in Concord, but over the really uh special event uh complete with bag pipes and big show of um um trucks and engines and apparatus and um congratulations to uh Chief McAllister and obviously wish him the best in his uh tenure now as our fire chief.

Um the um we had a uh chamber of um chamber of commerce event last week uh for the organization Fallen Heroes, uh for the police and fire who um whose members have um died in the line of service.

This organization provides funding for their families, uh both financial as well as uh counseling and therapy, and it's a great organization, and we're uh fortunate to have them here in Walnut Creek.

And that concludes my report.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Dam Francois.

Okay, thank you, Mayor.

Um I'm going to let you talk about Memorial Day.

It was a very poignant celebration.

Thank you for organizing that and to staff for being there, including Matt Bollander behind the scenes and the Walnut Creek concert band.

I said I was gonna let you talk about it, but um also just wanted to appreciate that you gave each of us an opportunity to discuss the importance of Memorial Day to each of us, and it felt nice to be included in the celebration.

So thank you for that.

Uh I also had the pleasure, I should give you the credit for this one too, of attending Murrwood's uh walk-a-thon club, which was really one of the highlights when I was mayor in twenty twenty-two.

Murwood that year they were particularly active.

Probably every other week I was getting a call from someone on the PTA or the principal or s or someone that wanted to invite me to do something, and the the Walk-a-thon Club is a group that is organized by the PTA, and it includes kids from first to fifth grade, and they get to walk around the lap at lunch.

They run out to do this.

They're so excited.

And some of them had walked a hundred miles, and so I appreciate you letting me tag along for that.

That was really meaningful, and I got to connect with the young lady who said, I know you are.

You're Matt Francois, you came to my first grade class, and so uh really cute heartwhelming or heartwarming uh event.

Nice to see those kids, and and I think that program now is getting momentum in other schools, including uh Buena Vista, learning about it and trying to implement those programs at their schools.

And thank you to the PTA volunteers, these moms and dads who come out there and dedicate time to see this happen.

What was amazing is that there were the five mom volunteers, and I said, Well, do you need five volunteers for this?

It was organized chaos.

There were dozens of kids.

Uh, it was uh I think they needed more than five.

The fact they only got it they were only able to do it with five is a man was impressive.

Especially those first through third groups.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, there's a lot of energy there to try to contain.

Um, attended the wall uh the liaison to Rossmore Walnut Creek.

Uh good meeting, gave them an update on all of our activities.

Are always grateful for that.

One of the questions from the board members was an interest on uh they were happy to hear about the emergency preparedness manager position that we funded through our fiscal year twenty-seven budget and seeing how they can collaborate with us on that and also wanting to find out if there are opportunities for grant funding for uh fire preparedness.

So just planting that seed and I'll follow up with city manager and get the contact.

There, of course, we did support a shaded fuel break program uh between Rossmore and Lafayette a few years ago that was sponsored by the fire district to increase the safety of Rossmore.

So other opportunities we can look for there, we should uh try to take advantage of along with uh council member Silva.

I serve on as liaison to the Recycle Smart Board, and the main event at our last meeting was adoption of our fiscal year 2627 budget, which was a little different this year because our new contracts take effect s next March, and so this budget year will essentially be fo uh 17 months and s no four sixteen months instead of twelve months, and want to thank Councilmember Silva and the other members of the finance committee at Recycle Smart who did a lot of the heavy lifting to prepare it for the board approval.

Um good news is the s each agency has a reserve fund.

Walnut Creek's reserve balance is something like a little over six million dollars and um you know there are rate increases on the horizon with the new contracts, and we'll get into that and have a full presentation on that.

There's also additional services that are being offered.

So we're you we're looking at those reserve funds as being a source of trying to soften the blow, the cushion, some of the rate increases that are coming forward uh down the pike.

And let's see, and what else did I uh felt like I did more than that.

Yeah, I went to Joy Bound with Councilmember DeVinny.

That was a a fun event.

I got to they made it fun with uh bringing out small puppies, and then uh it was the 70s theme, so I had a hard time getting my wife to leave the dance floor, but we finally she shut it down, and we were it was time to go.

And I think they ra they raised uh a lot of money and want to appreciate appreciate the fire department for offering kind of a couple of f of nice meals at that station one here downtown was auctioned off and um it was a fun, it was a good evening.

And then finally I was at the farmers market on Sunday, and um just it was it was really it was nice.

There was a lot of good people, people were happy, they were shopping, uh strawberries are in season, and uh just wanted to remind everyone that one of us will be at the you know at the farmers market booth each Sunday, generally from 10 to 12, and uh except if it's a holiday weekend, so that's my report.

Great, and I'm up next at Farmers Market.

Councilmember Silla.

Thank you very much, and um thank you also.

I will echo um Mayor Pro Tem and thanking you for the work on the Memorial Day event.

I've had numerous people come up to me.

It was a very crowded event, and numerous people come up and commend us for it, and I really want to thank staff because it's a heavy lift every year to get that ready to go.

So thank you.

Um the Association of Bay Area Governments Executive Committee will be presenting two items to the General Assembly on the 18th of June.

The ABAG represents the hundred and one cities and nine counties in the Bay Area.

Um the two items are the budget for the coming year with a slight increase of about four percent to everyone's membership dues, inflationary costs, and the other is the presentation of a slate of next year's officers.

President will be from Roanert Park, Seuss and Adams, and Wanda Williams from Solano County supervisor will be the vice president.

So that is upcoming.

The um, thank you, council member or mayor pro tem for presenting what happened at the Solid Waste Authority or Recycle Smart, and I would just, many of the um funds that we collect are for diversion and compliance programs, organics, schools programs to support outreach.

We're teaching our children in 66 schools how to recycle and be tuned to recycling, and so those programs are moving forward as well.

The um well, I didn't go to see visit with JoyBound on Saturday night.

The um are amazing long term in the community artistic swimming team, the Aquanuts had their annual um celebration of championships, champions Saturday night.

It was at the pool at Heather Farm, Clark Swim Center, and they it was a fundraiser, but it also highlighted the US 2028 Olympic team was there to perform.

They performed and one of our Walnut Creek members is on that.

So we hopefully they're going to be great.

They were great the other night, they will be really great by 2028.

And um the League of California Cities will have policy committee meetings in Sacramento later this week or on um virtually as well.

There are seven policy committees, and it was nice.

Um we will be hearing a presentation from representatives of CalEd on local economic development opportunities, and it was nice to have received that award this evening.

And finally, Leisher Center for the Arts.

There's a lot going on at the theater.

The um Jagged Little Pill opened last weekend and continues through June 28th.

Center rep is presenting that.

It's a musical featuring the music of Alana, Alanis Mora set.

And finally, I will mention that Fiesta Cultural is a week from this weekend, and it will feature on Friday night Pacific Mambo Orchestra and on Saturday is the Fiesta Cultural Street Fair.

And you can learn more about all of this by visiting their website at Leisure Arts Center.org.

And thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilmember Tarling.

Thank you.

And I will leave you on Memorial Day.

It was a great event.

Um City Manager Buckshai and I went to the Chamber of Commerce's regular routine meeting.

Uh lots of good things going on there.

We they are sponsoring art and wine in Civic Park this weekend, and I think hopefully everybody is signed up to help at some point in the ticket booth.

My throwing in the ticket booth this Sunday.

Um, so that will be that's always a fun event, and it does it looks like this year it won't be 104, which is always deeply appreciated.

A couple of I sit on the MCE board, which is the electric electricity supplier for Walnut Creek, Councilmember Duffini is my alternate, and a couple interesting things going on there.

The hours of the day that we want people to shift their power use away from, it used to be in the middle of the afternoon when it was really really hot.

With the increase in the amount of solar in California, what we now want people to do is decrease their electricity use between four and nine at night because once the sun sets, the solar stops working, and we have to turn on a bunch of other things.

So last year we tried an experimental program where we went through the the billings and identified people who had not done as good a job as we thought they could at shifting using their behavior to shift their power use away from that four to nine time period.

They were targeted with you know email, written communication, and offers to you know have somebody come by and show them how to do this, and then we went back and remeasured their use.

Those residents and businesses saved $380,000 by shifting their power use away from that four to nine period, and um, so it's not only great for the environment because it means we didn't have to turn on natural gas plants, but it saved them big money.

So that was a really nice thing.

The other nice thing that happened at MCE is um the community choice aggregate industry was really born about 15 years ago, and the credit rating agencies had no idea what to do with it when it was born.

They're like, but wait a second, you're not a utility, you're not of this, you're not of that.

And it took them a while to get to trusting the community choice aggregators like MCE.

And we had a ratings call with um standard and poor's, and they reaffirmed our A credit rating.

They cited MCE's healthy liquidity, 554 million dollars, which is equivalent to 244 days of electricity operating expenses.

We have a diverse supply of a diverse portfolio of renewable energy projects.

58 long-term contracts, everything from wind to solar to batteries.

And we're bringing a geothermal project online in the next year, and lack of outstanding debt.

And so those factors together really made the SP folks.

We didn't quite get you know Walnut Creek Triple A, but you know we've got a we're pretty happy with it.

And the nice thing with that is it does help us save money on behalf of our ratepayers because it makes it easier to enter into contracts.

We can negotiate more competitive prices with the suppliers, and that helps us maintain stable cost for our ratepayers.

And we're at a time where stable cost for ratepayers is really really important.

So that is the MCE story, and I will turn it now to you, and you can talk about Memorial Day.

What a great event that was.

Well, so so much of what uh we did other people mentioned.

I do want to mention Memorial Day ceremony, though, because staff and as council member Silva mentioned, this does not happen without the tremendous work that our staff puts into it, and our city clerk, Susie Martinez and Elena as well, helping with that, and our assistant city manager and and Matt Bolder and uh in our uh video and communications team, and it is truly a team effort.

They just make us look good up there.

And for those of you who have not been to the Memorial Day ceremony, it is it may be the the flagship best city event that Walnut Creek puts on as a city of Walnut Creek government puts on all year long.

Uh it's truly incredible.

It's only an hour.

If you are here and not on vacation or memorial weekend, I encourage you to come.

Those that have been here before that have come to it, see how terrific it is with the band and the uh armed services salute.

We've got veterans that are there and people that have been going back to uh World War II and in just last year we had somebody for World War II that was there.

So it's truly a wonderful event.

If you missed it and are so disappointed that you missed it, Veterans Day Ceremony is another one of our top events.

It comes up November 11th at 11 o'clock at at the Lesser Center, and I encourage you to come there.

And we also have the Walnut Creek band playing there as well.

Thank you to all of my colleagues that uh were able to be there and speak about Memorial Day meant to you and our keynote speaker that we had as well.

Uh truly a uh memorable memorial day event.

Uh I also was happy to help break ground at Lindsay Wildlife Experience for their new Nature Cove building, which will house seven of the museum's birds of prey in this new immersive exhibit and educational space that'll be completed in August.

I'm sure we'll hear more about it.

But uh great turnout for that, and I know our public works team is working with them on putting that all together as well.

We heard Mayor Portem mention the Murwood Walking Club.

I would encourage all elementary schools to do this, not just because it's amazing and to watch kids running what we saw was only a mile or two of their hundred miles they put together for the year.

But I have no doubt that parents across the city are happy that their kids are doing this because they're a little more worn out when they get home at in the afternoons.

We had some terrific business openings this last week.

Dopio Zero had maybe the biggest restaurant opening I'd seen this side of Original Joe's.

Original Joe's was everybody was kind of around.

I am not kidding.

The line for Doppio Zero went down the block to hit Stadium Pub.

It was all the way down.

Amazing amount of uh enthusiasm there.

Same nights that opened up was uh Marufuku and Mensho uh Ramen and Walnut Creek is vibrant.

We just heard before about the outdoor dining.

It is happening here, and so just to see these terrific regional places that are opening up that my daughter who lives in San Francisco mentioned that you you've got mentioned.

Oh my god, that's my favorite ramen place.

So it's uh it's preceding us these kind of things.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was going to be the celebrity bartender event at Lunacy that benefited NAMI, the uh NAMI Contra Costa, which is the National Association of Mental Health.

We have that on Thursday, lots of people came.

Uh thank you to Walnut Creek downtown and chamber members, had some staff members that came as well, packed the place, and proceeds helped to benefit NAMI as well as I donated all of my tips.

I don't know how many I got, but I donated to them as well.

But fun to see, and I went to back to my bartending roots of which I did a long time ago in LA, but uh was able to get my juices flowing again for a couple of hours.

Yesterday we had almost all I it was probably close to a hundred people show up for our pride flag raising right out here outside City Hall, and we had members of the LGBTQ plus community come from Rossmore and other areas.

Lots of staff came as well that were there.

Uh this I am so happy that Walnut Creek does this annually.

This is more than just the fact that it's celebrating gay rights.

I think it celebrates welcoming to everybody and equity and inclusive, inclusivity and diversity, and we all appreciate that in Walnut Creek.

And uh and I'm I was honored to be able to speak and raise the flag there.

I was also asked to go to Rossmore today for their kickoff for LGBTQ plus and uh and their kickoff event that was within Rossmore again.

Almost a hundred people were there for that.

So Walnut Creek truly uh steps up for everybody here, and we are stronger together, and I really appreciate that.

My fellow council members are all in on that with me and and with our residents of Walnut Creek.

Lastly, just a couple of things that are coming up.

This is a busy weekend.

We heard about the Walt Art and Wine Festival, it's in Civic Park.

Saturday is from 12 to 8, and uh it is on Sunday from 12 to 6.

There will be thousands of people there, there'll be music, there'll be art, there'll be wine uh and beer, and so I encourage everybody to come and check it out.

It's free to go there, and uh it it is it's terrific.

Uh you've got to see it to believe it.

And then if you like cars and not as much art and wine, Shaylins Museum has their annual car show at the uh I should say it actually.

Who is the group?

It's not the Shailens Museum.

It's the historical society, thank Historical Society.

Uh they have it at the Shaylands Museum.

The car show is there from 10 to 3.

They give out awards starting at two.

There are hundreds of old road students and old cars.

They have a mayor's choice award as well.

And I think a couple of years ago, the car that won was like 1929 uh Mercedes Benz that was probably 25 feet long.

It was these are just impressive old cars.

I uh and some of them are impressive new cars, but I encourage people to go out there if you have the time as well.

Again, free to attend.

That's what the those are the updates.

All right.

Uh why don't we take it's about a little before seven?

Why don't we take a break for seven minutes till seven o'clock, and then we'll we'll reconvene then.

Okay, and we're back.

Um, as I mentioned at the top of the meeting, item sixa.

Oh, no, I'm sorry, we're not there yet.

We're we're at item five A.

Public hearing.

Uh, public hearing pursuant to government code section 3502.3 on the City of Walnut Creek's job vacancies recruitment and retention efforts for fiscal year 2026, and invite human resources director Trish Raver forward to provide the presentation.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good evening, Mayor Well, Council members.

Um I am here this evening to provide a brief presentation of the City of Walnut Creek's job vacancies recruitment and retention efforts for fiscal year 2026, pursuant to government code section 3502.3 as you stated.

Correct.

The agenda for the presentation includes a summary of government code section the government code section, the city's vacancy rates by bargaining unit and department, and the recruitment and retention efforts of the city for fiscal year 2026.

As of January 1, 2025, each public agency is required to present the status of job vacancies and recruitment and retention efforts during a public hearing at least once per fiscal year.

Each bargaining unit is also entitled to make a presentation relative to their unit.

Bargaining units were made aware of this presentation this evening, and no bargaining units indicated interest in presenting.

As described in the next slide, if the vacancy rate for any bargaining unit meets or exceeds 20%, the city will identify any necessary changes to policies, procedures, and recruitment activities that may be an obstacle.

No bargaining units' vacancy rate meets or exceeds 20% in the city.

As previously mentioned, if the number of job vacancies within a single bargaining unit meets or exceeds 20% of the authorized full-time positions for that unit upon request of the recognized employee organization, this presentation would also include the following additional data.

So there are seven bargaining units and two groups in the city as listed.

As of May 9th, 2026, the following chart illustrates the bargaining unit, the number of authorized full-time equivalent positions per bargaining unit, the number of filled FTEs, the number of vacant FTEs, and the percentage of vacant FTEs.

As previously mentioned, no bargaining unit meets or exceeds the 20% vacancy threshold where exploration of recruitment and retention obstacles may occur.

Overall, the city's current vacancy rate is 10.7% with 41.25 vacant FTEs out of 386 full-time equivalent positions.

To provide some additional context for the vacancy data, this chart represents the number of vacant positions per department.

Again, from this perspective, no department meets or exceeds the 20% threshold either.

This slide provides the workflow for a standard recruitment process, which can run anywhere from three to five months from start to finish.

Once a vacancy is known, it is prioritized, then once identified as a next recruitment, a requisition to fill the recruitment or the position occurs, followed by opening the recruitment for the position.

The recruitment closes, human resources conducts the initial application screening for minimum qualifications, with additional candidate testing and assessment then taking place, resulting in the creation of a list of eligible candidates for hire.

The hiring department then conducts interviews, typically resulting in a conditional job offer to a candidate.

Subsequently, a pre-employment background check process occurs where successful candidates will receive a final offer of employment, filling the open position.

For calendar year 2025, 3,939 applications were received and screened by human resources associated with 24 job postings.

Separation information is provided in this slide, which includes resignations, retirements, and involuntary separations.

Data is fairly consistent in terms of overall numbers throughout the period.

As you can see in this slide of appointments and position changes, recruitment activity and changes in positions has slowed in past years.

In the past year, significant effort has been made to streamline the hiring process for police dispatcher.

This is a major recruitment effort for us.

Because this recruitment draws hundreds of applicants, the challenge has been ensuring candidates not only have the skills to succeed, but also have reflected on the demands of the career path.

Our recent recruitment process screening has helped candidates fully understand the role.

All applicants who met minimum qualifications took the critical exam, and then those who passed joined a live Zoom session where our supervisors provided a realistic outlook of the job.

Candidates then receive points for relevant experience and transferable skills.

By the time top candidates reach interviews, they had a full understanding of the position, resulting in a highly motivated and well-qualified eligibleist.

Additionally, the typing speed requirements for administrative positions that require typing have been reduced to be more aligned with modern typing standards to reduce the potential recruitment barrier.

In the past year, other retention efforts have included successor labor agreements for the police officers association and the police management association.

Those were approved by council to ensure wage and benefits equity and a competitive labor market for these positions.

5% salary adjustments will also be provided for seven bargaining units effective July 1 to remain competitive.

And as an additional measure to continuously improve as an organization, voluntary exit interviews are conducted with departing staff.

The city also provides numerous programs in support of employee growth, development, and engagement, which include the following listing.

The key findings relative to this presentation are that recruitment and retention in the city is prioritized, as well as the commitment to staff engagement and a focus on continuous improvement.

The staff recommendation is to receive and file this presentation on the City of Walnut Creek's job vacancies recruitment and retention efforts for fiscal year 2026 pursuant to government code section 3502.3.

Thank you.

Any I don't know any questions.

Do we have any?

Well, thank thank you, Tricia.

I mean, it's your department is doing such a great job.

This was a fraction of the time that I thought it would be taking, or that we've seen in previous years.

So thank you so much.

Do we have any questions on any of these topics?

Yeah, let's open to public comment.

Um please step forward to the podium if you have any comment about this.

Uh you can complete a speaker card.

You'll have up to two minutes consistent with city policies.

Um step up now.

No.

Okay, then we'll close public comment, bring it back to council.

I will move to receive and file the presentation on the city of Walnut Creek's job vacancies, recruitment, and excellent retention efforts for fiscal year 26, pursuant to government code section one.

Second.

All right, motion and a second.

Susie.

Councilmember Darling.

Hi.

Councilmember Silva.

Hi.

Council Member DeVini.

Hi.

Mayor Pro Tem Francois.

Hi.

Mayor Wilk.

Hi.

Great job, HR department.

All right.

Now we come to item 6A, which we have pushed pulled and will be at a future meeting.

So we'll move on to item 6B, which is receiving the comprehensive user fee study results and provide policy direction on the citywide cost recovery framework.

I invite administrative services director Kirsten Lacasse forward to provide the presentation.

Good evening, Mayor Wilk and members of council.

And I am pleased to kick off the presentation on the comprehensive user fee study.

We're also joined this evening by Matrix Consulting Group who will walk us through the study's results and recommendations.

So tonight I'll begin with some background information and provide an overview of the city's fiscal year 26 budgeted revenues and cost recovery levels in the general fund.

Matrix Consulting Group will then present the results of the study, including their methodology and findings.

Following the consultant presentation, staff will return to discuss several policy considerations and seek council feedback and direction.

That input will help inform the development of a draft user fee cost recovery policy and future fee recommendations.

The timeline for bringing those items back to the Finance Committee and City Council for consideration will be outlined in the next steps.

So tonight, what we're asking of you is to provide feedback, input, and policy direction to staff regarding the development of a citywide cost recovery policy and fee recommendations, and then to move to receive the comprehensive user fee study report.

So the study focuses on user fees that are included in the city's master fee schedule and are intended to recover the cost of providing those specific services.

The study does not include development impact fees or state regulated fees.

A user fee is a charge paid for a specific government service provided to an individual or a group.

These fees help offset the cost of providing that service.

This differs from taxes, which fund services that benefit the community as a whole, such as public safety, parks, streets, and infrastructure.

When a service provides both a community benefit and an individual benefit, council may choose to recover only a portion of the cost through fees and subsidize the remainder with tax-supported revenues.

So for some background, this is the city's first comprehensive fee study since 2010 and includes fee-based services across all applicable departments.

In fiscal year 26, the total cost of providing fee-based services is approximately 33 million.

Current user fees recover about 21 million of these costs, resulting in an overall cost recovery rate of approximately 65%.

The remaining 12 million is subsidized through other general fund revenues.

Over time, fee adjustments in the city's master fee schedule have generally not kept pace with inflation, contributing to a growing gap between the cost of providing services and the revenue generated from those services.

It is important to note, however, that full cost recovery is not always the goal.

Many services provide broader community benefits and may warrant some level of ongoing subsidy.

The appropriate balance between cost recovery and community benefit is one of the key policy discussions before council this evening.

User fees account for about 20% of total general fund revenues, while general revenues comprise the largest share at approximately 71%.

As a reminder, general revenues are derived primarily from taxes, including property tax, sales tax, and transient occupancy tax, and are used to support a wide variety of city services, as I mentioned earlier.

The remaining 9% represents other department revenues that were not included in the fee study.

These revenues include sources such as business license taxes, development impact fees, lease revenues, sponsorships and donations, and reimbursements for damage to city property.

The total expenditure budget for the general fund in fiscal year 26 is 107 million.

This chart represents the level of general revenue support in the fiscal year 26 general fund budget for each department.

The darker green are those tax-related general revenues that are supporting programs across the city.

The lighter green are the department revenues that include the user fees.

As you can see, most of the funding that supports administrative services, general government, and human resources is general revenues, which is typical of departments that are essentially citywide support.

Arts and recreation recovers approximately 60% of costs and 40% support from general revenues.

Said differently, the cost to run the Arts and Recreation Department and all of their services is about 20 million, and they receive about 8 million in general revenue support.

Community development receives about 15% support from general revenues, which is expected based on the services they provide.

Police is primarily fully funded by tax dollars, which again is typical for public safety services that are a benefit to the entire community.

Public Works recovers about 28% of their total costs in their general fund budget, and again, because public works deals with streets and roads and infrastructure, the majority of what they do has a larger community-wide benefit.

Therefore, they're supported by general revenues by about 72%.

And so now I will turn the presentation over to Matrix Consulting Group to provide you with the results of the study.

Thank you, Kirsten.

Good evening, Council.

I'm Kushbuingala, Vice President with Matrix Consulting Group, and I've been working closely with your city staff over the last several months on the comprehensive fee study, and we just wanted to give you a brief presentation on the results of the analysis.

So why do people conduct a fee study?

Like Kirsten mentioned, it's really important to understand what it is truly costing you to provide these services so that you can make those informed policy decisions that allows you to look at, you know, what is the promote, what is the fee structure that you want to promote to allow to balance those needs of what is the private benefit versus the larger public benefit.

Additionally, there's certain rules and regulations in the state that dictate that you can't charge more than it costs to provide these services.

So it's important to do these studies every so often so that you can understand what is the true cost of that service and are you complying with those regulations.

When we look at the objectives of the analysis, we start with taking a look at all of the different fee line items.

Do we have all the right categories on the fee schedule?

Are there things that we are missing?

Are there things that are no longer relevant because rules have changed, codes have changed, or we're no longer providing those services?

So making sure that our fee structure is in alignment with all of the different types of services that we're providing.

As we mentioned, making sure that we have that legal compliance with those rules and regulations.

I'll talk a little bit more about the time assumptions and the fully burdened hourly rates in the methodology section, but making sure that we're capturing the true staff effort that it takes to provide these services and costing it out based on the direct and indirect costs associated with that.

We did also do a comparative survey.

So we looked at what other agencies around you are charging for similar types of services.

Um one caveat to those is you know, just because it's called the same fee doesn't mean it always reflects the same level of service.

Sometimes it can include additional departments, divisions, or you know, it's a deposit and not a flat fee.

So it's not always an apples to apples comparison, and then ultimately putting all of this together in a new defined master fee schedule for the city.

So talking a little bit about the methodology that we utilized, we utilize a bottom-up approach, which is the most defensible way of calculating fees.

So we look at each individual fee line item and we take a look at what is it truly take for staff effort to provide that service.

And when we're talking about the time associated with providing that, we're not talking about the fact that a project could last months, years, weeks.

We're really talking about the time on task, and we're really talking about what is the average time that it takes to provide that activity.

So, not the most difficult project somebody's ever done, not the simplest project, but what is that typical average activity?

Having done these types of studies for many jurisdictions within the Bay Area, within California, within the country, we have a good understanding of generally what it takes to provide a lot of these services.

So we also do our own gut check against these time assumptions to make sure that we're not over or underaccounting for time on these activities.

And sometimes there's reasons for those variances, but we want to make sure that we have that conversation with staff and don't just take everything at face value.

We take that time assumption and we multiply it by what we call the fully burdened rate.

That fully burdened rate is not what someone takes home, it is what it truly costs the city to have that person as an employee.

So it takes into account your budgeted salaries and your budgeted benefits.

So again, where staff have already been approved to be paid at, so not the highest salary step that we're taking a look at.

We're taking a look at what's been adopted, what's been approved as their budgeted salaries as their budgeted benefits.

We take into account their productive hours.

So the fact that they have vacations, holidays, sick leave, mandatory trainings, those types of things, they're not available to work during those hours.

So we have to reduce the hourly rate by that.

We take into account services and supplies, things that they need to do their job, the rent, the vehicles, the computers, all of those things that they need.

We take into account the supervisory support and clerical support, so administrative staff that are assisting those people that are directly working on fees, and then ultimately we take into account the citywide overhead.

So council, city manager, HR that just gave a presentation on recruitment, those types of services.

So we come up with what is the fully loaded cost of that employee or that position.

We multiply by that time assumption and we come up with what we call kind of that maximum justifiable fee or that ceiling.

So essentially you can set your fee at any amount up to that, but not necessarily more than that.

One exception to this is the lovely world of arts and recreation.

So in the state of California, the way the fees are set up is that if something is being imposed upon you, it has to be based on the cost of service.

If something is voluntary, meaning you make the choice to utilize a particular city service.

So if you're making the choice to rent a particular facility or utilize a particular program, it's not being imposed upon you versus if I'm building a house, I have to pay the building permit fee.

It's part, it's a requirement, it's a fee that's imposed upon me.

So that's the key distinction of why arts and recreation related fees or anything open space related a lot of times that are more of a voluntary fee, don't have to be set at that maximum justifiable rate because they can be set at what the market can bear, which means that it could be more or less than would really cost the city to provide those services.

Talking a little bit about what we looked at, we looked at roughly a little bit less than 500 fee line items.

So it was pretty exhaustive list of fees that we looked at.

Some key findings, we write sized building fees to again better reflect how services are being provided.

So it was more just making sure that every kind of fee category is appropriately paying for their impact that they're incurring on the city, and that's an important part of making sure you're in compliance with those state regulations.

Calculating updated fully burdened rates, a lot of planning and engineering services are deposit based.

So one key component of cost recovery for anything that is deposit-based, meaning it's charge time and materials.

You want to make sure that the time you're charging is at the right hourly rate, is really recovering that fully loaded cost.

And then we looked at the exhaustive list of arts and recreation, rental, and in-house programmatic fees again to make sure that we're capturing not only the staff cost associated with running those programs and activities, but things like custodial maintenance, utilities, and something that we call use of space, which is really the exclusive use of a pro of a public space.

So making sure that again we're capturing all of those components.

So like Kirsten mentioned, there's a couple different options when you're looking at these fees and looking at you know what type of cost recovery you want to achieve when something is a much larger global community benefit.

Typically, those are not very high cost recovery types of services, things like police services, park maintenance, street maintenance, those are all you know, you're not really charging fees for that.

That's typically tax funded.

When you look at things that are a little bit more global and individual, so there's a little bit of an individual benefit, but also there is a larger community benefit.

Those are a little bit in between.

You can have some level of cost recovery through some fees because there's still some individual benefit, but there is still a larger community benefit.

So things like youth sports, youth activities, those are all typically subsidized because the concept is yes, while those children are benefiting from participating in those programs, it's also a benefit to the larger community by having those programs available.

And then we get into what we call really the more individualistic or particular groups that benefit from services, and those are typically much higher cost recovery.

So again, things like your building permits.

If I'm building a swimming pool in my backyard, generally, yes, it could bring up the neighborhood house value, but it's really more of a private benefit to me because I'm the only one that can really use that pool.

So those are things where you see much higher levels of cost recovery typically.

So I'll turn it over to Kirsten to talk a little bit about the policy implications, but really taking these results and taking that into consideration as you're looking at where and how you want to set your fees.

One component is that the city does really well is that they have been annually increasing their fees based on a cost factor that is the best practice.

We would recommend that the city continue doing that.

So it ensures that there isn't a huge gap between kind of what you're setting as your policy goals.

So if you're setting a particular fee at 80% cost recovery to maintain that, you want to keep that up with the pace of inflation.

And then ultimately you'd want to reevaluate these fees again.

Probably not wait as long as 15 or so years.

Typically, we recommend roughly within a five to seven year period because enough changes have happened during that time frame either technologically organizationally or programmatically that you want to reevaluate all of these assumptions again to make sure that we're appropriately capturing all of those items.

With that I'll turn it back over to Kirsten.

Thank you.

And with that I wanted to just take a moment to pause and see if you wanted to take questions at this time before we move on to policy considerations.

We can see if there's any early questions but uh anything start with Council Member DeVinny.

I just wanted to to make sure I understood those those first couple slides it said that the in this last year we had 33 million dollars in um services provided of which we collected something like 20 million in revenue for those services so we were collecting at approximately two thirds of service provided to collections is that yes so the the cost of the services we provided is the 33 million and with the fees we were able to generate about 21 million in cost recovery.

So we were recovering at about 65%.

Okay.

And that's 2026 when these fees were put in place in 2010 was that the intention two thirds or have we drifted from that.

Unfortunately I don't have information about what the conclusions were in 2010.

However we have when we have we evaluate our fees annually as part of our budget process our two year budget process as well as we look at those annually and we have increased based on depending on if you know staff has received increases we increase some of those fees as well but um like a sort of it wasn't sort of a standing theory or policy of roughly where we'd like to be on that spectrum that's just where we are now is that is that accurate correct okay and I would just add to that um if you go back to I think it's 2010 when we last did this the council at the time set some policy guidance for just certain categories of fees of what the recovery should be.

There wasn't it wasn't applied across the board so it's a little more grassroots or bottoms up I would say for the other fees and as Kirsten noted in some instances we have kept up with inflation with some annual or periodic adjustments in other instances we haven't as much and I think you may cover that here in the presentation to show that we we have been a little lower than than what inflation has been over time.

Thank you.

Yes.

And uh just one general basic one because we did get some public comment about it.

Just maybe if you can reiterate the distinction between user fees and impact fees.

So the user fees are charged for services that the city provides the development impact fees are related to essentially growth and the development within the city and so they're they have different regulations around them and so in this case we were only looking at the user uh fees and so we haven't done a study yet on the development impact fees.

Is it in the work plan to do such a study for the impact fees?

I would just add to that we did do one a few years ago I think it's due up again in a few more years and what we were discussing internally.

I don't think we're legally required to do it again until around 2030 but we're doing a general plan update which is going to set a lot of parameters for how the city may grow and evolve and I think there is some sense to seeing how that plays out and revisiting our impact fees around that time as well.

Could I ask a question if we build on that in the when we did the housing element weren't we required to approach the impact fees from the housing perspective and assess those I think it's the analysis is in the very lengthy housing element.

I believe so but I would want to defer with the No, I don't know, or no, I'm just shaking head.

And I would also add that the previous fee studies, the 2010 version really was focused on are we charging what is our cost recovery?

And we had a whole separate study on arts and recreation fees, and that was a very interesting debate because people don't like paying for things that are private benefit.

Hello, Erica Van Community Development Director.

With regard to the question about the housing element, we did not do a separate impact fee study, but we had done one several years prior to that, and so that sufficed for that requirement.

So and we will, as city manager said that will be part and parcel of the impact fee evaluation due by 2030.

Just one other comment I would add related to impact fees to round that out is we report annually as is legally required on how much was collected for impact fees, what it was used for, how much is left in the balance.

So there is an annual update on the impact fees.

Thank you.

All right.

Yeah, another question.

Okay.

Um please uh assure me that my assumption that when we looked at Pleasant Hill and Hayward comparison studies that the arts and rec programs were actually done with those special those special districts, not with the cities that's correct.

Are we allowed to look at the nonprofit sector who may be providing um services in our community around facilities and facility rentals, such as the gardens at Heather Farm, Bruce Bancroft Garden, and what about hotels and others that may have rooms available for rent?

That is a great question.

I don't know what state law allows us to consider.

Yes, you can definitely look at all of those in consideration of kind of figuring out where and how you want to set your rental rates.

Um one caveat typically is though private entities obviously have different um requirements of what they're trying to achieve through those rental rates versus the public agencies.

So typically when we're looking at those comparisons, we're looking at more public agencies and kind of what the market is for that.

Um for but technically, yes, you can look at the private entities and and see what they're charging for those types of services.

One key thing to remember is in arts and recreation there's a qualitative component that's hard to quantify, which is you know the desirability of your facilities and the desirability of the amenities and the newness and those types of things that you can't you know put a dollar to necessarily.

So those are the pieces of you know, when we look at all of this, we want to look at all of those components in in holistic way so that we make sure that the city is setting those rates based on what's appropriate for what they can recover and what can be utilized.

And just as long as you're there, one other question.

When you talk about the voluntary services, those I choose to participate in.

I think that may be because that's what state law says, but our arts programs are considered in the same.

Correct.

They are okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

So next we'll walk through several policy considerations that will help establish a framework for how the city approaches cost recovery going forward.

So the policy considerations we are seeking feedback on tonight include adopting a general cost recovery framework to guide future fee decisions, establishing a non-resident fee structure for applicable services, defining parameters for future annual fee adjustments, considering annual fee updates tied to an objective benchmark such as the consumer price index to help fees keep pace with inflation, and continuing to use market-based pricing for services that are voluntary in nature and primarily provide an individual or private benefit.

Lastly, evaluating housing-related services separately from other development and permit activities while considering housing affordability and broader housing policy objectives.

And so next I'm going to walk through each of these individually and ask for your feedback and direction.

So one of the policy considerations.

If you're going to walk through them individually, we haven't had any public comment.

If we if we respond one at a time as she's going through them.

Well, we could certainly open up the public comment after we go through all of them.

Okay, thank you.

I just the way I heard her say it was she was going to go through them and ask for our input, and I wanted to make sure that we, if there's public comment, we have enough.

I would say let's ask, let's ask questions and then we can go to public comment.

Okay.

So one of the key policy considerations is whether the city should adopt a general cost recovery framework.

The goal is to establish consistent citywide principles for evaluating fees and determining appropriate levels of cost recovery.

The framework recognizes that not all services provide the same type or level of benefit.

So as a result, the appropriate level of cost recovery may vary depending on the nature of the service and the public benefit it provides.

It's also important to recognize that not every service fits neatly into a single category.

Because of that, the framework is intended to serve as a guide, allowing flexibility to consider the variations within individual services and programs.

Establishing a cost recovery framework creates a transparent and equitable equitable basis for future fee decisions.

So this next table outlines a cost recovery framework that would be the basis for evaluating future fee recommendations and determining appropriate levels of subsidy support based on the level of community versus individual benefit associated with the service.

So as you can see, those services that have a high community benefit would have a lower level of cost recovery and varying levels of general fund subsidy support.

Example of examples of these include youth and senior programming and some recreation and social services.

The shared community and individual benefit services have a direct benefit to an individual and a broader benefit to the community.

These types of services could have some partial cost recovery, balancing the public and private benefit.

Examples include mixed benefit recreation, park special events, and planning and design review.

Lastly, private benefit and market-based services.

These would have a higher cost recovery.

Some could include full cost recovery or market-based pricing for those voluntary rentals and exclusive use services.

Examples of these would be facility rentals for things like weddings or regulatory or permit services.

And I can pause there and yes, questions.

And in my mind, there is general planning and general design review, like the objective standards for design review, but there's also a design review component to individual projects.

And I have always thought that fit better, that design review on an individual project fit better under the private benefit.

Is that how it's being interpreted?

Yes, and so it does kind of as we had talked some about it does cross categories, and so the permit review and or the design review for something like a development project would have could have both a public and private benefit in the sense that it would be following kind of our rules of safety and our different requirements.

But yes, there would also be some that would be considered private benefit if it was for an individual, an individual homeowner.

But if it if it's a new development, wouldn't all of the cost of the design review of that new development if it's something like Mitchell Townhomes.

But wouldn't all that go to that developer and not to the general public?

Short answer is yes.

Okay.

You know, maybe a more general way to think of it, you know, long-range planning type of activities is in the mixed and that you know specific project-based types of efforts would be more the full cost recovery.

And I just do want to emphasize something Kirsten mentioned.

These are set for example, and there are different types of fees that don't fit in neatly into one of these categories, but it's a framework to help try to uh, you know, provide some context for decision making.

Yeah, for me that like general planning and general design review services clearly fit in that middle.

And then project-specific planning and design review services fit in them.

So, kind of had a similar question then.

What what what's a specific example if you can get one of a user fee that's a charged or imposed for those general planning and design review services?

Okay, I'll ask Kushbu to help with that.

Um so sometimes what some jurisdictions will use in that category would be something like a historic um design review because it's you know again maintaining the integrity of the community's intent.

Um so it is a private development application, but you're complying with those historic design review guidelines.

Um so that's a type of user fee where it ha where it's a design review fee, but it's really again kind of has a shared benefit because you don't want something being built um that you know would not comply with those historic guidelines.

So yes, while the private developer is still benefiting from it, the community is also benefiting from it by making sure that it doesn't, you know, become an eyesore in that area.

So that's an example.

And the complying with sign.

Yes, sometimes that can be they're very public.

The whole point is to make public known what's there, it serves the b the business, but at the same time it's front and center to the community.

Correct.

That's a good example too.

And again, you want to make sure that they're in compliance with those requirements.

You know, certain jurisdictions don't want too large of signs because it can, you know, uh, it doesn't look good in that neighborhood or look good in that area or too small signage because it, you know, people can't see it.

So those types of guidelines and complying with that is where it's it's a little bit of a, you know, uh you can pick and choose, but there are ways that you can see how there is sort of a community benefit in those areas.

And and where we are right now in this process, we're just trying to decide if we're interested in a recovery framework, and if we decided that we were parsing out these details would be something that we would do moving forward.

Yes, this would essentially help develop the draft policy, but then we would also bring forward specific fees and they would be within this framework.

And that then we would have a chance to look at each one of them and decide if they're in the right category.

Correct.

Okay.

Okay.

So the next item staff would like you to consider is establishing non-resident fee rates.

This pricing strategy could be used for recreation programs, facility rentals, and similar services in the city.

City residents pay taxes which support a lot of programs and have a which support a lot of programs and having a non-resident fee reflects the taxpayer supported investment in city services.

These rates would help reduce general fund subsidies for non-resident users, further offsetting costs of services.

Comparable agencies commonly charge non-resident premiums anywhere between 10 and 25 percent.

This isn't the first time I've seen this.

Um a lot of times the discussion has been the complicated nature of having 20,000 plus residents that are in unincorporated walnut creek and who would think they live in the city.

How easy is it for us to actually conceivably do this before we actually debate the rightness or wrongness of it?

So I I believe that it would it could be difficult because of that because it's not always known by a street address if they're a resident within the city or if they're an unincorporated.

However, it could still benefit the city to have a non resident fee, but yes, the implementation would need to be worked through.

Thank you.

Yes, my question to along those lines.

Uh I know when we were talking about measure O, one of the things we highlighted was it the burden wasn't falling entirely on city residents that there were a lot of non-residents, including people that are not just with a walnut creek address, but outside of Walnut Creek altogether, that provides services.

So my I guess my question or thought is is there a way to account for or adjust that?

Yes, we're not getting property tax from non-Walnut creek addresses, but we likely are getting a fair amount of sales tax dollars.

I'm off the top of my head, wouldn't not sure how we would be able to quantify that, but um, I could just add, you know, that's obviously part of the policy discussion.

If you do want to have a, you know, a non-resident fee, you know, as I recall in very round figures, about half of the sales taxes generated from people out of area.

The other half is generated by people who live within Walnut Creek and round figures.

So if that's a data point that helps with the policy formulation, obviously, we could bet that further.

But we also don't know of that half that doesn't live in the city of Walnut Creek, which portions are people that have Walnut Creek as an address that live in the unincorporated area versus not a Walnut Creek address, correct?

Okay.

And next we seek support in defining an annual fee adjustment parameters.

Establishing thresholds and phased implementation strategies would reduce the impact of significant increases to the community and improve predictability for users.

For example, in any given year, fees would not be increased more than a defined percentage.

Additionally, it could include what a phase approach would look like if there are some fees that are recommended to increase by a significant amount.

Additionally, this would improve predictability for users.

Any questions on that?

Can we just go forward?

It's important going forward that fees are increased based on a benchmark in order to keep up with inflation.

So as our cost for providing services increases, the user support is adjusted as well.

By doing so, it will help prevent costs from outpacing revenues, or in cases of those that are subsidized, it will help mitigate costs.

This approach will avoid future large fee increases that would have a much greater impact on users.

And as mentioned in the agenda report, when we looked at the CPI that that was adjusted by fiscal year so we could compare, we were looking at inflation that was about 21%, but the city fees only increased about 12% over that same period of time.

So something like this would help to mitigate that.

It could, but it wouldn't necessarily be for every fee.

There are some fees that would be market based where that wouldn't necessarily apply, but that would give us a guideline for the other fees.

I have a question.

I mean, I understand the words, but these seems very similar to the previous slide.

Why are we?

So the annual the intent of the annual fee adjustment parameters was more in terms of the fees that we have when we want to increase those fees.

If some fees are being recommended to increase, say let's say 15%, there may be a policy decision not to raise any fees more than 5% in any given fiscal year.

And then we would also have a phase-in policy where we would say, okay, if you know if it's only 5% a year, this fee will increase to whatever cost recovery is determined over, say a three or four-year period.

So the previous slide, if you could go back, sure.

I'm sorry.

So this could be a ceiling.

It could be a ceiling, yes.

Okay.

So these are the thank you.

So certain user fees may be established based on market rates and demand, and typically those are things that have a direct individual or group benefit that are essentially voluntary.

The city could continue market-based pricing where appropriate.

This would apply to select rentals and exclusive use services, as we mentioned earlier, and we'll maximize cost recovery where demand supports higher fees.

Lastly, housing fees unrelated to development impact fees were evaluated as part of the study.

It's important that these costs associated with the things like affordable housing and loan administration are evaluated separately, and the evaluation considers affordability and housing policy goals.

So we are seeking council feedback on whether housing-related services should continue to be evaluated separately from these development related fees, and what role, if any, cost recovery should play given the city's housing policy objectives.

Can I ask a question?

Are these housing fees strictly about affordable housing for affordable housing projects?

Yes, they are, and have, and I can ask this question later, but is this also reflecting a hundred percent affordable projects as opposed to those market rate projects that have triggered density bonus advantages and are going to integrate a percentage of affordable units within their project?

Yes, question.

Oh god, she's got a turnaround.

I believe these housing related fees are more for the affordable housing projects, so not um we're gonna have to have a conversation about because the subordination and some of those um monitoring programs have to occur on both sides, the market rate projects with some affordable levels as well as the hundred percent.

So we need to be sure that we're talking about both.

And why are we breaking out these housing fees as just affordable housing fees for for projects with affordable?

Is that what I'm understanding?

What about other housing fees for projects that aren't?

These fees are separate from the impact fees.

Okay, those would be impact fees.

The other fees would be impact fees, yes.

Okay.

Actually, I just I want to clarify that briefly.

So it a few different things go on.

So there's this is largely focused on what we would call the housing division within our community development department that does focus on offering low-interest loans for first-time home buyers working through the affordable units, as council member Silva noted in terms of managing those units to ensure they stay affordable, that um you know uh lease restrictions or deed restrictions are adhered to that sort of thing.

That's primarily what we're talking about in this.

There is obviously another big bucket of uh services that are provided in their associated fees for housing in general.

If somebody wants to build a home and pulls pulls permits, has to go through the design review process and go through the building permit process, those are set, those are not specifically what we're talking about here generally, but they could be.

I mean, that's obviously within the purview of this discussion with the council, but this in particular is more the former that I mentioned for that category of services provided.

Just following up on that, then currently those fees, whether it's affordable or market rate, or pretty much full cost recovery, and we don't distinguish between the two types of housing products, like the more the planning and building fees related to the housing development.

That an affordable housing developer pays the same fees to process its application as a market rate developer question.

Ask Erica Vandenbrand to come and help with the question.

And are we calling those development fees?

Is that what's confusing right now?

Is we're calling these are housing fees and those are development fees, even though they're for building housing.

That is a good way of putting it.

Again, Erica Venn, Brown Community Development Director.

Um, as our city manager had said, essentially, there is the set of things that you know to construct, actually construct the housing units and so forth, and that's falls within that development fee sort of bucket, if you will.

Then there's the set of activities that go as our city manager and then council member Silva had said, go with the below market rate units, trying to create covenants, etc.

So that um, and then whenever there's in lieu housing, um, that's that's provided to be able to set those aside and to make sure that there are legal agreements in place to have um the uh agreements and then to have them monitored, and then whenever if their ownership units to um make ensure that they maintain um the affordability whenever they go for sale and so forth.

So it's that set of activities.

Currently we don't charge fees for that.

And so I think that what um is being referred to is that you know, essentially to daylight that and then council to be able to have a policy discussion.

Would you say that the in LU fees are covering the majority of that now or that not what we're using those for?

So no, the in lieu fees are go to capital because they're an impact fee and that's something that is not an operating fee.

Okay.

Oh, did you say there was another slide or you're looking at this point you're looking for direction?

So we next slide is just next steps and we'll go from here.

So why don't we go to next steps or less if it makes sense to go to next steps?

Then we'll open it up to public comment at that point.

Okay.

So this slide uh provides the tentative timeline between introduction of the fee study and then ultimately council adoption.

So from this evening's feedback and direction from your council, staff will propose detail fee recommendations, a draft user fee cost recovery policy, and any additional proposed changes to the fiscal year 27 budget to the finance committee on June 23rd.

The same information along with any updated recommendations and feedback from finance committee will be brought to your council for feedback and input on July 21st.

And then final adoption is anticipated on August 18th.

And that timeline will also provide st staff adequate time to engage stakeholders in the communities on those proposed changes as well.

So tonight's recommended action is a request to provide feedback, input and input in policy direction to staff regarding the development of the city cost recovery policy recommendations and to move to receive the comprehensive user fee study report.

And with that, staff and our consultants are available to answer any other questions that you may have.

Thank you.

Alright, thanks, Kirsten.

Uh before we get to our own comments, of course, we'll open this up for public comment at this point.

Please step forward to the podium.

Um please complete a speaker card and they're available at the counter.

Once uh at the podium, please introduce yourself and your city of residence for the record.

Consistent with city policies related to public comments.

Each speaker will have two minutes to make your report, your remarks.

Okay.

Uh we will then close public comments.

We'll turn it over to the council for discussion.

And why don't you walk us through each one of these and then we'll be able to provide the comments on those?

So the first one was adopting the general cost recovery framework and does refer to the table, which is also table three in the agenda report.

Okay, so this makes sense to me.

I agree, yeah, I I I agree.

I mean, in general, yes, it does make sense.

Uh, okay, we're all nodding.

All right.

I agree, but I also th I think that the questions that we asked might require it might generate a little more elaboration so it's easier in the future to tell what the difference between shared community individual benefits versus truly private benefits, yeah.

I'm assuming that we'll know it when we see it when we see the actual fees.

Yeah, we'll have the detailed fees, so we'll it'll it will hopefully be much more clear when we have the actual fees associated.

Will this also have a percentage of cost recovery?

There was a slide further back that was zero to twenty percent, twenty to fifty, above fifty.

Yes, and in in general, yes, there are categories of percentages for that, but we intentionally did not include that only because again, as we've talked about, things can cross categories, and so we just want to make sure that we're not kind of defining what those percentages would be at this point.

And and as you set up that framework, are you envisioning having like three levels like this, or might there be four or five levels and is is the idea that each one would go in a specific place?

Is that sort of the idea?

'Cause I think that having it maybe more levels is uh better than just three.

There might be things that seem for example in youth, I mean like daycare versus you know, like I don't know, an an older teenager competit competing in a competitive sports program.

Like those may have different levels of community benefit.

They could have different levels of community benefit, but they may still fall within kind of a shared benefit bucket potentially.

And so we might the thought process was that we would have these three higher level buckets, but if that's something that council wanted to consider having it more defined, that is something we could look at as well.

I'm assuming let me test this out.

So I'm assuming I mean the classic example is aquatics.

Basic kids' swimming lessons and high public benefit, and so we subsidize those quite a bit.

Um you get into competitive swimming classes, things like that, we we drop it down, and so there's some recognition that it still falls in the high community benefit category, but there's differences within that category that it's this it's in that bucket, but some are more equal than others.

And I would say that what your two examples were different completely in different buckets, not all part of high community benefits, something that is benefiting the individual person where they have choices of where they cho they are choosing to be in Walnut Creek to participate versus their community member taking a swim, wanting to make sure that their two-year-old can won't drown.

No, I agree.

Maybe like that's why I was thinking having maybe more than three buckets might be helpful when we start.

I always I was thinking of these as more bands.

It's not a hard and fast always twenty percent, but if you're in the high community benefit, you're going to see a higher percentage subsidy.

And maybe a range within that, that like a from you know, five to twenty, but you're in the same bucket.

Short answer is yes.

And uh that prior slide there was an example, I think of the high community benefit was zero to twenty percent, and then it was twenty-one to seventy-nine, something along those lines.

Or twenty to fifty and then sixty.

So there were gap there's gap, okay.

You go zero to twenty, twenty to fifty, and then I guess fifty to a hundred or two to sixty, or I don't know where the ten percent went, but we'll uh we'll fix that portion for sure.

That's how we're gonna balance our budget, isn't it?

Well, correct that.

But the mystery twenty one percent.

The idea would be generally speaking, we and when we come forward to finance committee ultimate accounts, you're gonna see very detailed spreadsheets, and right now it's organized by department because that's how we do the schedule.

Generally, each one of those specific fees will fall within kind of a a category, so think all the different since we've been talking about swim, think about the different types of fees for swim, those would be in an aquatics category.

We would map those, but ultimately each fee would more or less map into one of these three categories, recognizing there'll be a few exceptions and they all don't fit cleanly into necessarily one because there's some crossover.

But we would try to use this framework to map those fees accordingly.

Okay.

Um all right, so we have the uh back to that.

So could I make one other policy framework point?

Reading through 50 pages of fee descriptions, it I realized that there was a difference between the old 80 20 rule, which is 80%, 475 line items, you take 80% of it, 80% of those are only really reflecting 20% of probably our cost recovery or importance, and the converse is true.

I think we should give ourselves a little latitude to ensure that staff is focused on the things that have high impact and not the things that have, you know, two to it happens twice a year, but it has to have a fee because it's it's a distinct.

Right, we want the ones that make the most impactful for revenue, or you know, what we can charge to put to copy paperwork.

Probably a low impact for outcome.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Great.

All right, next.

So next is establishing non-resident fee rates.

So kind of going on to what Council Member Silva was saying, and I I think it would be difficult.

I also think that this is a way to upset a lot of people that have Walnut Creek as an address and either don't realize it or then take it out on Walnut Creek unfairly.

I would I would be in favor of establishing non-resident fee rates outside of people that have Walnut Creek as an address.

So I had a suggestion.

I'm thinking about this, and I mentioned it now.

We're gonna get it, you know, we'll see if I'm okay to mention it.

Amazon Prime, you pay to have a pri fast delivery.

It doesn't reduce, you pay a fee.

Maybe what we should do is think about how do residents pay get a discount fee as opposed to charging more to non-residents, charge a discount.

Give a discount, but it's a a fee program.

I mean, look at that as an option is you know, because then the resident gets the benefit of the of the discount program as opposed to so we have the higher fee rate, but if you're uh if you are have one of these zip codes and your city is Walnut Creek, you can get a 10% discount.

Well, the we actually already do this out of boundary oak.

Yes.

If you want to if you want to play the resident rate at Boundary Oak, you have to bring in I think it's a utility bill, because my husband was demanding a utility bill, what do you need that for?

Um I I think you're on to something that I could support.

Rather that you know, we have a fee level, and then there's a way for a resident to prove residency and get the discount.

Um so I would look to see, I mean, don't reinvent the wheel.

We do this at Boundary Oak, figure out the 80-20 rule.

Where are the high impact areas that we would want to make?

So it might also be that if I you get your annual discount card, it applies to all fees across arts and rec and open space.

So facility rentals, arts classes, etc.

So that you know, you there's something to be in the city as opposed to penalizing those who thought they were in the city, but they're they're sitting in one of these donut holes in Walnut Heights that penalizing people for something they probably didn't make a decision to buy a house based on where what our their fee structure would be.

But in Boundary Oak, they're not determining if it's somebody that lives in the county versus the city, are they?

Funny you should mention that.

My husband's golf group includes both Walnut Heights.

So they don't know.

The people that live in Walnut Creek, have a utility bill and they but it would still say Walnut Creek.

Yeah.

I my understanding, and I can defer to arts and rec team is I mean, with technology, there's lookup tables that can determine if they're a city resident or not.

So you give an address, there's a lookup table to determine if they're in the city limits or not.

Hi, Chris Farrow, Arts and Rec director, and to City Manager's point.

Um our current software for registration for all of our community arts and recreation programs does allow us to do one of two things.

So if you did decide to do it by zip code, so we could put everyone in Walnut Creek, whether that's incorporated or unincorporated at one rate and others in another, we could do that, or we can use GIS mapping and we can differentiate between uh incorporated and unincorporated very easily.

So either strategy would work for the systems that we're now using.

Does that mean you could do it as a discount if requested?

The system would just see two prices, whether you call that a discount or whether you call that an additional rate for the non-residents, the system could have two options, two pricing options for residents, non-residents, walnut creek, unincorporated two different prices.

The computer wouldn't know whether that's a discount or whether you're charging the other one more, but in essence, yes.

I like the I like the discount.

Let's give a extra fee.

We're not we're not charging surcharges.

We're giving we're offering discounts to our loyal residents.

The system could manage.

So so it comes down to do we want to how do we want to handle the unincorporated Walnut Creek area?

I mean it it sounds good in concept, but are we are we just creating a bigger problem by giving city residents a discount and then creating this larger gap in terms of cost recovery?

I I worry about that.

And I don't know the numbers and I don't know how big of an impact it well make.

To that point, I mean, unless you direct otherwise, we're likely going to set the rate a little higher than we would have otherwise, and then discount off of that for residents so that we don't have a big hit to revenue.

Otherwise it will be a net loss in revenue, and we'll be coming back to have service level discussions about which programs to reduce.

And will we run into issues with like having to be potentially charging more than is legally required because the voluntary of voluntary fees?

And then and then I was curious just to for the sake of the discussion.

You brought up sales tax that their neighbor in Pleasant Hill or you know Alamo or neighboring city, I mean, how is it different?

Like what are the what are we what am I missing just from a like fair's fair kind of fiscal standpoint?

Like if we're saying you're paying taxes into the city, so that's why we're giving you the discount, isn't that the the reason for the discount?

So then what is the unincorporated Walnut Creek resident paying into the system that we're discounting them for?

So if I'm understanding your question correctly, it's the property taxes that the residents pay that end up becoming the tax uh subsidy that supports the other programs.

But the unincorporated portions?

For the for the residents, not the unincorporated, but the the Right.

So I'm asking what are the unincorporated residents in Walnut Creek paying to the city that say someone in Danville's not paying.

I mean that it would be no difference.

No.

No, no.

If you're you're uh from a taxing perspective in that regard, either you're a city resident or you're not, whether you're unincorporated with a walnut creek mailing address is irrelevant as far as that goes.

And that's one of the things that is always challenging because mailing addresses don't align with city limits.

I just just because like money's money sort of, I don't know.

Part of me goes like trying to be as like fiscally as like isn't the reason that we'd be offering the discount to Walnut Creek residents because they're paying into the system?

Yes, although I look at this as practicalities as well, and the chances of somebody that is in the unincorporated area of Walnut Creek shopping in Walnut Creek is more likely than somebody from Danville shopping in Walnut Creek.

They both do, obviously.

But I'm pretty sure people that live down Marshall or in Walnut Heights or these little pocketed areas, just even driving over to uh Rossmore that they're coming downtown, they're spending their money in Walnut Creek more frequently than other neighboring cities are spending their money in Walnut Creek.

That said, right, they're not paying their property taxes to Walnut Creek.

Uh but I'm just wondering if we are going to do more harm to our goodwill than good by excluding people that have Walnut Creek as an address, but don't get the discount.

It sounds like that's the way we're doing it right now.

I mean that they're obviously a boundary.

Oh, yeah.

I mean another complicated factor, I don't know how prevalent this is with the user fee rate is you've got Andrew's in Walnut Creek, and so he pays one fee to play soccer or join the you know, learn how to play soccer.

And Timmy lives over on Newell and he's you know, he's an unincorporated and he pays they're all on the same team or they're sort of on the same team, and it I think it's just gonna get too con it sounds good in concept, but I uh I mean I'm more inclined to Kevin's point about treating all Walnut Creek people, whether you're in the city or not, generally the same.

And if you're outside of the Walnut Creek resident or address, then maybe you pay a little bit more.

I another option could be, because I was looking at this, like, okay, which fees are we talking about?

And um, to the extent that you're renting a facility for a party or something like that, offering those are those are in the thousands, and there if you offered a five percent discount to a city resident, that's a that's significant amount of money.

So maybe rather than just say everybody pays the same, just say everybody pays the same except for facility rentals over X, and then offer a resident discount.

I mean, because I I you're right.

If it comes down to soccer, nobody's gonna walk through.

Well, first of all, they don't pay individual members of a soccer team do not pay a separate fee to the city.

You pay it to the clubs.

I mean, I'm sure we offer like you're four years old and you're learning how to play soccer at other farm or something or swim.

It's not an organized walnut creek surf.

Yeah, those individual recreation classes.

I'm willing to say that this c conversation is food for thought and let the powers that be think it through a little bit more and feed it to the finance committee because I don't know how well let me first ask.

Are we all of the same mind of saying that there should be a non-resident fee that is different from a walnut creek fee, at least set part A so that there's some direction on that?

At least if it was outside the f the f four zip codes.

I think what we're really debating is the unincorporated Walnut Creek versus trying to get the part A versus part B.

So part A, we're all in agreement that there should be something that is at least outside of Walnut Creek, does not receive a discount rate that a Walnut Creek resident has.

And part B would be how is that determined from unincorporated versus incorporated.

And which, because I don't think I think I would not want to see that across the board on all fees, but leave it as an op leave it as something for staff to give us direction where is it likely to be the easiest to implement and capture the greatest value.

Capture the greatest value, provide the greatest benefit to our residents.

Consistent with the framework, right?

Because you want kids to learn how to play soccer, learn how to swim, whether they're from Walnut Creek or not, generally.

Yeah.

Is that enough direction?

What I'm hearing is that there would be some form of a Walnut Creek resident discount, and then to come up with a framework for which a fees that would apply to.

I haven't heard anything further defined about whether it's a city resident or whether it's a Walnut Creek mailing address that would receive the discount.

And I think for that we would look to you guys to it sounds like um Arts and Rec has a good handle on how feasible it is.

I think what we're interested in is something that doesn't create a huge headache for the city and is explainable to the residents.

And then I would mention a caveat.

My daughter was in third grade many years ago playing on a soccer team out of Park Mead.

Everybody lived in Walnut Creek, some were in unincorporated, some were incorporated.

Halfway through the season, we got a new roster.

Half the team had moved to Alamo because the US Postal Service decided to ship.

They didn't move, but the US Postal Service changed their postal address zip code to so we that's a little footnote.

Be be cautious.

Sometimes people get moved by the U.S.

Postal Service.

That also happened in the Saranap area just a couple years ago.

Yes, because they shifted Lafayette.

And it would teach everybody when they look for house to look at the street sign and see is it a green sign?

Or I mean literally.

No, but I mean, we didn't change the city boundaries.

They just changed postal boundaries.

Something tells me people that had their Sarahp change to Lafayette probably did pretty well.

They asked for it.

Yes.

Okay, so next uh topic, all right.

Next would be defining the annual fee adjustment parameters.

And so staff could come back with recommendations on kind of the not to exceed annual amounts, or if you had some feedback now that you wanted to provide on that.

And this is the one that would have cost uh the cost of living increase and no that's the slide.

So that's the next one.

Okay.

This one is if a fee is recommended to increase more than a certain percent in one year.

Should we do that or should we take a phased approach?

And is there kind of a cap on what that percent increase annually would be?

I see.

Yeah.

Generally speaking, this would be mostly applicable to this year if we're doing some catch up because we haven't done a fee study for many years in theory going forward.

If we're keeping up annually, this should be less of an issue, but it obviously would still apply where it were appropriate.

Might take a few years to catch up.

Effectively, yeah.

And this makes perfect sense to me that you don't want to there's nothing quite like a forty percent jump to end up in next door.

We don't want to do that.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

I see all nods.

Were you looking for direction from us though on what the thresholds are, or are we just we're gonna establish them?

We could come with a recommendation, but if you did have if you did want to discuss that now, then we we could do that as well.

But we could provide a recommendation based on what we think is reasonable.

That makes sense, yeah.

Okay.

And there might be some variability by fee as well.

Um, you know, a percentage basis on a two dollar fee, you know, is a much smaller impact to out of pocket costs as opposed to very expensive fee where it's going up by a similar percentage.

So and also whether or not the person pays the fee every year.

Kids are signing up for soccer every year, whereas you only do your bathroom once.

You don't know what it costs last year.

But it's just generally thinking about it as like CPI or our employee contract increases, or what's the other kind of benchmark?

No, but this is the cap, right?

Are we saying that?

This is the ceiling, the it would be looking.

It wouldn't exceed it wouldn't go higher than the CPI.

Well, this for the parameters, it's more about as um the city manager mentioned.

It's more about kind of this initial year when we're doing our catch up.

It's like how big of a jump would we want to take in this year to increase fees that we were trying to write size to where they should really be.

And so there wouldn't necessarily have to be an annual cap on all fees.

Okay.

So when we update the fees.

What's a scoff law again?

Somebody who doesn't pay their bill.

I never want to be accused of that.

Yeah, it's not really.

But I think that's that was mentioned a couple of times that we want to people to get permits to replace their water heaters.

Yeah.

So it's encouraging certain behaviors.

Yes.

Okay, so we're ready to move to the next one.

It would be the implementing the annual CPI based fee updates.

And again, this would be a benchmark and it wouldn't necessarily apply to all fees, but it would give us something as a guideline when we're looking at fees to make sure we're able to keep up with inflation going forward.

Yeah, this makes sense to me.

One of the things that I was thinking about, is there would there be a scenario where you know CPI is going up, but maybe we're in a recession, but the city department in that particular sector is doing well, and I mean, uh are there are there things we're not thinking about of just doing CPI or like is there should there be any other and I couldn't think of any offhand, but would there be scenarios where there might be a better metric to use than that?

It is possible, and also within each and within all of our fees, there could be decisions made, policy decisions made not to increase by CPI.

There could be a fee that's intentionally more subsidized, so we wouldn't apply that CPI increase.

But yes, there are other variables that would go into the decision.

This would be more of kind of a guide.

Or other metrics to tie it to besides besides CPI.

Potentially, you know, some of the market-based fees, the market might change substantially to your point, uh either up or down for whatever reason.

We could have a reorganization in terms of how we're structured that could impact our fees.

Hopefully that would be to reduce costs, not to increase costs.

Um or there could be some type of new service that we're going to provide that we'd need to establish a new fee for it.

So I think any of those scenarios would be outside of this annual inflator.

And sometimes some jurisdictions can also peg it to your annual employee increases.

So if you know annually employees or different MOUs get different increases that are built into their agreements, you can peg it to that.

Um the other thing with CPI that sometimes um councils will like to do is also kind of set a maximum.

So during the pandemic, this happened a lot where CPI increased quite substantially.

Um it was really high percentages.

And you know, city salaries and contracts didn't quite increase the same level that CPI did.

So when jurisdictions were tying it to that CPI councils made the decisions to say, you know, we'll tie it to CPI, but you know, no more than X percentage increase per year type of thing, or also kind of stating if the CPI goes negative, to your point sometimes, you know, there's a downturn in the economy that you don't want to auto automatically start reducing your fees if you've tied it that closely to CPI.

So kind of building in some of those types of provisions as you're writing these policies so that way you can make sure you're you're kind of s keeping in mind what the intent behind what the purpose of the CPI update was.

Well, can I make a suggestion which would be rather than use the acronym CPI, maybe we just call it cost based fee updates?

That way it covers inflation, it covers tariffs, it covers anything that might have caused costs to rise somewhat across the board as opposed to uh I get nervous when people th see CPI.

They go they go look up the tables and to your point, council member, that really the intent of this is that there's an annual adjustment based on some common sense criteria so that we're keeping up with the cost, um, and it doesn't have to be just specifically the CPI or to one benchmark.

We could take in these other parameters that have been discussed, certainly.

I was gonna say we all really support the idea of a common the common sense being applied to it.

Yeah.

And just to clarify as well, you know, the annual fee schedule, even if you adjust this, the annual fee schedule still has to be adopted by your council every year.

So there is some transparency of it coming forward.

It's not like it just takes effect behind the scenes and there's uh no opportunity to comment on it if for some reason something seemed out of line.

So when we get this back, maybe there'll be a couple models of how we could do this, a couple options to look at.

Yes, we can do that.

Okay.

Okay, and the next one is to continue market-based pricing where appropriate.

Makes sense to me.

Yeah, nods.

Okay.

Can I I I'd like to go back there.

Sorry.

I was um there's an outlier issue.

We are charging rent facil facility rentals that are managed in general by the arts and recreation department.

So if you want a picnic space, that's where people look.

Except we're also renting open space picnic areas.

It's could somebody consider not moving who's managing the open space, but moving the management of those spaces, the rentals of those spaces, because that you can't you don't automatically know to look in two places.

And that doesn't make sense to the user, and we may be leaving opportunities on the table for people to rent.

They're out primarily at sugar loaf, and they're very flat with good parking and lots of shade.

Or or maybe even if there's just sort of a a link or a line where they're then referred to who's renting it out, just some identifier.

In some ways, it's just the the f the customer facing portion of it needs to be a little bit more universal.

Yeah, thank you.

And the last one is to evaluate housing fees that we talked about earlier separately from the other housing related permit fees.

Well, I think the discussion and questions were good because I got a little greater clarity about what we were talking about.

If we're not charging any fees for this right now, that that can be a pretty staff intensive, some sometimes lawyer intensive service to provide affordable housing agreements.

A lot of these projects can be subsidized by us or other governmental agencies.

I'm I'm not comfortable with the fact that we're not recovering any of our costs for this.

Maybe it's not 100% cost recovery, but I don't think it should be zero.

And I was going to say the same thing, except I slightly nuanced.

Provided those units as an opportunity to get greater density and more value in the project.

And they have to be managed just as much as R C D, but R C D is probably in the business of man is going to be knowing how to do it where your market rate developer that might sell the project, build it under one, but anyway, I think we need to consider that as well in terms of those are the gradations of your same same service takes longer with a market rate developer, I think, than it does with a affordable.

Yeah, I mean I view that those both kind of being on the continuum with maybe the R C D not being fully subsidized, but more subsidized certainly than a than the market rate project with eleven affordable units.

But I think we also um where we are not charging the fees, don't this typically end up being the local NATs when they're putting together their funding stack.

And I could be wrong about that, but I you know the I would ask Erica if you have the comment for that, please.

This will teach you to sit so far from the podium.

Getting your steps in.

It's part of our wellness program.

So with regard to the different um nuances with this, so that there's um some level of things that get built into the whenever their agreements put in place when a d uh development's first being built, particularly multi-family housing development.

However, whenever um there are ongoing, you know, annual needs to monitor or else there's the resale of a property so that a um an owner property that is below market rate, that is um not something that would be subsidized if you will, by the original construction.

So it's an ongoing cost.

And so in your nuancing of things, just you know, to be cognizant of that.

You're saying the person that owns the below market that has to keep it at that affordable range is the one paying those fees, not the they would not pay the fee.

I mean, there is no fee, so there's no fee to be paid.

But should they should there be one in the future, um that person or you know, um would be responsible for that.

Right now, whenever um there's a transfer of property that occurs, the city pays for the um all the staff effort and then all the paperwork that we need to do on our side of things to be able to ensure that that property is transferred and it maintains its level of affordability.

And when the place is developed and then rented, who's paying those?

So initially the um so initially the uh developer pays that, but then on an annual basis, whenever you know we do periodics um checks, etc.

to ensure that there's the um the units the city pays for that currently.

But it would be the the renter.

If the sound I mean, I mean if there was a fee, I'm just saying.

So if there were a fee, I mean it um, you know, it could be the property de um development agency.

I mean it we'd need to have a some sort of method to be able to do that and infrastructure any further direction needed or I mean so I'm in support of evaluating it separately.

I mean how we decide to to do it, but yeah, but treating it as its own unique bucket.

Yeah, if it works for your council, we could look at maybe some specific options and present those to finance committee for if we were to apply some fees in some instances where that might work best, and then ultimately finance committee and council could decide whether you want to pursue that or not if that works for the council.

And I'd be curious to see what our adjacent cities are doing.

Actually, building on that, I'd be interested in knowing if it would make sense for us to contract to do it.

See a render had a poll two project before we did, it was about 12 years ago, and there's four sale units.

There are a couple of affordable units there, and they were contracting with us for maybe still are to monitor the those two for sale units.

Maybe there's an opportunity for just an agreement where as well, because the expertise to do it, you don't want every city to build the expertise to do that when it's not happening all the time.

Are we still street sweeping for Lafayette?

Yes.

Any anything else?

Is everything on the policy discussion?

And then you've provided the feedback and the input on the policy direction.

So it would just be a motion to or recommended action to move to receive the comprehensive user fee study report.

Okay, why don't we have a member of the finance committee make that motion?

I move to receive the comprehensive user fee study report.

And I second that.

Motion to second.

Mayor Putin Francois?

Hi.

Thank you, and we're adjourned.