Lafayette City Council
June 13, 2022

City Council Meeting Page 1 of 34 June 13, 2022
7 City of Lafayette
City Council
Meeting Minutes
Teleconference Meeting – Watch on the City of Lafayette’s YouTube Channel at June 13, 2022 http://bit.ly/LoveLafayetteYouTube Submit public comments to [email protected] 6:00 p.m. before or during the meeting.

To protect public health, our residents, officials, and staff, and aligned with the Governor’s recent executive order N-29-20, certain teleconference requirements of the Brown Act have been suspended, including the requirement to provide a physical location for members of the public to participate in the meeting. Here is how to participate in the meeting and provide public comment:
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City Council Meeting Page 2 of 34 June 13, 2022

1. CALL TO ORDER
Mayor Gerringer called the Regular City Council meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. via teleconference.

2. ROLL CALL

Present: City Council: Mayor Gerringer; Vice Mayor Anduri; Councilmembers Candell, Kwok and Dawson

Absent: None
Staff Present: Niroop Srivatsa, City Manager; Tracy Robinson, Administrative Services Director; Mike Moran, Engineering and Public Works Director; Greg Wolff, Building and Planning Director; Renata Robles, Senior Planner; Suzanne Iarla, Communications Analyst; Mala Subramanian, City Attorney; Joanne Robbins, City Clerk

3. ADOPTION OF AGENDA
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Dawson/Kwok) to adopt the agenda. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Gerringer, Anduri, Candell, Dawson, and Kwok; Noes: None).

4. PUBLIC COMMENTS - (for Items Not on the Agenda)
JENIFER PAUL announced that tomorrow, June 14th is National Flag Day. She gave a background of the day’s origin commemorating the date in 1777 when the U.S. approved its first design for its first national flag and in 1949 when the U.S. Congress made the designation of the holiday permanent. She requested the Council permanently reinstate the Pledge of Allegiance to the City’s agenda and invited the Council to join her and husband in reciting the Pledge.

5. PRESENTATIONS
A. Recognizing Richard Whitmore, Superintendent Lafayette School District Recommendation: Receive and file.

Mayor Gerringer, on behalf of the City Council, read into the record and presented a Proclamation recognizing Superintendent Richard Whitmore for his long-time service, his ethics and leadership skills and dedication to the Lafayette School District, the Lafayette Arts and Sciences Foundation Board (Now LPIE) and the Acalanes Union High School District Board. She honored him on his retirement from the Lafayette School District for more than 20 years of service to students in the community and to declare June 30th Richard Whitmore Day.

Councilmembers and City Manager Srivatsa then individually congratulated Superintendent Whitmore on his retirement and recognized him for his many years of service to the district and community, for his years of leadership, service to students, and for volunteerism.

Mayor Gerringer opened the public comment period.

KATY FOREMAN thanked the Council for honoring Superintendent Whitmore, said she currently leads the Core group and is a member of the DEIB Committee which consists of 20+ parents and community members. She has witnessed how Superintendent Whitmore values each contributing members of the community and empowers them to do their best to serve students.

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SUZY PAK/DR. HARRIS recognized Superintendent Whitmore for his recognition of parents, both mothers and fathers, said he allowed her to feel comfortable living in Lafayette and thanked him for his friendship and for being part of her extended family. She will be celebrating on June 30th with him and wished him well.

ROB STURM said he has been on the Lafayette School District Governing Board since 2017 and has served as the President for the past 18 months. He will reflect back on Superintendent Whitmore’s tenor as someone who led the district for all the right reasons. He spoke of his humbleness, embracement of truth, contributions, said he received the Administrator Award, read off his many accomplishments and roles in the community, said he was thrown many curve balls during his tenure but was a steady influence and has left a wonderful legacy.

MEREDITH MEADE thanked the Council for honoring Superintendent Whitmore, said she knew him before his job as Superintendent and remembered thinking about how incredibly lucky their school district was to have him apply and be hired, and wished him well in his retirement.

JEAN FOLMER said she is serving in her 8th year on the Lafayette School Board and thanked the Council for recognizing Superintendent Whitmore and looks forward to more celebratory events in his honor.

Superintendent Whitmore thanked the Council and the City Manager for being great partners and said he will be a resident in town for many years to come and looks forward to seeing everyone in the community while more relaxed.

B. Tracy Robinson, Administrative Services Director
Introduction of Ana Bernardes, Senior Engineer, Patrick Golier, Transportation and Circulation Program Manager, Ricardo Cruz, Construction Inspector, and Noah Rumbaoa, Planning Technician
Recommendation: Receive and file.

Administrative Services Director Tracy Robinson introduced and gave a brief background on the following new employees: Senior Engineer Ana Bernardes, Transportation and Circulation Program Manager Patrick Golier, Construction Inspector Ricardo Cruz, and Planning Technician Noah Rumbaoa.

Mayor Gerringer and Councilmembers welcomed new employees and said they are very excited to have them part of the team.

Mayor Gerringer opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.

C. Mike Moran, Engineering and Public Works Director
Improving Safety Near Schools: Toole Design Group Reports and Recommendations for Happy Valley Elementary, Burton Valley Elementary, the Meher Schools, and Acalanes High School Recommendation: 1) Direct staff to complete quick-build plans and solicit contractor costs to complete work for the recommended alternatives listed in Tables 1 through 4. 2) Authorize release of $1.3 million from the Palos Colorados impact fees to fund safety improvements near schools including the $612,000 already authorized by the City Council on April 11, 2022.

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Engineering and Public Works Director Mike Moran introduced Drew Parker from Toole Design Group and stated this item is a continuation of the City’s safety improvements near schools. Projects have been approved for three schools and now they have the final four schools for a total of 7 projects citywide, which includes the Meher Schools, Burton Valley Elementary, Happy Valley Elementary and Acalanes High School. Specific recommendations have been forwarded to the Council by TransCirc Commission for approval, funding and construction which are outlined in the staff report.

Drew Parker, Toole Design Group, gave a PowerPoint presentation regarding the recommendations for the various rapid implementation safety plans for all schools in the City. He provided a project overview, work completed to date, with the focus on staff recommended and TransCirc Commission recommended projects from the second round of reports. He then described next steps which are for the Council to discuss and approve the project recommendations. Staff will then develop a funding and implementation plan and then the projects can be designed and constructed. Lastly, they will evaluate the projects for their effectiveness.

Councilmember Dawson asked and confirmed with Mr. Parker that at the April 11th meeting the Council requested they look into the pork chop island project (southwest corner of Pleasant Hill Road and Springhill Road) additionally which was done but not included in the previous report.

Vice Mayor Anduri referred to the second recommendation for Acalanes High School was reducing the speed limit from 25 to 15 mph. He asked why this did not make it to the final recommendation.

Mr. Moran explained that TransCirc already took action on that to forward this as a citywide recommendation rather than doing it school by school. Staff will be packaging that as one item altogether which will return separately.

Councilmember Candell thanked staff for the pork chop island along Pleasant Hill Road, asked where on the map is the RFP for Acalanes High School and asked if it on the gym side of the entrance or east side of the school.

Mr. Moran said there are two; one is closer to the Shell station and one east of the entrance to the school which would be closer to where the auxiliary parking lot is for the school. It would cross at the end of the EBMUD Aqueduct right-of-way. Part of the justification for that location is that you can pick up people walking from Camino Diablo and walking through the parking lot of the church and keep them on a sidewalk. They then also pick up the informal trail but there are students and parents that use that dirt path coming from the neighborhood and those would culminate at that crossing.

Councilmember Candell said there was a thought at Acalanes at the exit going towards the Shell station and Pleasant Hill Road that they were going to change the lanes in there to see if more people could exit by taking up more space on the Shell gas station side.

Mr. Parker said this made it into the plan as AS-21 and is being recommended.

Councilmember Candell said the sidewalk on EBMUD strip on the south side of Stanley Boulevard, she said it includes an RRRFB for $60,000 so there is still $100,000 there. She asked if they have to have an entire stretch of a formal sidewalk or more of a dirt path so they might be able to save some money.

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Mr. Moran said no, they cannot have a dirt path. If he puts the crosswalk there it needs to be ADA compliant and it needs to connect to something that is ADA compliant. There is a sidewalk gap there of about 130 feet. Because it is on EBMUD Aqueduct, they are likely going to be required to put it in as concrete to minimize compaction. Ifthey try to do it in asphalt the initial construction cost might be a little less, but they (EBMUD) will prefer concrete. The cost is $100,000 and the $60,000 is for the RRFB, striping and the ramps that have to go on both sides of the street. The dirt trail will still be there and it can lead to the ADA compliant crossing, so they would not chase that back and there would be an accessible route along Stanley up to Camino Diablo.

Mayor Gerringer opened the public comment period. She noted that written public comments have also been received which has been read by the Council.

STELLA WOTHERSPOON expressed her thanks to Mr. Moran and Mr. Parker and the Toole Design team for bringing some great solutions which will absolutely benefit the community and also for the pork chop island follow up. She hopes the K-rail is concrete and shared her screen to show Diablo Foods where a car ran into a bollard and hoped the K-rails can be fortified and affixed well into the pavement so they are not knocked over.

Mayor Gerringer thanked Ms. Wotherspoon for the work she has done regarding these projects, as well as other TransCirc Commission members.

Councilmember Kwok referred to Ms. Wotherspoon’s comments and asked what would happen if a typical car traveling at 50 mph strikes the K-rail head on.

Mr. Moran said vehicles can break through K-rails but it is reinforced concrete. There are sections of it acting more as guardrails at the top of Pleasant Hill Road/Taylor Road “Y” and they used to have vehicles regularly go off the road there. Some temporary water barriers were added and that was hit and gone through. When they finally added the concrete which is anchored sub-surface with a footing, no one has gone through it to date. A driver could break through it but they would really have to be going very fast, and this is not likely to happen when crossing students in a group because this is usually a congested traffic situation. If hit at 20 mph it would stop a typical vehicle and this is better than anything else recommended. It is visual and has structural stopping capabilities.

Councilmember Dawson asked if there was an estimated cost for the K-rails.

Mr. Moran stated he believes it costs about $10,000 for a short section of K-rail and some delineators.

The Palos Colorados funding has some room for some design costs and the hope would be this could be absorbed. When looking at building all of these things they are planning concepts, and when you go out to build them he is finding is that some cannot be built exactly as intended but he can probably do something close to get the same effects.

Councilmember Candell said she supports all recommendations in the staff report and would gladly make a motion.

Councilmember Kwok expressed appreciation and is happy that Toole Design gathered all of the information from the community, schools, parents, as well as staff and TransCirc and appreciates the process and voiced support. He said some items in the Toole report that were noted as high priority did not appear in the staff report as items to be implemented this summer, and he asked why they are not listed.

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Mr. Moran explained that Toole Design Group had some high priority items but most priority items are better covered by a more expensive cost. For example, there might have been a simpler high priority but they did not feel they would actually get the safety from implementing that. So, they would have to go through them all again as they were already, and these were the items that came to the front as reviewed by TransCirc and the public and staff.

Mayor Gerringer recalled that if they get grant funding some of these other things will hopefully get funded and/or the City finds other funding sources and opportunities. She also is very excited with how far they have come and voiced her support. In re-reading the letter from Superintendent Whitmore emphasizing their eagerness to partner on how to implement some of the school-only items she asked how that moves forward.

Mr. Moran replied that they have already begun this process and held meetings with the Lafayette School District. They have not had connection with Acalanes High School yet, but he intends to before construction begins because of specific recommendations for their parking lots. They held a field walk and there is a possibility that when the City gets a striping contract where the contractor is willing to work with multiple entities they could offer that to the district, but it would require separate contracts.

ACTION: It was M/S/C (Candell/Kwok) to: 1) Direct staff to complete quick-build plans and solicit contractor costs to complete work for the recommended alternatives listed in Tables 1 through 4; and 2) authorize release of $1.3 million from the Palos Colorados impact fees to fund safety improvements near schools including the $612,000 already authorized by the City Council on April 11, 2022. Roll Call Vote: 5- 0 (Ayes: Gerringer, Anduri, Candell, Dawson, and Kwok; Noes: None).

6. CONSENT CALENDAR
Mayor Gerringer asked if there were any requests for removal of items. Councilmember Candell requested removal Item 6.B to announce a clarification. Vice Mayor Anduri requested removal of Item

6.F. Mayor Gerringer asked and confirmed there were no public members wishing to speak or remove an item, and there were none.

A. May 23, 2022 Minutes
Recommendation: Approve.

C. E-mail from Clyde Long resigning from the Code Enforcement Appeal Board Recommendation: Accept resignation and thank Clyde Long for 23 years of volunteer service on the Code Enforcement Appeal Board.

D. Resolution 2022-39 Allowing for Video and Teleconference Meetings during the COVID-19 State of Emergency under AB 361
Recommendation: Adopt Resolution 2022-39.

E. Update on the Lafayette American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) 2021 Funding - 1st Cycle Recommendation: Receive and file.

G. Lafayette Mercantile: Sharing Parking Revenues
Recommendation: Approve a revenue sharing ratio of 82% (owner) and 18% (City) based on hours that the lot is metered and available for general public use, retroactive to the date when the paid parking program was initiated.

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ACTION: It was M/S/C (Dawson/Kwok) to adopt Consent Calendar Items A, C, D, E and G. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes:

Gerringer, Anduri, Candell, Dawson, and Kwok; Noes: None).

7. OLD BUSINESS – None.

8. STAFF REPORTS – None.

9. PUBLIC HEARINGS
A. Renata Robles, Senior Planner
Draft Housing Element Update – The Housing Element is part of the General Plan, the City’s guiding policy document for land use and conservation. State law requires cities to update their Housing Element periodically to identify sites and programs to demonstrate that the community is capable of accommodating the housing unit quotas established by the State’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) process, amongst other requirements. A Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) has been prepared for the project.

Recommendation: Continue the public hearing, provide final feedback to staff, and continue the matter to the June 27th for City Council action.

Director of Planning and Building Greg Wolff introduced the item, stating this is the third time the Draft Housing Element has been before the Council. Tonight, staff is presenting an updated draft of the Housing Element and Appendices based upon direction received and Diana Elrod and Renata Robles will present.

Diana Elrod, Housing Consultant, gave a brief PowerPoint presentation regarding review of the prior meeting modifications to the draft and additional revisions to the AFFH Plan and other typographical corrections. The Council received a supplement for the site inventory and they discovered because of rounding issues some of the total numbers were off by a few units in terms of what the Council saw in the spreadsheet versus when they hand-input units in each category.

Staff has also been made aware of the El Charro site lot marked “C-1” is split in half between C-1 and R10. Because the lots are split between two zoning districts, the back half of the lot had to be revised with the number of units that could be developed there. So, they end up losing a few of the lower income units because R-10 is 6 units/acre density. Therefore, the City will lose about 10 units in total for the low and very low income She presented the final recommended inventory.

Ms. Elrod said there will be additional opportunities after the official public comment period and they have 10 business days from June 6th in order to consider comments made. They received 48 comments some of which were duplicative and the response to comments will be made public on June 27th. She then broadly summarized comments and suggestions received and said staff is requesting the City Council provide feedback and continue the matter to the June 27th Consent Calendar for action.

Vice Mayor Anduri said the supplement that shows now the excess or buffer is 999 units, and he asked if this is not now reflected in the Draft Housing Element but will be. Ms. Elrod confirmed and said all tables will be reflected with the final, correct tally of units in all parts of the Housing Element before going to the State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD).

Vice Mayor Anduri referred to H-13 under 2.3; Key Data Facts Affecting the Need for Housing. “The desire to age in place is partly the result of economic pressures as well as the desire to stay in the community people have called home for many years.” He still does not understand the point of the next sentence.

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Ms. Elrod said what was expressed at the GPAC meeting was that seniors often times are sitting on their largest investment or asset which is their home. There is a concern about depleting that asset before they can take advantage of it or depleting it such that by selling their home they have nothing left in their nest egg if they sell it and spend it on another unit or rent. Several people expressed concern that owning property is the primary way they feel secure in their housing and do not want to sell it.

Vice Mayor Anduri suggested a revision and asked to add after “because” and before “concerns they have” to say, “On the one hand, the idea of downsizing sounds appealing but homeowners may face substantial challenges because they have concerns…”
Councilmember Candell asked and confirmed the Council can go through each section and make edits after public comments are taken.

Mayor Gerringer opened the public hearing and invited speakers to comment.

ELIOT HUDSON commented that the draft is significantly better in terms of preserving the City’s character but there are still a few things that need improvement. With respect to the BART lot, there seems to be inappropriate concern that HCD might not credit the units on the lot towards meeting their RHNA requirements and this is leading to statements about the desires of the community and moves to promote development of that lot that are unnecessary and inappropriate.

Mr. Hudson asserted that HCD cannot disregard the BART lot in meeting the RHNA numbers because requirement of that lot is required by law. Lafayette will have to develop it as soon as BART approaches the City to do that. It is up to BART as to when that timing occurs. If HCD disregarded the BART lot, Lafayette would be stuck with development of that lot at 75 du/acre not credited towards RHNA, and then HCD would require the City add in other units elsewhere which would double the number of units that AB 2923 requires. He asked to replace the statement that the City supports transit-oriented development with “Lafayette recognizes the legal requirement for developing the lot.” Similarly, Lafayette should not be actively seeking to develop that lot as the City should be credited for it.

Lastly, the key take-aways and stories continue to be unfairly biased toward development of the City.

Stories selected have been cherry-picked by staff and if they cannot be presented in a balanced fashion, they need to be deleted.

Vice Mayor Anduri said he read Mr. Hudson’s letter and the sentence is in the end of the third paragraph; “HCD can require compliance with AB 2923 but it cannot in good faith pretend those requirements do not exist.” He asked Mr. Hudson to elaborate on this.

Mr. Hudson said if BART says that it wants to develop, Lafayette has no choice. Therefore, HCD should not reject counting the BART lot as part of the Housing Element in meeting the RHNA requirements. It is not up to Lafayette when that occurs and so there is no reason to overstate what the City wants to do with that lot. All it needs to state and all that is appropriate and consistent with residents want is to say that “they recognize the requirements of State law and will comply.” City Council Meeting Page 9 of 34 June 13, 2022
ROBERT LAVOIE said he supports the latest iteration of the sites and taking BART back to 75 du/acre and the yield to 100%, as it looks like the 95% is still being used. He thinks the City is ready for the first round with HCD review and thinks ADUs are likely to come in higher but these are sufficient. On page 1 of the redlined version, there are several additional comments added in red and he was not sure why these were added. It talks about the reason for the Housing Element is to meet the recent changes in City population and housing needs. The City’s population has essentially been flat. The growth rate for 30 years is 8.6% and annualized it is .23% per year. So, he thinks it is misstating the facts. The City is really doing this housing exercise because they are mandated by the State and this should be made clear.

Also added was “of the Bay Area” and he thinks their goal is to deal with residents of Lafayette’s concerns and not everyone in the Bay Area. If people want to support housing for the whole Bay Area that is great, but trying to put it in the most expensive area in the county is not very smart. So, it seems they are adding things the community did not express in the survey. He reiterated Mr. Hudson’s points of his email, said the stories do not represent a cross section of the community, and everybody has struggled to live in the community and asked to incorporate some of Mr. Hudson’s comments in the draft.

LIBBY HENRY said she likes the slide that listed what the community wants, said the City has two letters on file from her, and she said AB 2923 is not a mandate. It is the ability to develop BART stations but it does not mean every station must be developed. She noted the Orinda BART parking lot is owned by Caltrans so they cannot develop; however, if the City can meet their RHNA numbers without developing the BART parking lot it would be ideal. If not, the City could develop the BART parking lot to the State’s specifications and not over and above it. She was not sure who suggested upzoning Happy Valley and Happy Valley Glen but there are many residents who are not happy about it given there are other possibilities. She also voiced support of Mr. Hudson’s comments about use of balanced stories.

TOBIAS BODINE feels this City’s moral compass is spinning wildly. There is a housing problem in California and in the Bay Area and he sees it in Lafayette as well. The fact that the only site that will be upzoned is the DeSilva North parcel which is quite far from BART makes no sense. The fact that all of the neighborhoods got themselves exempted from any kind of upzoning is sad. This is pointing not towards having denser housing throughout the City and not having denser housing closest to transit which would be the logical place to put it.

The City will not have the BART site built until after the RHNA cycle is finished, so when doing the math, this community seems to be more concerned about drawing up the drawbridge and keeping people out who could be working in the City. Service workers cannot afford to live here, children cannot afford to move out of their parent’s homes and so he hopes that this conversation can continue and not be dominated by single family homeowners who are trying to protect their own personal interests. He implored the Council to look into their hearts as to what they really want this City to represent. He asked if it is to perpetuate an idealized suburban living or to be a part of a vibrant urban area.

PATTY BATTERSBY referred to the survey done and said the majority of residents do not want to live in an urban environment and support its mission statement to maintain the semi-rural character of their city.

There are many urban areas close to Lafayette, and she asked the Council to seriously consider Mr.

Hudson’s comments, and support suggestions made by Colin Elliott and Rob Lavoie as she feels they are well thought out solutions that provide intelligent alternatives.

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As a neighbor of the Glen neighborhood, they are terribly concerned about BART and they ask not to add any more units than is required by law. They are in a very high fire zone, have limited evacuation with one road out for 130 homes. It will be a disaster if and when units are built. She also hopes GPAC will continue to increase the count of ADUs as they are built. The number is 384 units and these provide great solutions for very low and low income residents and they are already being used in neighborhoods.

She also said the majority of residents have made sacrifices. When she first moved to Lafayette 40 years ago, they had to sacrifice to be able to move here. She works with many young people and they must be two income families, work long hours, and are making sacrifices and there is no entitlement. It is important to tell those stories and realize they deserve to be where they are able to work and live in these neighborhoods.

COLIN ELLIOTT said he agrees with what staff has recommended with BART at 75 and the 95% yield, asked to remember that when housing was made by right in most of the commercial areas downtown, they effectively already upzoned. That cannot be said for many cities as they do not have that ability so he asked to remember this and stress this in the plan that they already took that big step. He referred to the City of Alameda’s Housing Element they submitted and they had projects 50 ADUs per year or 400 in total, and Lafayette is being more conservative in this regard.

They have also put all of their three old shopping centers as potential opportunity sites. They are all occupied with good tenants but they have spoken to owners who are willing to do housing development on those sites, but they had recognized they have no track record of developing any of these centers in the last 50 years for residential, but they remain opportunity sites. He thinks this is an area Lafayette can work on over the next few years on what they can do with shopping centers in a targeted way downtown.

Lastly, he recognized staff for Section 2.0 and talking about redevelopment agencies and what the loss of that meant to the City. It is worth reading, as the City lost about $10.4 million that could have gone towards affordable housing since 2012 and $1.7 million in 2019 and 2020. He thinks most people are not aware of that and given this is multiplied throughout the State, it was a massive amount of money the State took away for affordable housing and never gave it back. Therefore, the State had a big hand in the affordable housing crisis by taking away this funding and not returning it to cities.

MAX HENINGER, Boardmember, Inclusive Lafayette, said if they think 20 years from now and look back on this document he questioned if people would feel proud. He thinks inequality and climate change will be the yardsticks the City is judged by in the next generation. As the City goes back and forth with HCD he wants everyone to remember about how they dug in their heels and fought to preserve Lafayette as an exclusive enclave or whether they want to think about how they did their part to serve the region which desperately needs more housing and which state law requires.

Lafayette is uniquely positioned to make an impact given they are a 30 minute BART ride to downtown San Francisco, and having mixed use high rise housing all around one mile from BART is a positive for addressing climate impacts. They also know from Harvard research that low income children who grow up in communities like Lafayette enjoy significant advantages while growing up and later in life, which he described. He knows it is hard to accept change but the City can seize this opportunity.

Regarding ADUs, they are great and he hopes many more are built in the City, but he is worried that they are being hailed as the solution to the affordability crisis. He asked the City to understand that ADUs are not the same as deed restricted affordable housing.

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JEREMY LEVINE, Boardmember, Inclusive Lafayette, said he is a bit disappointed with where the draft is and said it does not feel there are many new policies being implemented or that the City has not looked at realistic sites or the policy to make sites realistic for the kind of housing projected. It feels like this is the bare minimum and he thinks it is important to look at evidence to inform their decisions about what they want the future of the City to be.

He shared his screen showing a report commissioned by the Lafayette School District a couple of months ago. The table shows the projected counts of students who will be attending the district. The big takeaway from 2021 to 2031 the School District is projecting a loss of more than 500 students across K-8.

These students because the population is aging and young households cannot afford to live in Lafayette.

Schools and green hills make Lafayette and if they want their schools to remain great they need children to fill them. Therefore, he hopes the City will reconsider how to build housing to meet their workforces, residents’ needs and schools’ needs.

MEREDITH MEADE noted that the City’s population has not grown significantly because they have not added a lot of housing and have not done their part to help ease the load. She agrees with Max Henninger and Tobias Bodine’s comments and knows the Council has a big job and thanked the Council for giving residents this opportunity.

JANINE CROWE said she thinks GPAC and in listening to the surveys and what the majority of residents want needs to be respected. There are many people who have sacrificed a lot in order to be able to buy in Lafayette and they do not want their property values to go down. As far as BART, she suggested going with 75 du/acre and not add anymore. If there is a fire, there is not good access out of Lafayette for any resident so she asked to be cautious with emergencies for residents to be able to get out safely. She also feels for senior citizens who want to live here and it would be nice to have more affordable senior housing to age gracefully. The new Branch development does not seem very affordable and she asked the City to strive to add affordable housing, while respecting people’s property values.

CHERYL MACDONALD thanked the Council, GPAC, staff and everyone for the work done to date. She echoed Colin Elliott’s comments, especially when it comes to housing by right. It is already upzoning because most lots on Mt. Diablo Boulevard are smaller properties so they are not required to replace it with commercial, like Brown Avenue which was a viable mechanics shop and previously a gas station which was replaced with housing. So, she asked to keep everything outlined in the staff report and cited the diversity in the letters received.

CHRIS MICKAS said he was glad to see the City staff included more detail about BART and the grey area with compliance with the Housing Element by including BART, granted the City is slated or longer term development at the moment. He is glad the City is working practically with BART but is pessimistic, given BART’s emphasis on infrastructure concerns, public support and economic viability with the size and issues they face with solar panel leasing and parking replacement, and suggested looking at alternatives if HCD does not approve the Housing Element with BART. There are many benefits for affordability at the BART site, and he thanked the Council.

Mayor Gerringer closed the public comment period.

BREAK
Mayor Gerringer called for a break at 8:15 p.m. and thereafter reconvened the meeting at 8:20 p.m.

Mayor Gerringer suggested going through sections to receive Council comments and then the Appendices.

City Council Meeting Page 12 of 34 June 13, 2022
Vice Mayor Anduri asked Ms. Elrod to respond to Mr. Hudson’s comments on how to deal with the BART lots.

Ms. Elrod said the City must demonstrate to BART that Lafayette is serious about allowing development to occur within the 8 years of the 6th cycle. The City is not currently on BART’s short or mid-term TOD work plan so it is currently considered for development sometime after 2031. Therefore, the City is required to work with BART to discern how it can move up the ranking to be placed in the mid-term which is during the Housing Element cycle. Until they are able to do that, the City likely cannot count those units because the purpose of the inventory is that sites must be available for development within the 8 year period. If a development is to happen in 2035, the City cannot count it in this RHNA allocation as it would be into another cycle.

There are a number of steps staff discussed with BART. Bart has a ranking and criteria system for giving points for various market readiness, community support and other things that would come up that would need to be addressed. In order to push the timeline up, the City must improve its rankings from this point.

One of the major criteria is community support for housing on that site as well as a variety of other factors, and staff is regularly meeting with BART to discuss impediments such as the remaining lease on the solar panels.

Vice Mayor Anduri asked if Ms. Elrod did not think HCD would say, yes they understand the City received a larger RHNA allocation because Lafayette has a BART station and therefore they would count it.

Ms. Elrod said no, HCD has clearly said in informal conversations that in order to use BART sites or sites like the BART site, the City would have to demonstrate these are truly viable sites for development within the planning period, and this is true for every site in the inventory. She said the arm that does the Housing Elements is not related to the arm that does the RHNA allocation work, so the City cannot argue to this particular section of HCD the City needs the BART site.

Councilmember Candell said she knows other cities have an MOU with BART even though they are not doing anything yet. The MOU is a legal document saying that if BART gets approached by a developer, the City wants to be at the table instantly. She asked if Ms. Elrod has thought about getting an MOU signed with them.

Ms. Elrod said the City would not be able to sign an MOU until they are moved up on the TOD work plan, which is required to be able to assert it is developable within the next 8 years. If the answer is “No” they cannot get BART to give the City an MOU based on the fact they cannot develop it in this 8 year cycle.

They can be asked but the process is one where they must demonstrate the City can move up to be able to meet the criteria and ranking system that the City does not meet right now.

Vice Mayor Anduri said assuming if HCD comes back and states they cannot count the BART sites, the City will need to find sites elsewhere. He asked Ms. Elrod if she believes the draft now and Appendix C contains what is needed in order to give the City the maximum chance of being able to count the BART lots.

Ms. Elrod said she thinks HCD will come back with questions about that when they have the 90 days to review the first draft. She does not think they will dismiss it if the City can demonstrate it is moving towards some agreement to move up on the TOD work plan.

City Council Meeting Page 13 of 34 June 13, 2022
Councilmember Dawson said based on these comments, it is more concerning there is more of a doubt that these numbers can be counted but recognized the work needed to get them counted. Ms. Elrod agreed and said there will be a lot of work to do to get them counted.

Mayor Gerringer said very early on at GPAC, Ms. Elrod described the reasoning, criteria and requirements around the stories that have been included in the Housing Element. She asked if Ms. Elrod could speak about why the stories are there and why they are not all in there.

Ms. Elrod said there is not a statutory requirement to include any stories. The idea has been to get real stories from real people to talk about what their housing concerns are, specifically with respect to people who cannot afford housing and who are trying to live some place where they cannot afford. The City, in its efforts to address the housing needs of the lower income households – a requirement of the Housing Element – should document the experiences of households who have lower incomes such as about $75,000 a year for a family of 3 which is considered very low income in certain communities, and to put a human face on struggles people have to live in this Bay Area-wide market.

Senior Planner Renata Robles noted all stories received were included which are at the end of Appendix C but she notes that some were highlighted to demonstrate the needs of lower-income households as shown in the data.

Councilmember Candell said this was a good point brought up by Mr. Elliott that housing by right and an the inclusionary ordinance has made it easier to develop more housing to address the housing needs. She asked if there is a place the Council should highlight that, because it has led to a lot of new development in the last cycle.

Ms. Elrod said the City is required to describe why housing on prior sites identified in the last inventory weredeveloped. Because of the fact that housing is by-right in the Downtown, a good number of sites are being reused without changing the zoning. The requirement is to explain why the City thinks housing sites not previously developed upon will be developed now. She thinks this speaks to that specific issue of by right development, plus the availability of density bonus. So, the City can definitely add that in the methodology discussion.

Ms. Robles stated this information is included in the constraints analysis as well. The City used to require a land use permit for housing downtown and it no longer does, so this was identified as no longer being a constraint.

Mayor Gerringer referred to the red-lined version of the Housing Element and identified the various sections for comments/questions:

Introduction and Background: No comments.

Housing Needs Summary; Section 2.1: No comments.

Units at Risk of Conversion to Market Rate, Page H-17 or pages 20 of 53: No comments.

Other Required Housing Element Components: Section 4: No comments.

Public Participation: Section 5, page 24 of 53: No comments.

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Summary: Section 6, page 27 of 53: No comments.

The Housing Plan and Goals, Policies and Program Summaries: Section 7, page 36 of 53: No comments.

City Council Meeting Page 14 of 34 June 13, 2022
Quantified Objectives: Section 8, page 39 of 53: No comments.

Review of the Prior Element Summary: Section 9: Councilmember Kwok referred to page H-45 which talks about the inclusion of BART parking lots and opportunity sites inventory. This is a large new section he commented on at the last meeting regarding having a two-pronged approach having the BART parking lots. One approach was to talk about efforts to be included in the TOD plan and staff has done a good job to explain the City’s efforts to date.

The first part is why staff included 800 units in this as well. The report also talked about the appeal process made to appeal the City’s allocation, specifically around the BART allocation and being in a very high fire severity zone and meetings held. Although there is some discussion on methodologies, he wondered if Council and staff feel this point can be strengthened by including reference to some of those actual documents at this time in this document as opposed to coming later in the event the City’s numbers were rejected.

He shared his screen to show the two examples; one is from July 2021 signed by Mayor Candell and was part of the package when they made an appeal on the RHNA numbers. There is one section that summarizes they talked about the BART parking lots being in a high fire danger and concern with the safety of allocating numbers there, specifically 822 units. They close by stating the City of Lafayette requests that the 822 units be reduced from the 2,114 units to an adjusted lower number.

In response to that appeal in the next document it states there was a hearing held September 24th and the during the 30-minute hearing, this is the staff report of what happened in that October 12th hearing.

At the conclusion of deliberations, ABAG President/Mayor of Berkeley noted that he would support the staff recommendation to deny the appeal in part because Lafayette is required to upzone the BART station by state law and that BART would mitigate for fire. He thinks having this paper trail explaining the City appealed the number, the President of ABAG said they understand the request but they will still get the number. He thinks the Council should still make the case for why they got the number and potentially reference a couple of these written correspondences which would show why they included it. It would make their case stronger if there was to be any troubles with HCD accepting their number.

Vice Mayor Anduri said he was not sure he agrees because ABAG President’s statement or rationale is not relevant to the issue at hand and he would not want to go down that road. He questioned how to harden the BART parking lot against fire. Even approaching it by raising a reason why they would not develop is not the best way to get HCD to agree to include it. Ms. Elrod said she agrees.

Councilmember Candell said there should be documentation showing that the bump they got in December was because of their BART parking lot. Ms. Elrod said it was only 400 units and not the full 822 units. She thinks this does not help their argument and thinks it would actually potentially confuse the issue of trying to get them to agree to accept the BART site. She thinks the strongest way to convince them is to indicate what the City will do to make it happen.

Councilmember Dawson said she was trying to figure out how to include that rationale in the challenge without jeopardizing the positive message of trying to make it happen. She agrees addressing the reason for the numbers being in here this should be included because the City wants to be transparent about how it came up with their numbers and why they are now moving forward despite this being in a high fire hazard severity zone.

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Mayor Gerringer agreed with Vice Mayor Anduri and Ms. Elrod. Council discussion ensued and Councilmember Kwok said he spoke about this as a discussion item and thinks it could be helpful but recognized there was not consensus not to add added wording in the section.

Councilmember Candell referred to the first bullet on H-46 about proactively upzoning. While she knows this is something HCD wants, she said she has been told by Colin Elliott who is a housing consultant and has done TODs that if the City upzones themselves, they may be getting into a bunch of financial obligations that she is very concerned about which they have not yet discussed. AB 2923 comes into effect July 1st and it will be upzoned regardless of what the Council does or not.

She thinks the Council needs to understand the financial implications to the City if they upzone themselves before committing to HCD that they are going to upzone it. She would prefer making the statement such that the BART parking lots will be upzoned by law on July 1, 2022 through AB 2923. This is a blanket true statement and she suggested leaving the conversation about whether the City is going to do the upzoning or let BART keep it and be in charge a separate topic.

Ms. Elrod said she would be interested in hearing what those financial implications are because this is the first time she has heard of this. The City needs to demonstrate a commitment to upzoning it and one of the commitments is local support including rezoning plus other municipal code changes. If they do not upzone the BART site, she guarantees that the City will not be able to include it as a housing opportunity site because the City could not be moved up in the schedule so that development could occur within the 8-year cycle. HCD will not accept that.

Councilmember Candell stated she will send the document from Mr. Elliott who wrote a TOD and the financial implications to the City are large. She did not think it was prudent without looking into it. She understands Ms. Elrod’s concerns but it is going to be upzoned.

Ms. Elrod said the difference is that it is not being upzoned by the City. It is a good faith effort made on the basis of the City to demonstrate that it means business when it comes to developing the site.

Councilmember Candell noted they have public support for it.

Ms. Elrod said they already know they have financial implications. The City must figure a way to move itself up on the timeline in order to include it in the inventory. Otherwise, if not included, they will have to find other sites elsewhere. Councilmember Candell said she understands this.

Mr. Wolff said he thinks staff has expressed to the Council and to the public that BART is not flush with money to do TOD housing and needs to draw resources from the state, federal and local agencies with respect to infrastructure and station access. BART has said the days of 1 to 1 replacement parking at a station when they do TOD has sailed. It behooves the City to bring any and all resources it can to a project when that project is done, and BART wants to do it with a developer and with the City and the community.

It would be collaborative and he is not aware of any financial obligations that stem solely from a zoning change, but he would look forward to receiving this document and staff can look into it further.

Mayor Gerringer said since none of the rest of the Council has seen this, she would like the Council to continue looking at the language the way it has come forward. They are not voting on it tonight and will be coming back on the 27th.

City Council Meeting Page 16 of 34 June 13, 2022
Vice Mayor Anduri noted in the staff report it anticipates this coming back on the Consent Calendar, and he would like clarification. The bullet point states they will proactively upzone by the beginning of July 2022 and this is his recollection. He asked if it will come to the Council on June 27th.

Mr. Wolff said it could come as a discussion, but staff believes the Council could act on the 27th. The environmental review of it is the over-arching Housing Element EIR and the consultant is still preparing the final response to comments. The final EIR will not be ready by the end of June which will push them into July for both the FEIR and formal adoption of the upzoning stemming from AB 2923.

Vice Mayor Anduri said this sentence at a minimum needs to be changed to refer to the beginning of August 2022 and he asked if it will be upzoned on July 1st and then they will proactively upzone after it is already upzoned.

Mr. Wolff said the TOD standards go into effect July 1st whether or not the City acts. However, the City Council has directed staff to prepare a draft zoning and objective standards that would apply so there is some additional degree of control over development that would occur there. It would not be proactively in advance of July 1st because the environmental document is not complete yet. It would be the City taking action to upzone it and not simply rest on the State’s TOD standards. It would still be a demonstration of the City’s interest to have the site redeveloped pursuant to the zoning and objective standards within the next 8 years.

Vice Mayor Anduri said if they do not do that, even though it would occur after July 1st, he asked if staff was 100% sure they would not be able to include the sites. Ms. Elrod confirmed.

Councilmember Dawson referred to the text after the bullet points on the next paragraph. This basically states BART did not include them because of community concerns, and she asked if they want to lead off this discussion about they are all in now to do this. She asked if they would want to start after the redlined area further down or she asked if they need to provide why they were not in the work plan in the first place.

Ms. Elrod said there was recognition that one of the reasons Lafayette did not score highly enough was because of community opposition. She thinks it would be helpful to acknowledge that because HCD will want to know what changed because they know about such things. If the City is trying to create an argument that it is serious about thisit should be willing to say they did not like it before but have since changed its mind for these reasons. This will help the City advance the argument that it means business with this.

Vice Mayor Anduri agreed and said this is useful transparency.

Ms. Robles suggested perhaps adding another sentence before that first sentence emphasizing their support and how they are willing to work towards that goal. Councilmembers concurred.

Councilmember Candell said she understand what is being said, but process-wise there are some big negative impacts for the City if they upzone themselves. They may up owning this process and this is what Mr. Elliott’s fear was. Then, they have some big fiscal impacts on the City they might not be able to handle.

She asked if there is an argument that can be made that is different than the upzone but is just as positive towards wanting to do this but saying upzoning may not be feasible or prudent as a City but to say they support it in order to aid development on this site.

City Council Meeting Page 17 of 34 June 13, 2022
Mr. Wolff said there is a possible way to navigate that. The TOD standards will go into effect July 1st so in some respects it does not matter whether the City upzones or not but if they do, he thinks it is a good faith effort showing that and that they are interested in having the site redeveloped. Perhaps what would carry more weight is engaging with BART and getting a Council direction and a public commitment to work with BART to put out an RFP or commit housing monies that are part of the Successor Agency to the RDA.

Certainly, financial commitments to the degree the City can would go far towards convincing BART that the City is serious. These are separate factors than upzoning.

He thinks based on new information forthcoming, they have not have or will not have adopted the Housing Element by the time the information is assessed, so this could change and they could still navigate that with BART and convince HCD that the City is committed to this and it should be considered a true opportunity site.

Mayor Gerringer said she is hearing there is a process the Council can follow and if they do not proactively move through this process, HCD will not approve this. She asked if the Council should edit it tonight, move forward with the language with it returning on June 27th.

Mr. Wolff stated staff would recommend not making any changes tonight as staff has not had an opportunity to asses and make a determination that would result in a recommended change. They can consider this on June 27th based on new information and he confirmed the EIR will not be ready on June 27th, which will be pushed into July which will not affect the overall schedule.

City Attorney Mala Subramanian noted that the documents provided to Councilmember Candell by Colin Elliott should be provided to staff and staff can provide it in the staff packet for the June 27th meeting and everyone would therefore have a copy of it.

Vice Mayor Anduri confirmed staff will provide an analysis.

Mayor Gerringer continued with comments on sections.

Summary of Inventory: Ms. Elrod stated this table will get fixed to reflect correct numbers.

Background and Date; Appendix A: Councilmember Candell referred to page 39 of 34, Net Housing Increase which is Table 9, and said she is concerned that the total line states “total” and she asked what those lines are. Ms. Robles stated it looks like it got copied wrong and is in 2012, and staff will fix this.

Councilmember Dawson referred to page 22 and it states “Error reference source not found” and she asked that this be deleted. Mayor Gerringer suggested staff do a global search for this throughout the document.

Analysis of Constraints - Non-Governmental and Governmental, Appendix B: Councilmember Candell referred to page B-32 and the waiving of the lot merger fees. She said the Council has not voted on that and asked if they should indicate the Council will consider this or are moving towards waiving these fees.

Ms. Robles stated staff added a program for implementation of that and it would be implemented as part of the adoption of this Housing Element process. This is the consideration of that program for the Council to waive those fees and it will be done.

City Council Meeting Page 18 of 34 June 13, 2022
Vice Mayor Anduri said he is a bit concerned because this is implying that when the Council votes to approve the Housing Element they are all agreeing that they will vote to waive these fees. He understands making the items more action items than “will consider” items, but he cannot be sure that he picked up every time the Council has actually committed to do something so they would be obligated to vote for that. He asked for a list in every other place in the document where by voting for the Housing Element they are actually changing City ordinances, fees, etc. rather than saying they will pursue a program where they are actually doing it.

Ms. Robles explained the program she is referring to is the implementation measures, including Appendix G. All of the action items are in that table.

Vice Mayor Anduri noted that this says “The City will waive lot merger processing fees” and he confirmed the Council has not voted to do that. Ms. Robles stated if the Council does not want this included as an action item as part of the Housing Element, it should be removed from this appendix as well as the implementation plan. The implementation plan has goals, policies and programs and programs are that implementation action of waiving fees. Vice Mayor Anduri said this is different than a program where they know the program will have to be developed, language for the program and vote on that.

Ms. Elrod said the thrust of the Housing Element implementation goals have to be actionable, have to be largely making commitment to do things. Some of the areas about which they have to make commitments to do things is that they have to say they think this is a constraint to the development of housing and therefore they will remove this constraint. When the City goes through the process of doing a study and trying to understand this, the issue still gets to come up for a vote, but they have demonstrated again to HCD that they mean that they really are going to change and fix things that are a problem specific to constraints.

Lot consolidation is an issue towards incentivizing lot consolidation to develop housing because they are left with small lots in the inventory. It is a ministerial action already and the second way is to eliminate the fees specifically for multi-family. At the same time, they also can still study it. They just have to say when they will study it by and if they determine they do not want to do it because they will lose a lot of money, they can decide not to do it and explain why they did not which is the most important thing.

With respect to most of the other actionable items like changing zoning or items pertaining to parking and one with height and setbacks, the vast majority of items are things that are either statutorily required like defining low barrier navigation centers and allowing them explicitly in the zoning code as well as actions they want to include because of the AFFH findings.

Vice Mayor Anduri asked and confirmed with Ms. Elrod that the Council will be able to go back and be able to decide they will not waive lot merger fees and explain why.

Ms. Subramanian asked that if a later date the Council decides not to do it, she asked if they would need to consider a potential amendment to the Housing Element to remove that program.

Ms. Elrod said she does not think so unless HCD will come up with new requirements but if the Council wants to soften it where HCD may reject it she would recommended specificity and have it state, “Conduct a best practice review of ways to incentivize lot consolidation beyond what the City is already doing. This may include a waiving of fees or other ways and that the City will complete this by “x” date and will take it to the Council on “x” date and they will make a decision.” City Council Meeting Page 19 of 34 June 13, 2022
Mayor Gerringer suggested determining how the timelines connect with Appendix G and appreciates the discussion.

Councilmember Dawson referred to Appendix G and said it does include “responsibility of the Planning Department, completion on-going” so it is not specific in terms of that process. She wondered if Policy H1 to “Facilitate and support the production of new affordable housing units” can be referred to those specific things the Council will need to act on so the Council can understand what are the items they will need to vote on if they agree to the Housing Element.

Vice Mayor Anduri said he will send in a separate email all of his comments because he just found one in Appendix G he had missed before. But, again in Appendix G it states crystal clear that the Council will waive those fees so he is happy keeping it that way, but he will read through it again and try to come up with all of the points where the Council agrees to do things and he will let staff know if there is anything he feels uncomfortable with that he would not vote for in the future.

City Attorney Subramanian suggested the edits sent to staff not be substantive and only minor typographical errors, and Councilmembers agreed.

Housing Resources and Sites Inventory; Appendix C: Mayor Gerringer noted the table will be changed as well as the number of the buffer.

Councilmember Candell said the two residential R-10 El Charro sites are parking lots right now. If they have to reassess things and chose just to upzone those two, she asked if this would be spot zoning. Mr.

Wolff said no; it is not an island parcel surrounded by other R-10. It is immediately adjacent to the C zone.

Just like the Council has previously expanded the multi-family by one or two lots to allow for greater development, it is all adjacency and not spot zoning and it is a prime opportunity site.

Mayor Gerringer confirmed the Council is keeping BART at 75 du/acre with 95% yield, upzoning DeSilva North and all other areas they were keeping with what they decided at the last meeting. She asked if the Council wants to consider upzoning the El Charro property or leave it as staff has it in the supplemental staff report that adjusts the numbers on the buffer and totals.

Councilmember Candell confirmed and possibly after HCD’s 90 day review the Council can re-review things for the second round.

Vice Mayor Anduri made the point that GPAC and PC, in effect, recommended El Charro be zoned at 35 du/acre. He was not sure why the Council would not make the change. GPAC may not have realized it was R-10 and 35 du/acre and possibly if they had realized this maybe they would not have done it. Therefore, the Council cannot assume that was the action GPAC and the PC would have taken if they had all of the information. He was hesitant about taking an action on the spot without thinking about it more, and in looking at the transition areas in the back of the property.

Ms. Elrod recommended leaving it the way it is right now and then during the 90-day review period, staff can bring it back and have a better discussion about it. It does not materially change the outcome and Councilmembers concurred.

Appendix D: There were no comments.

Appendix F: There were no comments.

City Council Meeting Page 20 of 34 June 13, 2022
Housing Element Implementation Plan, Appendix G: Mayor Gerringer noted the Council will review this appendix regarding specificity around any policy decisions or changes that Vice Mayor Anduri had brought up earlier.

Councilmember Dawson said as she reads this it is assumptive that the City’s policy is changing which is fine but in terms of calling out which policy needs to change and voting on it, it is not described here nor anywhere else. It is just included in the context of the different appendices. She asked how previous Housing Elements were handled by the Council.

Ms. Robles stated any policy change identified in the appendices is captured in Appendix G because this is the format in which they can most clearly communicate to HCD here are the tangible and concrete actions the City will be taking with deadlines to demonstrate them. The fee waiver language was in Appendix B but it is also captured in Appendix G, so this has been the case throughout. Staff tried to draw it out to make it as clear as possible as to what specifically will be changing.

Councilmember Dawson said if she looks at the line of waiving processing fees of 6.1.E, that is all it states.

Other than that it does not highlight or call out that this is new policy. She thinks to Vice Mayor Anduri’s point, these things are embedded but not necessarily highlighted.

Councilmember Kwok asked if this is for the Council’s benefit or for HCD’s benefit. Councilmember Dawson said she thinks it is for the Council’s as well as residents and HCD to show what is new. In the summary, there is a lot of policy involved here.

Ms. Elrod said staff can add a column here and identify whether this is a new policy, a modified policy or an on-going or repeated policy, and Councilmembers Dawson said this would be helpful.

Vice Mayor Anduri said earlier in the meeting the Council discussed whether they should point out that they have housing by right downtown. When looking at Page D-2, Program 2.1.B; Mixed Use Developments what they are saying there is that “they have lost commercial space due to residential development. Requiring ground floor commercial space will provide some degree of replacement space.

The City will conduct a study of potential impacts requiring ground floor commercial as part of downtown residential development on project feasibility, local economic development, overall land use planning.

This program will need to be coordinated with the Land Use Element and land use districts for the City.” He is reading this as saying the Council is reconsidering the housing by right and they will be looking at that and might be changing the City’s ordinances to take away the housing by right.

Mr. Wolff said to clarify, it is not reconsidering housing by right everywhere from ground to sky. That is not the case in current conditions. It is housing by right ground to sky, all floors in the ends of town but not the core. The core still requires commercial ground floor, and staff has found the elimination of viable commercial at the ends. So, while there are very stringent requirements around housing, Housing Elements, and housing production and RHNA there are no commensurate requirements around jobs.

Communities do need to have a balance between housing and jobs and services that serve the residents so that they needn’t travel greater distances to find goods and services outside of the community.

City Council Meeting Page 21 of 34 June 13, 2022
He said good planning calls for the City to look at that and maybe make a change, but it would be a discreet and small change and not using a scalpel to carve out space for commercial as opposed to a blunt instrument. He does not think HCD is going to take significant issue with the City considering that on the ground floor at the ends. The study would bear it out further. If it makes a project significantly infeasible to do that there would need to be some commensurate changes in the City’s zoning or density permissibility to offset that, but he does not think HCD is going to balk at just the space allocation.

Vice Mayor Anduri said this is saying the Council will look at changing housing by right at least as it applies to the first floor of buildings outside of the core, and Mr. Wolff confirmed.

Staff Report Supplement: Mayor Gerringer said the Council discussed how this will fit into the Hosing Element update relating to the finding about El Charro.

Mayor Gerringer asked and confirmed staff has direction.

ACTION: It was M/S/C (Anduri/Candell) to continue the matter to the June 27th City Council Meeting. Vote:
5-0 (Ayes: Gerringer, Anduri, Candell, Dawson, and Kwok; Noes: None).

BREAK
Mayor Gerringer called for a break 9:46 p.m. and thereafter reconvened the regular meeting at 9:51 p.m.

B. Tracy Robinson, Administrative Services Director
Resolution 2022-40 Adopting The Proposed Budget/Workplan; Appropriating Revenue And Expenses; Confirming The City’s Investment Policy; Determining The Appropriation Limit For Fiscal Year 2021-22; Determining Fees For All City Services And Authorizing Transfers And Expenditures Including The 2023 Capital Improvement Program And Related CEQA Findings Recommendation: Adopt Resolution 2022-40.

Administrative Services Director Tracy Robinson gave the staff report and overview regarding the City’s Fiscal Year 2022-23 Proposed Budget and Work Plan. She gave a short PowerPoint presentation which summarized take-aways of the budget and address what the Council’s decision points need to be.

Ms. Robinson said the Council can approve the base budget which is needed by the beginning of the Fiscal Year of July 1, 2022, decide which request can be funded immediately, which can wait until a later date and/or which request will not be funded at all, direct staff on the use of the $880,000 which has already been allocated from the first tranche of ARPA funds, discuss and direct the ARPA Subcommittee as to how much that second tranche of ARPA funds should be reserved to bridge the budget shortfalls in the next several years, and for the next June 27th meeting agendize the appointment of Councilmembers to a Financial Sustainability Subcommittee so they can start soon as to how to solve this on-going problem.

She concluded her presentation and said she was available for questions.

Vice Mayor Anduri referred to page 1, last paragraph which starts out saying, “Although the surplus of $1.8 million in FY 2022-23…..”. He asked if this is correct that what this is referring to is excess cash over the 60% Reserve at the end of FY 2022-23 and not a technical budget surplus. Ms. Robinson said this is correct; it is $1.8 million over the 60% Reserve and this is shown on the Reserve standard page.

Vice Mayor Anduri clarified that the second tranche of ARPA funds of $3.18 million does not figure in this at all, and Ms. Robinson said it is not included. The Council will see it on the revenue page, but she immediately restricts it out into the Sinking Fund so it is basically net zero.

City Council Meeting Page 22 of 34 June 13, 2022
Vice Mayor Anduri referred to page 9, under number 1, it states, “Provide funding for annual fire prevention, weed abatement and tree maintenance on parklands and public property.” He asked where is that in the budget and he asked if there is an increase for next year over this year. Ms. Robinson said she believes there is road and drain maintenance on 3-10 because there is tree and brush maintenance and weed control. Those are not necessarily increased but she thinks it is a matter of using those funds specifically where the City feels there is a need to clear as opposed to just general. It is a matter of directing the funds they usually put in.

Vice Mayor Anduri asked about the $34,000 spent on clearing the dead trees off the City property on El Nido Ranch Road, and Ms. Robinson stated this would be out of this fiscal year’s budget and from the annual fire prevention, weed abatement and maintenance line item.

Vice Mayor Anduri referred to number 2, the second check which states, “Allocate $950,000 from Palos Colorados settlement for Vision Zero related expenses in the CIP.” He asked if this is a separate sinking fund for Vision Zero related projects. Ms. Robinson said no; they had two funds--$500,000 for quick projects, and $1.75 million that was initially going for new salaries. But, when Mike Moran brought forward his program in order to fund those programs, the City had to use all of that Vision Zero money.

So all of the Palos Colorados settlement money had to go. If they wanted to be able to do those projects, this was the only funding the City had.

Vice Mayor Anduri said $1.3 million goes for the quick fixes at the schools. Then, the remaining $925,000 was going to be used on Moraga Road initially. Ms. Robinson stated she asked Mr. Moran specifically about that which is outlined on page 5, which states, “In addition to the $1.3 million for school safety the street maintenance projects include $950,000 for Vision Zero related expenses such as roundabout configuration changes, dedicated bike paths, lane configuration as well as landscaping and irrigation changes related to safety improvements.” She took it out of the sinking fund so this could fund the CIP.

There is no money left of the Palos Colorados money in the sinking fund.

Vice Mayor Anduri said what he was getting at is some of these were not in the CIP that the Council approved. For example, if a dedicated bike path comes along. Ms. Robinson said they were included.

Unfortunately, Mr. Moran is not on the meeting call but some of the projects he brought forward in the CIP included these items. They were not specifically called out in the design but they were included in those pathway projects and those projects he brought forth. They are additional things that need to be done as part of the projects that were proposed and approved.

Councilmember Candell asked if the $142,000 total is one-time money for the Lamorinda Village proposal and noted right now they have one part-time Senior Services person.

Ms. Robinson clarified they do not have someone right now because they had someone and she retired.

That position is not filled but she has allocated $100,000 to the Senior Services program and the Council could either go with the Lamorinda Village proposal plus an additional $42,000 that is not budgeted, or, if the Council decides they do not want to go with the Lamorinda Village model, staff would just hire somebody to provide services like they used to.

She noted that Vice Mayor Anduri was involved as one of the Senior Services liaisons and would say this is an issue that should be discussed more at length so everyone understands it. She does not believe time is of the essence, and this could be agendized for another time so the Council can understand what they will be getting for that money.

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Vice Mayor Anduri pointed out Councilmember Kwok is also a liaison for Senior Services, and said he hopes Mr. Katayanagi can come into the discussion at some time and let the Council know the timing for this being agendized.

Mayor Gerringer thanked Ms. Robinson and Ms. Wakeman for putting together the budget which breaks down and highlights all elements and challenges, as well as City Manager Srivatsa.

Mayor Gerringer opened the public comment period.

ROBERT LAVOIE said it sounds like the deficit it caused by new staff to support new projects and new office space. He wondered if rather than use the ARPA money which is a great windfall that could be used for other projects to possibly have staff that are interested and willing to work remotely so that some office space could be shared and save extra rent.

SUZY PAK said she has been a volunteer with Lamorinda Village for the last couple of years and this is a network of members that are 55 and over. Their purpose is to provide support and connections through different programs and services and to help provide help to seniors to be able to remain independent in their homes as they get older. The 2020 census revealed that 19% of Lafayette residents are 65 and older and it seems that number continues to grow. People in the City are and remain a very active community.

Over the years, Lamorinda Village has provided a lot of activities, some of which has gone on-line during the pandemic but also in person. She wants the community to know that this does not just benefit their residents but the community at large. They have different classes, talks, socials, provide service provider referrals to members, helped hold vaccine clinics, flu shot clinics, grocery shopping, rides to medical appointments, home repairs and many other things. They have a large core of volunteers that expanded greatly during the pandemic. It has helped expand the community’s awareness of their existence and the community has been tremendous in the response.

They also work with many volunteers and organizations who are interested in supporting seniors in big and small ways. They work with the Rotary, Boys Team Charity, LOPC, the Chamber, the Library, and also Lamorinda Village members themselves volunteer. They will partner with a very active Senior Services Commission to help implement needs and opportunities that they identify to really make the City an AgeFriendly community for all ages. If the Council decides to move forward and approve the proposed $142,000 line item they look forward to taking the investment the City has made and to do their part to increase the depth and breadth of their support.

DON JENKINS echoed Ms. Pak’s comments and said as a member of the Senior Services Commission over the last 5 years, being involved with the Senior program and with the Community Foundation special age programs in the summer and aging himself he sees how this community has the ability to find people that are problem-solvers. It has been wonderful to work with so many volunteers who are very intelligent and very capable of seeing the problem and finding solutions.

Just before COVID, the Council approved the Commission to be an Age-Friendly city and they continue to steps along that line to make Lafayette a more age-friendly city. Having worked with Lamorinda Village initially, it has blossomed over this time and they see the potential for much more. They are here and sitting in their homes because they cannot afford to sell them and there is no other place to go that is as wonderful as Lafayette, so this is a way of solving the problem and collectively working together. As a senior, helping people find a purpose really does give new meaning and purpose.

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Director of Parks and Recreation Jonathan Katayanagi referred to timing and the position, as it is important for the City and for the Commission. They held the position open for a year now and to have a decision as to whether they are moving forward or not would help staff. The other is for the Age-Friendly Action Plan. The Senior Services Commission has been working on the 8 domain tables and this decision really changes how the City would work with the Village as a stakeholder in that plan. One of the big things the Village will bring to the table centers around that volunteer hub. The Village really stepped up during the pandemic and had the ability to organize volunteers and point them in the direction to services seniors needed and as they move forward with the Age-Friendly Action Plan, there are many programs that will need that type of support.

Commissioner Dawson said having half of the members of Lamorinda Village from other cities she asked if the Commission has looked at partnering or at least getting some monies from those cities to help contribute.

Mr. Katayanagi said they have not reached out regarding this specific partnership. They have for the Lamorinda Spirit Van, but have not received funding from Moraga or Orinda in quite some time. Moraga stopped funding around the time of the sink hole and they still make an annual presentation to both cities to ask them for support. The program benefits from being a regional program and they obtain grant funding because of being a regional program but their membership, 50% of their membership is Lamorinda so they are benefitting from being a regional program, fighting isolation, having a vibrant Senior Center, and creating vibrant programs for their seniors.

Councilmember Dawson asked if more members come on she asked if this would increase their budget.

Mr. Katayanagi said it does not impact the overall cost. There will be more funds that come to the City as a result. They keep it very affordable with a $15 annual membership but they will find themselves in a place where they will need to right-size the programming and growing pains to hire a new coordinator.

But, the proposal is written as a one-year launch and for them to show what they can offer for the City.

He has seen a lot of excitement from the Village as to what they can do for the programming, as well.

Councilmember Kwok asked if it would be fair to say that for the budget ask of $142,000, $100,000 is already in the budget and $42,000 is the incremental request of one of the 10 items that equal to $1 million of unfunded requests. Mr. Katayanagi confirmed.

Mayor Gerringer asked and the Council supported having Ms. Robinson pull up the slide and go through her recommendations for what the Council needs to do and start in that order.

Councilmember Candell asked staff to address Mr. Lavoie’s question.

Ms. Robinson explained that a majority of the unfunded amount is actually staff. About $135,000 of that is the extra office space. It would help potentially, but it will not relieve the bulk of the deficit. She thinks they considered whether or not they could go to a hybrid situation and sharing of office space and they came to the conclusion that they did work remotely but there were things that were lost in that process that were not as efficient. Some of those things are not necessarily quantifiable as well, but she thinks they all felt it.

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Therefore, if this is something the Council would like staff to look at in more detail they would have to talk with staff about that because it would significantly affect their work life. They are being asked to have some people work potentially at home which could cause problems with some working at home and not at home, etc. But, staff can look at this if this is the direction but over time it might cause problems.

City Manager Niroop Srivatsa agreed with Ms. Robinson. They are learning their way out of the pandemic right now and are still in the transition mode. She sees more and more people coming to work everyday and it may cause challenges if they try to separate those who work remotely and those who work in the office. It will require more thought and discussions with employees.

Mayor Gerringer asked and confirmed the staff amount is an estimated $135,000 and Ms. Robinson stated staff is still negotiating with the landlord so she did not have an exact number so this is her best guess of the market rate.

Mayor Gerringer said she would like staff to pull up the list of recommendations for the Council to consider.

Ms. Robinson stated the City Attorney has some issues with how the item has been agendized so they might have to do this in two steps. In the past, staff brings a budget to the Council, the Council talks about modifications which would go to the unfunded requests, and the Council will say what they do and do not want to fund. At the next meeting, she would return with a resolution that has those budget adjustments and the Council will approve that. Tonight, the Council is giving her direction as to what will return at the next meeting as to which request should be funded immediately. The resolution will include those adjustments to this budget.

Similarly, she asked the Council to direct staff on the use of the $880,000 that would be a budget adjustment as to whatever will be released for this year. The real issue is they need to specifically call out the recommendation regarding directing the ARPA Subcommittee because they will talk about using that money over several years and this item was related to this budget for this year. So, the Council can talk about it, give direction but the actual recommendation and motion will be at the next meeting. If the Council indicates now that it wants to fund some of the requests, they might want to use some of the next ARPA tranche for that straight off the top which is an option. Then, the Council can identify which they want to fund and how they want to pay for those. Staff will then bring the whole package back for approval by resolution.

Mayor Gerringerstated she and the City Manager talked about returning on June 27th to form the Financial Sustainability Subcommittee, and staff will have a basic layout of what their charge would be which is in alignment with Priority number 4. She asked for comments on the base budget items listed in the staff report.

Vice Mayor Anduri referred to Fund 12 on page 113 of the budget and asked if this is what is being suggested for Fund 12 and asked if there was any change to that. Ms. Robinson apologized and said after she sent the budget out for print there was a change that the Parks and Recreation Commission wanted to make some changes, so there are some that were suggested which she can include. They do not actually start on any of these projects until they come back for more specific approval from the Council on the projects, timelines and budgets.

Mr. Katayanagi confirmed this was correct regarding the Leigh Creekside Park project. It is aspirational and based upon how fees roll in, and any of the projects would come to the Council for approval.

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Vice Mayor Anduri said they are at the beginning of the process with Leigh Creekside Park and the two park proposal and the original item is allocating $35,000 to study it. He asked why they would not move forward with that study and then if there is a suggestion, it could come back to the Council and they would approve it or not approve it at that time.

Mr. Katayanagi said this was staff’s recommendation and the way it is presented in the base budget . The Commission discussed it at their meeting and felt because there was a fair amount of environmental work already done for the park, they had expressed a preference for moving forward with that project quickly.

He made sure they were aware they could come back after the initial work is done at any point if funds were available and put in a budget request or come back at mid-year.

Vice Mayor Anduri confirmed that even if the costs were less than $335,000 staff will still come back and he said he was in favor of approving the base budget as proposed on page 113.

Councilmember Kwok said he has reviewed the base budget and spoke with Ms. Robinson to answer questions. He wanted to clarify that the base budget shows a deficit spending of over $1 million but staff also commented that the current year’s budget had a swim of +$3 million surplus. He asked if there were timing issues, and Ms. Robinson said these are spelled out in the Manager’s Memo. She said in the 5-year model there is a positive this year and a negative of almost the same amount next year so this is pretty much a balance of each other. There is ARPA money programmed which swings to next year so this causes some of the deficit.

Mayor Gerringer referred to the unfunded requests and Councilmembers suggested going through them and hearing staff’s recommendations.

Buckeye Patio: Ms. Robinson said staff has spoken with the Engineer/Public Works Director and Parks and Recreation Director and this project was in the budget prior to the pandemic and it is becoming a safety issue. They dropped it to save money and because the field was not being used regularly, but thinks it needs to be done and so that it can be programmed into the CIP.

EXTEND MEETING
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Anduri/Dawson) to extend the meeting from 10:53 p.m. to 12:00 midnight. Vote:
5-0 (Ayes: Gerringer, Anduri, Candell, Dawson, and Kwok; Noes: None).

Councilmember Dawson asked and confirmed this project is in the CIP plan but there was no money for it. Staff verified that staff might have thought Park funds could pay for it but park fees cannot pay for maintenance. Ms. Robinson added that staff believed it would cost $200,000 three years ago, so she is hoping it is not more than that.

Pre-Engineering for the School Street Project: Ms. Robinson said similarly, she thinks the Pre-Engineering for the School Street project is a safety project for the schools and she would want this programmed into the CIP this year. She believes it was included on the CIP but there was not funding for it.

Mayor Gerringer noted this project was in the CIP but does not have funding, and she voiced support of staff’s recommendation for safety as well as the fact it will prepare the City to be shovel-ready if grants are received.

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HVAC and the Roof Projects: The next two regarding the HVAC and the Roof are being considered together because at this time, the City needs to spend money to find out how much money they need to spend and they will need to spec it. There is no question they need to be upgraded and fixed and cannot be put off for too long. There is money in a sinking fund right now of about $200,000. She recommended using some of the money in the sinking fund to fund the design and once they know how much it is going to be, they can use the rest of the sinking fund plus appropriate some of the ARPA funds to get the whole project done.

Mayor Gerringer believes using funds to do the design and noted a gap would be $45,000. So, it would be a zero sum this year and they will know more of what it needs to be out of the sinking fund.

Vice Mayor Anduri noted that they had allocated $270,000 from ARPA funds. The idea was that they wanted this to move quickly so more space could be available for child care. He still thinks this is important to do, which bleeds into the discussion of the ARPA Subcommittee. He would favor moving ahead with Community Center projects, finding out how much is needed, and perhaps making a further allocation from ARPA funds to ensure these get done as soon as possible outside of the $880,000.

Ms. Robinson suggested taking the $200,000 out of the sinking fund to do the design, then find out the cost of the project, and if more is needed the Council can then allocate whatever is necessary to complete the project this year, and this is why she is recommending not allocating ARPA funds until they know what they want to spend the money on. Councilmembers concurred.

Parking Lot Repavement Projects: Ms. Robinson said this is recreation related for the parking lot at Buckeye Fields, the parking lot at the Community Center, the parking at Community Park, and Mr. Moran felt that repaving those over the next 5 years would cost about $500,000. Staff likes to put the money away so it is available at $100,000 a year. An option is to put all $500,000 into a sinking fund this year and use some ARPA money to do that. She noted more detail is needed for this and possibly it could be discussed at the mid-year budget when more pressing items are taken care of.

Mayor Gerringer suggested this come back after the ARPA Subcommittee meets. Councilmember Dawson suggested CPAC looks into that. Ms. Robinson said she will talk more with Mr. Moran off-line.

Economic Development Manager Contract: Ms. Robinson said Thomas Myers has been working for the City heading up ARPA projects and making sure those happen. His contract technically runs out at the end of June, but the City is not done with some of the projects they had allocated from the first tranche. Staff would like to retain him for at least another 6 months which should be approved by the Council. Vice Mayor Anduri voiced his support.

Councilmember Kwok asked if the 6 month time period related to tranche 1 or does it assume the tranche 2 funds would also need to be managed. Ms. Robinson said yes, because some of the projects are carrying over. They are paying for the projects but need to pay someone to manage them. It is not full-time now and at 30 hours per week and the Council will need to pay for the contract extension out of tranche 2 as will most of the things the Council is approving right now. Ms. Robinson said there are projects not yet finished, which she described.

Mayor Gerringer and Councilmembers voiced their support for the EDM contract.

Lamorinda Village: Ms. Robinson said the Council has discussed this already and questioned whether the Council was ready to move forward or not.

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Vice Mayor Anduri said Mr. Katayanagi indicated he would like to move ahead. This is a budgeting session and he would favor allocating money, but he asked if there needs to be a separate motion to enter into the contract with Lamorinda Village and questioned if it would need to come back for Council direction to City staff to negotiate the contract.

City Attorney Subramanian deferred to the City Manager as sometimes things in the budget do not return to the Council for approval if they were approved in the budget and sometimes they do or that they are approved by the City Manager.

Councilmember Dawson said even the $42,000 is incremental to the $100,000 already budgeted for this year she thought staff mentioned it was a set year term which would then be reviewed and considered for the next year.

Vice Mayor Anduri said the Senior Services Commission discussed that they would like to see a 2-Year pilot because of the timing of getting the programs up and running. He would rather go into it with a 2- Year pilot and then the Council can make a decision to either continue or revert to the City staff person.

In terms of additional funding, he confirmed with Ms. Robinson that the $100,000 is included in the FY 2022-23 and FY 2023-24.

City Manager Srivatsa stated the City needs an agreement with Lamorinda Village and if the Council has any stipulations like a 2-Year Pilot Program and direct her to negotiate, she can do so but would like to know what those provisions are.

Ms. Subramanian suggested bringing this back as contracts without those stipulations typically get approved ministerially.

Councilmember Kwok said as liaison to the Senior Services Commission and having watched the process and discussion and recognize the due diligence done and see them come to a unanimous vote on this issue, as well as to hear and thank members who spoke tonight, he would like to support $42,000 more and for a 2-year commitment.

Vice Mayor Anduri agreed with moving forward. The City has a very strong Senior Services Commission in Lafayette. Their role does not change with this and in fact, they are policy advisors to the Council as to how to provide services to seniors and they recommend moving forward with it. They are also responsible for developing the Age-Friendly 8 domains and this all fits together with programs, volunteers, and partnering with Lamorinda Village.

Mayor Gerringer voiced her support for moving forward, as well as remaining Councilmembers and she confirmed the contract needs to return to the Council and she confirmed staff has direction.

Public Art Committee Liaison Increased Hours: Ms. Robinson stated they have a Public Art Committee and Jenny Rosen who is the liaison. She works roughly 6 hours a week and the Committee is becoming more active with more development and oversight, and they have asked to increase her time by about 2 hours a week. She is a temporary, non-benefitted employee which would amount to an extra $6,000 annually and she would recommend approval.

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Councilmember Dawson noted she already works more hours than what she is paid for so this is justified and appreciative. Mayor Gerringer said all Commissions are doing a lot of work and she wanted to take into consideration the review of commissions, balance of other commissions and staff time, but voiced her support.

Vice Mayor Anduri thinks this would be a very good investment and voiced his support.

Ms. Robinson said she understands the Mayor’s concern but almost all other Commissions have paid staff that have benefits. This position does not and the Committee is very active so this is the difference. $5,000 ETF Library of Things: Ms. Robinson asked Councilmember Kwok to explain what this is.

Councilmember Kwok explained ETF is the Environmental Task Force and he thinks the concept of a Library of Things is like things borrowed from a library like books, but there are other things the community could borrow and benefit and learn from such as an induction cooktop or an electric blower which they may not purchase if they have never tried it before. It would be nice for the City to have these items and loan them out so people can learn about types of environmentally-friendly items. The ETF would prioritize the items and they are asking for a small amount of funding to acquire these items which could serve as educational tools for the community.

Vice Mayor Anduri asked if this could be handled through the Contra Costa Library System which has the Library of Things, so the City would be providing these items which would be lent out to community members. At the Earth Day Festival the ETF booth had an induction cooktop and an electric blower which were very popular. The original proposal was for $10,000 and they decided to reduce it to $5,000, and he voiced his support.

Mayor Gerringer asked if other communities would contribute towards this as well as the Contra Costa County’s budget. Vice Mayor Anduri said he was unsure. Councilmembers voiced their support.

Gold Coast Chamber Players: Ms. Robinson said in the packet is a request from the Gold Coast Chamber Players. It is not a lot of money to the City necessarily. She thinks what the Council needs to consider is a precedent. There are other arts organization within the City as well so she does not have a recommendation on this request.

Councilmember Candell said she looked at the Lafayette Community Foundation grants and she confirmed they are receiving a grant from the foundation.

Vice Mayor Anduri said this one is painful because they are an extraordinarily amazing world-class, cultural organization and the City is very fortunate that they are based in Lafayette. But, what distinguishes this one from the other items is that others are government services the City is funding.

He thinks the Council should think about the precedent that would be set if they were to add this to ongoing budgeting. They would receive a number of other requests and it would be difficult to make distinctions. That said he thinks the funding should come from the Community Foundation if anywhere.

He knows in 2011 the City did make a contribution to the players but at that point the City had funds they were using on a one-off basis each year to support organizations but is no longer in place.

Councilmember Candell agreed it is difficult and agrees it would set a precedent. She also thinks it might be a gift of public funds. Councilmember Dawson and Mayor Gerringer concurred and echoed comments.

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Ms. Robinson asked the Council to clarify all of the items they just agreed to and whether they will be using the second tranche of the ARPA funds for them which is the only place where there is funding.

Vice Mayor Anduri said they have $880,000 from the first tranche and when they discussed it back in February, they were going to use $200,000 per year which was going to make up the deficit in the stormwater and core area. Ms. Robinson clarified it makes up about half of stormwater and core area.

Vice Mayor Anduri asked if staff proposes to either confirm the Council’s previous recommendation or to apply it some other way.

Ms. Robinson confirmed. She said her recommendation was to use those funds which was putting them over the 4 years to help defray those expenses. They know there is a deficit there. She recommended the Council spend some of the ARPA money on these items just approved because they would go further into debt to pay for those items. Again, even though this year looks good at 70%, this would just put the City in a bigger hole in future years. She understands it is difficult to let go of this one-time money from ARPA but if these things are necessary and the City has this money, they need to spend the money on these things.

Vice Mayor Anduri said he and Councilmember Dawson have not had a chance to discuss this and are hoping to hold an ARPA Subcommittee meeting later this week. He wanted to then bring up the next item which is the ARPA Subcommittee as to what to do with the second tranche. His only reluctance about specific direction at this point is that he thinks the Subcommittee needs to think about what the original intent of the ARPA funds were and whether there are any needs the City needs to meet with the second tranche. He does not think they would need the entire tranche and could see at least $2 million going into the General Fund the same way the $880,000 did in the first tranche.

The only thing he would not want to happen tonight is the direction that the entire second tranche go into a sinking fund or the General Fund because there are some items that relate to pandemic recovery and economic recovery the Council might want to make a recommendation to the Council about.

Councilmember Dawson agreed. She asked and confirmed with Ms. Robinson that the unfunded total is about $1 million but the deficit for the next 4 years is $2 million.

Councilmember Kwok asked if the air conditioning and HVAC would be taken out of the $1 million because they approved the $200,000 air condition design. Ms. Robinson said the $200,000 would come out of the second tranche so there will need to be money for the air conditioning and HVAC. She was going to take this out of the sinking fund and then they would see what the delta would be, but that money would come out of the second tranche.

Councilmember Kwok said their choices are to take it out of the $880,000 or the second tranche. He questioned whether a third option might be to take it out of the General Fund and more quickly deplete their Reserve. Ms. Robinson said this is always an option.

Councilmember Kwok said in looking at the list of 10 things and things approved today such as fixing the Community Hall air conditioning, paving the roads, ballpark repairs, etc. These are really maintenance items and on-going operations. It is a gift in terms of one-time funds but he thinks it is something they ultimately need to decide.

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He thought the City could use ARPA but the money has to come from somewhere and he thinks they have done the right thing to approve at least a big chunk of the list to get going sooner. The question is whether to use one-time money or dip into the reserves and figure out a way to replenish reserves more quickly in years 3, 4 and 5. So, he thinks the last suggestion of finding a way to sustainably raise some recurring revenue for the City to pay for maintenance that must be done for the City including more staffing is just the path to getting themselves to be a sustainable city.

Mayor Gerringer agreed on many levels. In this budget process right now she asked if staff has enough information in terms of moving forward with the ARPA recommendations coming to the Subcommittee and returning to the Council with how much to use from the ARPA for these deficits but needs they are identifying as priorities in the community, and then making a decision on how much to take from the General Fund and Reserves.

Ms. Robinson said there is more than one way to do it. Certainly her feeling is not to go into the Reserve right now where they know they have a deficit and make it larger. This would not be her first choice; however, what they could do is take the $880,000 and instead of spreading it across 4 years, it could go towards these one-time items the Council just approved, and most are one-time. There is one 2-year pilot and some smaller items. The numbers are going to be the same at the end of the day but it does give some breathing room on how to decide to spend the ARPA money and she thinks the Subcommittee has enough information. The Council will need to make some longer term decisions about spending that money because they have a deadline on that to actually spend it. So, they might need to start prespending to ensure there is not money left over that the City would have to give back.

Her suggestion or compromise is to take the $880,000 and use it this year and fund these one-time items with this money and take a more comprehensive look and keep the second tranche intact until the Subcommittee has a chance to look at it holistically. The only item she would think that needs to come out of the second tranche of ARPA would be the Economic Development Manager because it is directly related. She also reminded that the reason they have the $880,000 is because the City lost significant revenues form the pandemic which they would have had to pay for these things. This is how she is justifying it in her head. The City actually lost several million dollars and absent a pandemic the City would have had the revenue to pay for these things.

Mayor Gerringer summarized, and Ms. Robinson confirmed, that the Council got through the base budget and decided upon the requests in that budget which will come back for approval. The Council talked about the $880,000 ARPA funds, agreed to agendize the ARPA Subcommittee to return at the June 27th meeting as well as the Financial Sustainability Subcommittee.

Vice Mayor Anduri observed that the Council’s discussion of items on the unfunded list illustrate the first principle of public works, which is the more you build the more you have to maintain.

ACTION: It was M/S/C (Anduri/Dawson) to continue the public hearing to the June 27th City Council Meeting. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Gerringer, Anduri, Candell, Dawson, and Kwok; Noes: None).

10. ITEMS REMOVED FROM CONSENT CALENDAR
B. Resolution 2022-36 Requesting and Consenting to Consolidation of Elections and Setting the Specifications of the Election Order
Recommendation: Adopt Resolution 2022-36.

City Council Meeting Page 32 of 34 June 13, 2022
Councilmember Candell said her concern was over the last election where Senator Alex Padilla on a 6-year term and then a 2-year term. She asked staff and said there are two positions for the 4 year and 1 for the 2 year, but the same person cannot apply on both. By law, you can only apply to one or the other, and she just wanted to be sure everyone knew that.

Mayor Gerringer suggested taking and voting on both Consent Calendar items and taking public comments after Item F for both items.

F. City Council Legislation Committee: 2022 Bills of Local Importance – AB 682 (Bloom), AB 1445 (Levine), AB 2053 (Lee), ACA 14 (Wicks), SB 932 (Portantino), SB 1482 (Allen) and SCA 2 (Allen); Legislative Update and Bill Matrix
Recommendation: Approve the Legislation Committee’s recommendations and authorize the Mayor to sign and submit letters. Accept the legislative update and bill matrix.

Vice Mayor Anduri asked for clarification and asked if SB 1482 (Allen) applies to multi-family residences that receive any public funding. His concern is that the Council is taking the position of support if amended to say that it excludes multi-family units developed with homelessness mitigation dollars. Part of the rationale that those who live in those developments will not electric vehicles in the future, and as stated it will cost more to convert at that point. He thinks they need to plan for a world where everyone will be driving EVs so he was not sure why they would not want to exclude any housing from this requirement.

Casey Elliott, Townsend Public Affairs, said SB 1482 requires amendment to the State Building Code.

Ultimately it will apply to different types of multi-family housing. He thinks the nuance with this position, particularly with the amendment that it not apply to housing made with homeless state funding in particular is that the bulk of those people will not have vehicles of any sort let alone EVs, so the additional cost benefit for that specific type of housing would not be realized. The housing built is 100% for homeless people. If this amendment were taken, the City’s position would be supporting the bill because that particular type of building would be taken out.

Mayor Gerringer opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers for Items 6.B. and 6.F.

ACTION: It was M/S/C (Anduri/Candell) to approve Consent Calendar Items 6.B and 6.F. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes:

Gerringer, Anduri, Candell, Dawson, and Kwok; Noes: None).

11. COUNCIL/COMMISSION REPORTS
Mayor Gerringer moved Items 11.C and 11.D ahead on the agenda.

C. Councilmember Kwok and Vice Mayor Anduri
Resolution 2022-37 Appointing two members to the Creeks Committee Recommendation: Adopt Resolution 2022-37.

Mayor Gerringer opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.

ACTION: It was M/S/C (Kwok/Anduri) to adopt Resolution 2022-37 re-appointing Ron Hufft and Austin Payne to the Creeks Committee. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Gerringer, Anduri, Candell, Dawson, and Kwok; Noes:

None).

D. Vice Mayor Anduri and Councilmember Kwok
Resolution 2022-38 Appointing one member to the Senior Services Commission City Council Meeting Page 33 of 34 June 13, 2022
Recommendation: Adopt Resolution 2022-38.

Mayor Gerringer opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.

ACTION: It was M/S/C (Anduri/Kwok) to adopt Resolution 2022-38 to appoint Erin Partridge to the Senior Services Commission. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Gerringer, Anduri, Candell, Dawson, and Kwok; Noes: None).

A. Councilmembers report on activities and consideration of matters a Councilmember wishes to initiate for placement on a future agenda.

Vice Mayor Anduri said he is still concerned with the number of dead trees he sees around town and questioned if the Council supported an item be agendized for a report on what can be done to make it easier to remove dead tree and vegetative brush. Councilmember Dawson suggested distinguishing between what the City can do and/or educate people as to available programs.

Mayor Gerringer stated she needs to return the policy update, as well and she will work with the City Manager.

Councilmember Dawson reported on her attendance at Community Day which was a great celebration, and Mayor Gerringer agreed and said it was a huge success and she and Councilmembers recognized staff, the Chamber, Community Foundation, and others for their support.

Councilmember Kwok provided a report on the Emergency Preparedness Commission who are getting ready for wildfire season. He reported the Wildfire Preparedness booklet has been updated which will reach everyone’s mailbox very soon. Two zoom presentations will be given by the EPC in July and August, along with the safety officials.

Councilmember Dawson asked if applications were being received for the Planning Commission and other commissions with vacancies. Ms. Srivatsa said she and Mr. Wolff spent last week and the City has received no applications for the Planning Commission.

B. City Manager’s Update
Recommendation: Receive and file.

City Manager Srivatsa reported Ursus the Bear public art piece and a couple of parking meters were was damaged when a huge oak tree fell on them over the weekend. Jenny Rosen and Erling Horn are working with the artist to have the piece removed and prepared. Vice Mayor Anduri also reported there was a major problem at the Community Garden with an oak tree falling affecting several buildings.

12. WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS – None

13. ADJOURNMENT – 11:59 p.m. in honor of National Flag Day.

APPROVED:
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Teresa Gerringer, Mayor
ATTEST:

City Council Meeting Page 34 of 34 June 13, 2022
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Joanne Robbins, City Clerk