City Council Special Meeting Page 1 of 35 March 23, 2024 7 City of Lafayette
City Council Special Meeting
Minutes
Lafayette Community Center – Sequoia Room March 23, 2024 500 St. Mary’s Road, Lafayette, California 9:00 a.m.
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City Council Special Meeting Page 2 of 35 March 23, 2024 Mayor Dawson called the Regular City Council meeting to order at 9:00 a.m.
2. ROLL CALL
Present: City Council: Mayor Dawson; Vice Mayor Kwok; Councilmembers Anduri, Candell, and McCormick
Absent: None
Staff Present: Niroop Srivatsa, City Manager; Tracy Robinson, Administrative Services Director; Mala Subramanian, City Attorney; Suzanne Iarla, Communications Analyst
3. Disclosure and/or Take Action on Remote Participation due to Just Cause or Emergency Circumstances Pursuant to AB 2449 (Gov. Code section 54953(f).)
4. ADOPTION OF AGENDA
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Candell/McCormick) to adopt the agenda. Roll Call Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Dawson, Kwok, Anduri, Candell, and McCormick; Noes: None).
5. PUBLIC COMMENTS – (For Items not on the Agenda) – None
6. INTRODUCTIONS, REVIEW OF AGENDA AND DESIRED OUTCOMES Nadine Levin, Municipal Resource Group, LLC, gave a PowerPoint presentation and spoke about meeting protocols, break, the agenda, and desired outcomes of the workshop. She asked if Councilmembers would like to accomplish anything else not otherwise reflected on the agenda.
Councilmember Anduri asked when the Council will discuss matters related to staff capacity.
City Manager Niroop Srivatsa stated she will provide a brief update on staffing and vacancies before talking about priorities.
Mayor Dawson said the priorities for the 2023-24 priorities includes the review of the previous year.
Ms. Levin then conducted an ice breaker exercise with the group.
7. PRESENTATION ON THE CITY’S FINANCES BY ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES DIRECTOR Ms. Levin introduced the item, stating the Council and staff will talk about accomplishments over the last year, human, technical, and financial resources of the City, priorities of these, and said she works with many cities who all deal with challenges of human resources.
City Council Special Meeting Page 3 of 35 March 23, 2024 Administrative Services Director Tracy Robinson gave a PowerPoint presentation, stating for the past year and a half, the General Fund trend is showing the City will start to experience annual deficits of roughly $2 million starting next year. The forecast in the packet is the same as is in the current budget. One of the questions the City gets asked is why has this happened and what is contributing to this deficit. She said there are many long, complicated answers but she will try to distill those into six distinct things today, as follows:
1. Pavement Management: This is causing a deficit of approximately $1 million a year. The City has 93 miles of road in the City, and they are currently at an average PCI (pavement condition index) of 75. This is very good, and the City worked very hard for many years to get roads paved.
However, the City must maintain those roads now.
They found one of the main reasons they have this $1 million deficit is that in the past 7 years, costs of contracted labor and materials for road paving has increased 75%. In addition, the cost of the ancillary infrastructure for Complete Streets and safety projects such as curbs, ramps, sidewalks, pathways, flashing beacons, bio-retention facilities, have been re-directed away from pure pavement projects. These items added infrastructure inventory that the City now needs to maintain on an on-going basis. This is the biggest factor of the $2 million deficit.
2. Cost of Insurance: This includes general liability, property, and employment insurance and this has gone up 121% over the last 3 years. The cost increase for this category is due to a number of factors including a nationwide increase in catastrophic losses due to weather events and wildfire.
It is not just limited to California. Large insurance companies are nationwide, so something that happens in Florida can affect insurance rates here in California.
Other reasons include an escalating propensity of people to sue, and this has been coupled with large increases in the size of jury awards. Courts and juries are more often favoring plaintiffs. She pointed out that Lafayette has not specifically experienced any disaster-related losses or large awards, but they are in a pool. So, anything that affects the pool affects Lafayette. Factors are driving the insurance industry as a whole towards higher premiums and this accounts for an increase in expenses of approximately $200,000 to $250,000 a year.
3. Unfunded Mandates: The State continues to push their responsibilities for implementing some of their programs and policies onto cities without providing any additional revenue. A good example is stormwater pollution. The Water Board consistently increases the requirements for compliance without improving the City’s ability to increase revenues. Over the last 10 years, the costs have increased by about 78%. The current gap is about $300,000 a year between what the City gets in revenue for the program and what they spend on that program.
Another example is staff time and resources. The City will need to implement the requirements of the Housing Element and there is $200,000 annually set aside to assist with affordable housing projects., There are 60 programs committed to HCD that need to be implemented which will, alone, require one full-time equivalent employee. These are two examples and there are others.
City Council Special Meeting Page 4 of 35 March 23, 2024
4. Maintenance: It has been the City’s practice for many years to set aside money into sinking funds to accrue funds over time for large capital expenses that they know the City will incur in the future.
It is a very financially prudent practice and they put money away for things like ballfield rehabilitation, vehicles, the Community Center roof repair, and playground equipment. However, inflation is taking a toll, and we realize these amounts are likely not sufficient for the future.
During the last budget cycle, they added $110,000 annually to these funds, but even that amount is not nearly enough.
A good example is that they have about $755,000 accrued in a fund for a roof and HVAC in the Community Center. The most current cost estimate to do those repairs is $4.2 million. So, this is $1 million more than what staff estimated it to be. This is a real-world example of how inflation affects the City. They have not put it in the budget because they frankly do not have the money for it right now. The more the City adds in streets, roads, pathways, ramps, and those things will all require on-going maintenance that they should be putting money away for.
5. Inflation: In general, anyone who has been to the grocery store or to fill their gas tank is well aware that things are much more expensive than they used to be. The problem is that the City’s revenues are not increasing at the same rate as expenses. Ms. Robinson said that although it is a huge gap; however, it starts off relatively small and the gap accrues and it widens over time. A very good example of that is the Downtown Core Area Landscape and Lighting District. Again, this is a program for which the revenue is capped and has been for a number of years. The cost to maintain that area has risen about 23% over the last 10 years. As the revenue is capped, expenses keep creeping up and right now the annual gap is about $250,000 a year.
6. Community Standards: A recent survey indicated that 93% of residents polled were satisfied with their quality of life, which is great. People love living here. Lafayette residents do have high standards for their city, for staff. Residents, l want the downtown to be vibrant and welcoming.
They want to be informed, they want to have a say in State legislation, they want safe streets for pedestrians, bicyclists, drivers, they want infrastructure that is well-maintained, and they want a safe, healthy, beautiful, and sustainable environment. Every single program that the City has put into place to maintain, enhance, and improve the environment are all worthwhile and wellintentioned but they come at a cost. That cost is continuing to increase over time.
Councilmember Anduri asked if the numbers go with the third, fourth and fifth items. Ms. Robinson said the unfunded mandates such as stormwater is $300,000, roughly $200,000 for affordable housing, an FTE at roughly $150,000. Without considering the huge capital for maintenance of the Community Center building, they have added $110,000 to sinking fund costs just last year.
Inflation is hard to quantify over time, but she can point to the $250,000 gap just for the Core Area Landscape and Lighting District. Community standards is one that is a bit squishy, but they have budgeted for some additional staff. Again, small projects add up and so there is additional staff associated with carrying out those projects. Perhaps 2 FTEs or $300,000 and then maybe there is a Senior Engineer for all the programs the City wants to do for traffic and safety mitigation.
Councilmember McCormick asked if this was included in the community standard bucket for traffic and safety. Ms. Robinson said the Council could put it back under pavement management, but these are really like ancillary items.
City Council Special Meeting Page 5 of 35 March 23, 2024 Councilmember McCormick said there is magic in 3. When the Council is talking about something, 6 seems too much to him. He can lose people by reporting this. He thinks if they can find the 3 that have the intersection of the highest fiscal impact AND the greatest community resonance of safety, this is a sweet spot, but this is just his thought.
Ms. Robinson said they struggle with trying to be as transparent as possible while giving the message.
Councilmember McCormick said he thinks there is the lead which is about 3 but then there is always the follow-up they can have.
Ms. Robinson said half of it is maintenance of roads. Councilmember McCormick said this is an easy one to communicate.
Councilmember Candell said although the next one is unfunded mandates of $650,000. Ms. Robinson said there are more, and Councilmember Candell said it is way more than $ 2 million and Ms. Robinson would say yes, the costs have increased by about $3 million. The City is able to absorb some of the new programs, but not all of them, but these things are worth about $3 million, but $2 million is the gap.
Councilmember Candell asked how much money has the City committed to grants like School Street which has matches. Ms. Robinson said this is a good question because sometimes the City gets grants but must put in its own money. So again, the money the City used to put into roads and pavement now going to these ancillary projects to improve safety.
City Manager Srivatsa provided an example about the St. Mary’s/School St. /Topper Lane project. The total project is $4.6 million and $370,000 comes from Measure J, $750,000 from OBAG, $400,000 from the City’s developer fees, and then $3.1 million from the federal government. So, the other three were matching grants to the $3.1 million. Some of those funds could have been used on other projects, but the City chose to allocate them to this project.
Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.
Vice Mayor Kwok asked if there will be discussion or asked if staff was looking for direction from the Council.
City Manager Srivatsa suggested that her next item is a companion piece to Ms. Robinson’s presentation, so when that is done, staff would benefit from Council direction.
8. SETTING PRIORITIES FOR FY2024-25
Recommendation: Identify priorities, seek consensus, and discuss next steps City Council Special Meeting Page 6 of 35 March 23, 2024 Ms. Srivatsa gave a PowerPoint presentation, stating she wants to provide an update on the status of the Council’s priorities and also touch briefly on staffing. Last year around this time, the Council established 4 priorities. A lot of work has gone into wildfire prevention and utility safety and if the Council notes that almost on a monthly basis, there was something being done to further this priority. The tasks in white are those where there were public touchpoints. The Chief is extremely proud that we now have 19 Firewise neighborhoods which is a significant increase over the last year. They are continuing to partner with ConFire, who have been excellent in meeting with City staff on a regular basis. They understand the Council’s emphasis on this priority, and she gave a shout-out to the north BART Firewise neighborhood which has initiated a free chipping day program. Staff hopes the Fire Department will extend this service to the other Firewise neighborhoods in the future.
Ms. Srivatsa then presented planned events. They are holding Town Halls, a chipping day, Open Houses, and the National Night Out with the Fire District. The Lamorinda Public Safety Open House is new and is being coordinated by John Cornell. It will likely be at the Reservoir, and they will have all the public agencies associated with public safety which includes fire, and it is an informational open house where people can learn more about emergency preparedness and safety.
She wanted to touch base on two new projects; one is a pilot project. Staff has been working with Chief Broschard and ConFire to see if they could start chipping away at the brush clearance along major evacuation routes. The Fire District has Crew 12 that will come out free of charge as funded by Measure X to help clear brush and trees along major evacuation routes. Chief Alldritt has contacted the Fire District, and they are willing to give Lafayette Crew 12 for 2 weeks; one in May and one in June. The crews would work 7 to 8 hours a day and they think they can clear about 1 to 3 miles in that timeframe. Staff is still identifying which evacuation route to tackle. They can either choose route and work with the homeowner’s association to get it done or tackle all of them and get the first mile done on all evacuation routes. They need to consult with the Fire District on what is the optimum. But it is something they want to undertake this year and it goes towards achieving the Council’s priority.
Last year when the Councilmembers discussed priorities, they talked about an evacuation study based on the Attorney General Bonta’s thresholds of significance. Planning staff has not done work on that given the Housing Element. It is a task for the Planning Department. They would be taking the lead and then fire, police, and engineering would be involved. In talking to the Lamorinda cities, staff realized that everyone wants to do somewhat of the same thing because emergency evacuation is on top of everyone’s minds. Staff had an initial meeting with the 3 Lamorinda City Managers, Planning Directors, Fire and Police, and from there and primarily because of funding, CCTA was approached. CCTA is actually excited and willing to do a county-wide evacuation analysis. It will cover evacuation planning, identify communities with inadequate access to transportation, planning for increased transportation options like E-bikes along evacuation corridors, and also help local agencies identify the most vulnerable areas in town.
This study does not get to where Lafayette was heading specifically which was thresholds of significance, but given the City’s limited resources at this time, she does not see that study beginning for the next 6 months at least, given the Housing Element and its implementation. Staff is recommending at this time that we participate in the countywide evacuation analysis. She believes CCTA will be presenting the scope of the study to the Tri-City Councils in May, but at the same time, we are trying to also influence the scope of the study to see if we can add on what we had wanted to do. What they had hoped to do, which is cutting-edge, is establishing thresholds of significance, but they can certainly give it a try.
City Council Special Meeting Page 7 of 35 March 23, 2024 She wanted to point this out to the Council because this is a deviation from the Council’s direction to do a more focused local Lafayette thresholds of significance study. But this is exciting because they will have the financial resources to undertake a good study and will have someone else managing the project.
City Manager Srivatsa also pointed out that in the utility safety, for the first time they added something to the General Plan that specifically calls out the importance of working with utility partners and to ensure safety for all community members. This had previously not existed in the General Plan.
Regarding the goal to improve pedestrian and traffic safety, she thinks the City has been successful. The Council invested $ 1.25 million in school safety improvements around schools. They have completed about 80% of those improvements and have a few more to go. Last year, they updated the Safety Plan and the Traffic Calming Manual, which gives the City a basis for capital and transportation planning. They are also working on the project that connects neighborhoods to the downtown. The first one is the $ 4.6 million project in the streets around Stanley Middle School.
The City initiated a Slow Down Lafayette campaign last year and all equipment has been purchased. Yard signs have been distributed. The website has 14 speed surveys where people can go in and look at their streets and see how fast people drive on them and enforcement is underway. Flyers and have been distributed. A couple of weeks ago, Ms. Iarla and the team created a Slow Down Lafayette flyer for crosswalks because staff heard from residents that especially around the middle school, people are not stopping at crosswalks, and there is some concern. The flyer was sent to the PTA’s, the superintendent distributed it to the schools, and this is an on-going endeavor. Also planned is the pathway that will safely lead from the EBRPD parking lot on Pleasant Hill Road to Springhill, the continued improvements around Stanley Middle School, the crossing across Mt. Diablo at Hampton, and then the pedestrian pathway project which is the ped/bike connection from the southern entrance to BART to Mt. Diablo Boulevard.
Next is the Fiscal Sustainability Plan and the Ad-Hoc Committee has met a number of times and now, as Ms. Robinson mentioned, they are beginning to prepare for an informational outreach and are encouraging everyone to sign up for Fiscal Sustainability News, and they can talk more about it when the Council dives deep into their priorities, where they can talk about schedules.
The fourth priority which started off as a specific plan update and then turned into it looking at the Mt.
Diablo corridor to make sure the downtown was safe and accessible to all forms of mobility, be it walking, bicycles, or vehicles. Staff has not started on this project. Again, they are waiting for the Housing Element to be completed, but in speaking for staff, she would seek the Council’s direction not on the specifics but on what outcomes the Council would like to achieve with the study. This will help staff flesh out the scope of work and a budget and then return to the Council for direction.
City Manager Srivatsa said they also talk about the iceberg and focus on priorities, but she wants to say that thanks to the Council’s direction, staff did many other things last year. A tremendous amount of work was done in 2023 and the start of 2024 but she will not go through them. She added that a couple of weeks ago, they completed the Community Center Playground project was completed, which was a big achievement.
She asked for any questions on the status of the Work Plans, and there were none.
Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.
City Council Special Meeting Page 8 of 35 March 23, 2024 City Manager Srivatsa referred to staffing and said in 2020/21 the City conducted a staffing assessment study and given the amount of work staff undertakes daily, the recommendation from the consultant was that the City hire an additional Senior Engineer who would handle the traffic safety CIP projects and also be in charge of delivering the capital projects for the Parks, Trails, and Recreation Department (PTR). PTR has a 5-year CIP which includes the Buckeye parking area and the ballfields, includes upgrades to the Community Center, and unfortunately, given the current staffing in Engineering, PTR has had to contract out the inspection services. This comes at a price which is significantly more expensive.
They also got the authorization from the Council to hire one additional Senior Planner and that person was to focus on State mandated tasks. There are currently two Senior Planners positions vacant., Finally, there were two Administrative Analyst positions; one for Human Resources, The City needs to invest a lot more time and energy and resources on recruitment, retention, on-boarding, and retention training. The other is a Management Analyst for the City Manager. There are a number of special projects, and they are important to the quality of life for their residents, and there are things that periodically come up and no staff member to assign. For example, the Reservoir Tower, the gatherings at El Curtola Bridge, the Land Acknowledgement Task Force, special events policies, and things that really need to get done to get our house in order but do not have the staff to undertake.
While they are actively recruiting for the two Senior Planner positions, they have not had luck hiring a Senior Engineer. We are competing with regional agencies like EBMUD and CCTA whose pay ranges are far higher than Lafayette’s. She and Ms. Robinson have chosen not to recruit the two Analysts given their fiscal situation.
She concluded her presentation and was available for questions.
Councilmember Anduri asked if the 5positions listed are included in the budget, and the City Manager confirmed.
Mayor Dawson thanked staff for their hard work, knowing their capacity has been stretched. She thinks it is important to figure out how to address this.
City Manager Srivatsa said they have had their share of turnover and what is striking is that 50% of fulltime staff have worked for Lafayette for 4 years or less. She recognizes the need to invest time to make staff want to stay here.
Mayor Dawson said there are staff that have been here over 20 years, and the City also needs to plan for succession.
Councilmember McCormick commented that the staff reports, and work are incredibly amazing, and he questioned what would happen when someone retires. This is the next big issue the City has to deal with.
City Council Special Meeting Page 9 of 35 March 23, 2024 Councilmember Anduri said he was struck looking at the Vistas provided in 2003 where the City cuts services, and all staff agreed to take a 50% cut in their merit increases. People need to understand that, and while 2003 was a different financial situation, the City is not in that kind of situation. Their situation now is to get the backdrop of needing to do more, which they have done over the last year to retain and attract people. He knows they need to be prepared that while they will consider everything, this is probably self-defeating to go backwards.
City Manager Srivatsa said the succession planning, this is on the minds of all department managers.
Middle Managers are sent annually to the Contra Costa Leadership Academy, and it is a 6-month program when middle managers are sent to this academy, and it is an intensive program sponsored by the Contra Costa Public Managers Association. The City also has an educational reimbursement program which contributes towards higher education. They have encouraged staff to take advantage of that or any other training that will improve their leadership skills.
Councilmember Candell said she knows public sector jobs are different than private sector, but she asked if there is a tech gap where people are expecting to come to a City where Lafayette might not have the latest and greatest things they can play with. She asked if this is an issue here or not.
Ms. Robinson said she is not seeing that as an issue. She would say in the recruitments she has been dealing with she has had some salary concerns, especially for the senior people. She has lost some good candidates because she could not meet their salary expectations, and these are people coming from other public agencies. Salary is the biggest thing she has run into. Recruiting Senior Engineers is difficult. It is very specialized from a public sector standpoint. EBMUD pays a lot. The City gathered a list of all the Engineering licenses of everybody in the Bay Area. They then sent individual postcards to all of those people advertising the position so they knew Lafayette was hiring. There were not as many in the pool, and they tried to guess where they would be in their career based on their license number. They got zero hits on that, or maybe one and it was not a good fit. She was surprised that salary was an issue.
Councilmember Candell said in the study, benefits was the biggest deal. Ms. Robinson said she thinks their benefits are really good. What is interesting is that public sector benefits are excellent. The City does not have CalPERS, so this sometimes affects senior people, but lower level is good. Recently, she had a lower entry level position and someone coming from the private sector. The benefits were much better, but this was a younger person who was not going to be making as much in salary and she tried to explain to a 24-year-old how things are going to be much better in 40 years for her, but she has to pay rent today so that is something she has not run into before.
City Manager Srivatsa said she thinks the City’s retirement benefits of the 401K and the City matching is excellent. She also thinks what they have to offer, and she has heard this from staff that they appreciate, is their flexibility. The City allows the two days of tele-work and allows 9/80 schedules. It is not a clock in/clock out office but an informal office where culture is familial and not hierarchical. So, those are the things she has personally heard from the more recent hires. The City is small but important. They allow people to bring their dogs to work which they love, and they have 3 or 4. So, they are trying their best to make this a wonderful, fun place to work, and the fact this is a small City, staff gets to see the fruits of their labor unlike the larger communities. Overall, all cities are poaching off of each other.
City Council Special Meeting Page 10 of 35 March 23, 2024 Vice Mayor Kwok said he had a question about recruitment which talked about how the senior level roles, there was an average of 75 applicants that would come in, but the bottom 25% of the roles there might be 4 or 5 applications. He asked if this is what staff is seeing in this City. Ms. Robinson said it is the opposite. It is much easier in some ways to recruit lower-level entry again because they do not get the public sector experience which is specialized. If they have been in the public sector, they are not invested in CalPERS as much because they are more entry level.
So, for the City, she would say it is the opposite; that senior level is very difficult to hire and they hardly received any real qualified applicants. What they get for very senior director level sometimes they can pull from PERS cities who are retired, and they like it here because they can work full-time, and it does not run afoul of PERS rules. But it is just a different world. She has been here for almost 24 years and that is not the model. They have to get comfortable with 3 to 5 good years out of someone and maybe this is the best they can do because it is just a different mindset. This then goes to what the City Manager was talking about, where HR is a full-time role and the way they structured it is sort of one of five things she does that she is spending much more time on.
Mayor Dawson and Councilmembers asked about the structure of the workshop and where they were.
Ms. Levin said the Council can talk about the existing priorities. Staffing will come into that. Finances will come into that, and she suggested moving in that direction. She said they were going to take about a 5- minute break in 10-minutes, so she suggested queuing this up, taking a break, and then come back to it.
She said the Council knows what the priorities are. The City Manager has provided an update. The Council knows the reality of the situation, and she suggested taking them one by one with the idea of seeking more clarification perhaps or any of these at the level that can “fall below the line on the iceberg,” meaning they do not disappear, and they are still very important to the Council, but they do not have to remain as a top priority. In addition to that, if there are any other priorities on the top of Councilmembers’ minds that may or may not reach the consensus, but they can be discussed.
Mayor Dawson suggested first taking a 5-minute break.
BREAK
Mayor Dawson called for a break at 10:05 a.m. and thereafter reconvened at 10:12 a.m.
Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.
Wildfire Prevention and Preparedness and Utility Safety:
Ms. Levin recommended the Council discuss what happened in this last year in terms of how priorities were stated for 2023/24 and they are now talking about 2024/25 . When looking at the priority for wildfire prevention, discuss this among the Councilmembers, what has gone right, whether it needs to be restated in some way and talking more about outcomes than tasks.
Councilmember Anduri said he thinks what has been done in the past year is great. He thinks that dealing with wildfire, it should still be on their priorities because it is a threat for the community, and it impacts many things they need to plan for.
City Council Special Meeting Page 11 of 35 March 23, 2024 There are the things that they do internally to make the community more resilient, and the thinks there are other aspects to wildfire they need to consider and one of them in terms of talking about outcomes is they need to know how their wildfire situation should impact their decisions on development; where they should have development and how extensive the development should be. What he called for two years ago was looking at some way to measure for each area of the City, how long it would take to evacuate and then look at what is the situation now given the number of people who are living in the area for evacuation. He realizes this is a very difficult thing to do, so he will state it in a general sense.
He feels just as he did then, it is very difficult for him to make a decision on where development should occur or if development should occur in specific areas, or even if they should have programs such as encouraging ADUs in high fire severity zones. If they do that, he questioned whether they are putting people at risk. He does not think they have the tools to decide whether either a second development like on the BART property or a program that allows development at FBO sites or development anywhere in terms of ADUs and whether that is appropriate given the impact on the ability to evacuate. It is very difficult to approach that, and staff and he talked yesterday about the new County study which gets them part of the way but not all the way in terms of what is needed. So, this is one element the Council should look at.
Another element of wildfire is whether there are things that Con Fire or even broader they could be looking at that would reduce the danger of wildfire for the City. He questioned whether there are things that should be done to greater ignition detection. He knows now they have cameras that lock in which have been instrumental, but he questioned if there are other things, they can do so they know quicker that ignition has occurred and things they should do that would bring about quicker suppression. He knows there has been discussions about helicopters and other things that can be used, but even those may be very costly to implement. It is also going to be very costly for people to get insurance, so it may be better to spend money on things that will mitigate the wildfire risk and then that may help with insurance. But this is another big area to look at.
Councilmember McCormick said he would normally think they would figure out what the big areas are and then dive down in each one. He wondered if they are talking about 4 or 5 things and then go to each one.
Ms. Levin said the thought is to stay with the current list and as they are going through them, the Council could say something drops off or it goes below the line. She suggested starting with: Is wildfire prevention as stated in 2023/24 as a large category remain as one of the Council’s priorities.
Mayor Dawson said the 2022/23 Council priorities have actually been priorities prior to that time. So, right now, she thinks where they are with the fiscal issues is a good thing to assess how well they have done and whether these still stay at the top. She agrees they might want to first start with all four priorities.
Councilmember Anduri asked if Councilmember McCormick is suggesting they first look at what should the priorities be? Councilmember McCormick said yes, this is how he would think they would do it because then you have an idea of how much work there will be. It would help them with their overall scope of work.
City Council Special Meeting Page 12 of 35 March 23, 2024 Councilmember Anduri said inevitably it will be an iterative process. They may discuss each one and come back and say, given financial issues, it will not be a priority, or it will be a priority.
Councilmember Candell said she knows Con Fire passed rules about home hardening, knows they are not compelling or enforcing them yet. She thinks a lot can be done to educate everybody on how to harden their homes, and what is the most bang for your buck work.
Mayor Dawson said even though it did not show up on their survey as one of the top values, it is the City’s responsibility to build their resilience as much as they can so education will be a key part of it. Information should be identified as to what the City can do to support the programs residents can be comfortable with or the evacuation routes which will be important. So, there should be more information about what can happen during an evacuation, and she asked if there is a mechanism for risk analysis from fire agencies.
Ms. Srivatsa said there is, but according to the Fire Department this is a new area of study. They probably will be the first in the County to be undertaking the study. They cannot do it themselves and must involve the Fire District and Police in doing so. They can do that, but it will cost money and will absorb staff time.
Someone needs to own it on staff and how is the City going to pay for it.
Mayor Dawson cited the importance to partner with fire agencies.
Ms. Srivatsa said Orinda had a sales tax measure on the ballot which passed, and a large sum of money from the tax has gone towards education, outreach, preparedness, evacuation, and vegetation removal.
They have an oversight committee shaping the actions. This is a huge task and very important.
Councilmember McCormick asked if there is education about fire insurance. They were presented with a cancellation, and they cut down the trees, got the property all cleaned up, and their insurance was reinstated. But there are 14 people on their street and 2 have applied for the California Fair Plan. So, he thinks there should be guidance on what homeowners can do, and link people to the Fair Plan and linking them to Firewise communities and discounts on insurance. There are pros and cons and people are looking for information which would be helpful for people.
Vice Mayor Kwok said he agrees that wildfire prevention needs to be on the list, and it needs to be number one, as Councilmember Anduri said. This is an existential threat and to him this is a long-term problem that they must have at the very top of their priorities. He thanked staff for sharing the 2003 Vistas because it gives an idea of what priorities were 10 and 20 years ago which were sort of the same, except for the wildfire threat. He hopes it will be kept as Number one. On the public engagement side, they could do more. Having been on the Emergency Preparedness Commission, he sees how much the City is doing its job to prepare for wildfire. They also need the community to do things as well because it is not a onesided effort.
City Council Special Meeting Page 13 of 35 March 23, 2024 In looking at MOFD, they are structured differently, have some advantages over the City, they have their own dedicated fire district for those two cities and people know fire danger is high in that district. They have some robust programs in place, so Lafayette does not have to reinvent the wheel when they see their next-door neighbors implementing some best practices. So, he would like to see what public engagement programs they use which Lafayette could also do here. He is encouraged to hear there are 19 Firewise communities, which is more than doubled from 7 where they were one year ago. The public is interested in this because of the insurance cancellations. Therefore, he would say when looking to the next fiscal year, that they dial up public engagement and allocate and budget for it. This would be a way to measure their commitment to the threat.
Mayor Dawson suggested doing as much as they can to model after what the other two cities are doing, but it would be a lot more money to contribute to the District. She thinks it would be interesting to see the data from the other communities given their partnerships.
Mayor Dawson said it sounds as if all Councilmembers think this should remain a priority.
Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period.
STELLA WOTHERSPOON said she is glad to hear this is a number one priority for the Council. She pointed out that the Council will also be thinking about making some adjustments or potentially making changes to the roadway network. Some of that will come up in the second priority. Particularly, she is thinking about Moraga Road and the reconstruction and being able to stripe different configurations. This is a major evacuation route, and she thinks in order to undertake that project and evaluate ways it could be used the Council must start with an evacuation analysis that is robust that looks at intersection level data.
What they had in the Housing Element EIR was at a big neighborhood level.
The City does not have the data on how long it will take to evacuate, but the consultants have it. They said in the report that if the City funds a much more rigorous study, they can get into a lot more detail, but this has not happened, and it has to. She thinks there is an opportunity to just look at Orinda who, as part of their Safety Element, conducted a comprehensive evacuation analysis that was intersection-based, and they had a number of scenarios that may or may not be appropriate for Lafayette, but the City could learn from them. She read through it and needs to read it again. PlaceWorks prepared Orinda’s element so it is the same as Lafayette’s consultant. With respect to joining MOFD, on the surface it sounds like a great idea. Their Chief is a vanguard of fire science is so on top of this, but it might only be CalPERS participants so this may be an issue.
ROBERT LAVOIE echoed Ms. Wotherspoon’s comments about the streets. This has been a big concern of his related to housing as well and the perfect example is Boyer Court ban on on-street parking recently.
There are many streets in Lafayette that do not have the width to accommodate additional parking and the new bubble map for expanding density 400% is pushing up past his house which is at Moraga Road and St. Mary’s. So, O’Connor Street, Herman Drive, Eastview, Rowe Place are all streets that are basically one lane streets if you get on-street parking. The fire evacuation issue is a real problem, and it needs to be addressed up front when talking about increasing density because you are basically designing problems with the limited infrastructure the City has.
City Council Special Meeting Page 14 of 35 March 23, 2024 If Moraga Road is narrowed with traffic calming and bike lanes when they already have a St. Mary’s trail for the bikes if they want to get off the street, this would be a disaster in terms of evacuation. Every day at school and commute times, the street becomes a parking lot already.
Councilmember Candell said in talking with CCTA, she asked if they are going to do a study for smart signals and asked if they can get CCTA because Moraga Road is an evacuation route for Moraga as well, can a good study be done on Moraga Road.
Mayor Dawson said this was her impression of the study, which was focused on emergency evacuation coordination, so she would hope that includes that.
Ms. Srivatsa said at the Tri-Cities meeting, the intention was to have the evacuation study and then an update on smart signals.
Improve Pedestrian and Traffic Safety and Multi-Modal Mobility:
Ms. Levin moved onto the next priority and said the Council has heard all of the things that have occurred or are occurring. Some of them have become more normalized. In this category, she asked if there are additional outcomes that may be beyond what will continue to happen the Council feels should be considered. And perhaps if there are elements that will continue to occur during the fiscal year.
Ms. Srivatsa said these are the planned projects consistent with priorities. This year, the City is receiving the annual request from the federal representatives. This is the time for the City to ask for grant applications. The City needs matching funds and also if they do get the money, they do not currently have the staff to implement it, and it will cost more if they contract it out.
She discussed the projects on the CIP for the next year in addition to street maintenance projects and projects going out to bid. They need to keep the PCI index at a certain level, but the priority is they want safe streets for all, safety improvements, a laser focus on this issue which means part of staff’s time is spent looking at specific projects that need priority.
Councilmember McCormick asked and confirmed that anything added to the list would be unfunded. Ms.
Srivatsa said this is an in-house priority and this is directly related to the City staff’s work plan. The first three have already gone to CPAC, is on Mr. Moran’s CIP program, and in addition, they have to stabilize the bank at St. Mary’s Road, so there are other projects that are not priority-focused that they are doing.
They may have to demolish the Campagna building and the Council has to decide what to do with it, so this is another task. Orinda is meeting the efforts on smart signals, and they have staff involved there.
They are doing a bridge maintenance design, so they have other tasks.
Councilmember Candell asked if they received a grant for the walkway to the Reservoir, and Ms. Srivatsa confirmed, and they applied for two grants and they got the $900,000 for the West Reach Creek Access project and that will be tackled by their engineering staff. Receiving grant funds is great, but they are also thinking of capacity and adding the $ 900,000 for the West Reach project would maximize staff time.
Mayor Dawson asked if there was a matching fund for that, and Ms. Srivatsa said it is staff time. It will be designed in the next fiscal year and construction thereafter.
City Council Special Meeting Page 15 of 35 March 23, 2024 Mayor Dawson cited the great work done thus far and noted the City is 80% into the projects identified in the work plan. The focus was around schools specifically, even though the improvements tie into the pathways. She thinks they have made great strides and while there may be things they can still do; she did not know it should have specific focus and budget outside of what they are already doing for capital improvements for traffic and general safety right now. So, she did not think it needed to be as high a priority. She thinks it could be moved to a lower priority.
Councilmember Anduri agreed there has been fantastic progress in terms of this priority. Having Patrick Golier has been fantastic and all the things that have been done, so he thinks they are at the point now where it no longer needs to be one of the priorities.
Councilmember Candell agreed, and she thinks people notice, it has changed behaviors, and the things the City is doing now are under that but not as focused. These are on-going tasks rather than a Council priority at this point, but she suggested advertising they are doing that as still on-going.
Councilmember McCormick agreed.
Ms. Srivatsa said this will be on the staff’s minds as the City designs projects. What they may not do is apply for grants to further this priority because that translates to CIP projects which may take funds away from others.
Vice Mayor Kwok said he is a little mixed on this because on one hand they have put so much on this topic in the last two years to focus on it. Vision Zero is a long-term commitment in this so in a way they institutionalized their commitment to improving pedestrian and traffic safety, so it is a win. He would not want to de-prioritize it as a way of saying it is not important anymore.
So, maybe this does not have to be on their list of four and at the same time when he looks at the changes that will happen in the downtown as a result of the Housing Element in the next 8 years, the importance of transforming their downtown to being multi-modal friendly in terms of pedestrians and bike paths he thinks it is a critical role for the City to plan for all changes that will happen. This is not an easy thing to execute on and he was not sure it should go on this year’s priorities, so he could see it coming off and he could also see them saying it is important for the next 8 years.
Mayor Dawson recognized that this is institutionalized, and it is also an issue of when they look at priorities. It is not that it will go away, but just that it will not rise to the particular focus in the next fiscal year, although it should be embedded in everything they do when planning. Councilmembers agreed.
Councilmember McCormick said he is a fan of having fewer larger priorities than lots of small priorities.
He thinks it would be a shame if they cannot apply for grants if the City does not have the funding or staff to do it. This is a consequence of the City’s budget situation, but he is in support of the majority of the Council.
City Council Special Meeting Page 16 of 35 March 23, 2024 Ms. Levin said when something has been a priority and it falls below the line and becomes routine, there are certain things of more importance in the minds of staff. Ms. Srivatsa said it will be going back to the basics of maintaining their roads, making sure their pathways are safe, and looking at projects to maintain the City’s infrastructure will probably be the way the engineers will focus that work. To have one or two nice projects a year like the Rain Garden or the West Reach project will be great, but that takes away from the basic responsibilities of the Engineering Department.
Next Thursday, management staff is getting together to develop Work Plans based on discussions today.
She will definitely convey what the Council said. It will be more in their DNA to look out for pedestrians, bikes, and mobility, but there is not going to be a laser focus.
Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period.
STELLA WOTHERSPOON said she appreciates the comments, and it makes a lot of sense. She is glad there will be continued focus but more in an autopilot way. They have a lot of foundation work that has been done and they will see it through to its conclusion. She thinks Vision Zero is more than just a policy as it is a program and she asked how that fits in. They do not have a task force anymore, any land she is aware of to do on-going reporting or analysis, so this is something she wants to put out there. She thinks it would be useful to do to keep it in the mix and sort of focused.
She does not know what the West Reach project was. It said 80% was done on the schools’ project and she hopes the rest will be completed this summer even though they do not appear on the pending list.
Lastly, education is a really important part of that priority of improving safety and she does not know if it is possible to continue to work on that. She has raised with TransCirc to continue to pursue is the issue with E-bikes and safety and the use of them, where they are allowed, and which ones need driver’s licenses, and she did not think this would take a lot of staff time or cost to produce. It would be really impactful in improving safety and behaviors. She did not think it would be expensive for capital improvements but more about communicating with the public, especially with everyone getting these new micro-mobility devices. She wants them to be as safe as possible while providing utility.
Mayor Dawson said similar to the ETF who researched and brought forward the ban on gas leaf blowers, it would be great and as an objective for TransCirc Commission to come up with research and information regarding E-bikes. The Council is very mindful of costs and staff time but members on the Commission can bring up ideas and form subcommittees and at some point, bring this to the Council for consideration. So, she encouraged Ms. Wotherspoon to go down that path.
Ms. Srivatsa said that the 20% of school safety projects pertains to improvements around Springhill and Pleasant Hill Road and Mr. Luttropp was going to bundle them into a capital project to get them done.
She explained that the West Reach project is the creek west form Sotheby’s to Village Center Drive. The plan is to open up the creek, clear the creek from vegetation, have educational signs, and it is one of the tasks in the Creeks Master Plan which the Creeks Committee has advocated for.
Councilmember Candell referred to E-bike safety and asked if they have seen some legislation about this through bills in Sacramento. Ms. Srivatsa said she can check.
Create a Mt. Diablo Corridor and Downtown Specific Plan:
City Council Special Meeting Page 17 of 35 March 23, 2024 Ms. Srivatsa said this has been on the Work Plan over the last two years, but staff has not commenced work on it. She would like direction on what the Council would like coming out of this plan.
She asked if it included pedestrian/bike safety and mobility, transforming Mt. Diablo to a truly great street that everyone can use, amenities that would be offered, and balancing housing and economic development. Once the Housing Element is certified, rezonings occur, and objective design standards are completed, there will be 60 housing implementation programs to be done. She asked what is the scope of work and what are the desired outcomes.
Councilmember Anduri said this one is definitely one of the priorities. Two years ago, they made this a priority because the reason they did is that 2114 units is part of the housing element goal and almost all of those are in the downtown area. Two years ago, they said their priority was to develop a plan that would cover the Mt. Diablo corridor which included the Terraces, the BART area, and have a plan for those.
Last year, they changed that a little bit and they ended up referring to specific tasks associated with the Mt. Diablo Corridor, and he thinks they need to continue that this year and identify specific tasks. Two years from now, they need to focus on the entire plan that covers what they will do in the corridor, but they need to focus first on preparing the objective design standards for housing developments in the corridor. Part of what they agreed to have as part of their Housing Element is that they need to establish that, and they need to increase the objective design standards.
The second thing they need to focus on is developing a plan for improving multi-modal mobility in the corridor and to minimize the use of cars in the corridor. If they have an additional 2,000 units over the next 8 years or even the next 16 years, they need to find a plan that will give them new ways to look at development for pedestrians and for bicyclists that allow people that move in to have cars or ways they can travel within the downtown area. So, they are ways they plan for pedestrians and bicycles in the downtown for mobility and transit.
The third is they need to focus on the development agreement for the DeSilva property which will be important. Fourth is that they need to have discussion about the BART lots for the next cycle. Fifth, they need to consider zoning updates and changes to protect commercial uses on the ground floor in the area, and then sixth is looking at RFPs for 949 Moraga Road.
So, instead of looking at an entire plan they need to look at a few of the more important things to implement the Housing Element and the most important items.
Ms. Levin asked for discussion around the items Councilmember Anduri mentioned.
Councilmember McCormick said he thinks focusing on the downtown they will spend the next half year to discuss the Park Theater reopening, and likely it will be live in a couple of years. Now that they will have this additional asset in this inaccessible part of downtown in many ways, what does that mean from a traffic focus perspective? This is important.
City Council Special Meeting Page 18 of 35 March 23, 2024 He thinks they have the historical Plaza Way overlay district, and he worries that the whole thing has crumbled a little with the housing laws, with the no net loss, and everything they have to do, and he thinks they should relook at the overlay because it is not really valid anymore. Some thought is needed in conjunction with the theater and everything that is happening there. Also, as they look toward the Housing Element and new units, to think about the downtown green space and parks that will help provide outdoor space, given the 2,000 units. He loves what Ms. Srivatsa said, “how to make Mt. Diablo a great street.” It is making it accessible to bikes, E-bikes, pedestrians, but also others. It is a heavy-duty priority and being more specific is important.
Councilmember Candell added that it is a navigation route, so they have to be very mindful about it being an evacuation route as well. It is just unfortunate to be perfectly honest. She suggested looking at the whole Safeway to Whole Foods area if they can somehow repurpose one of the strip malls and see if there isn’t room there to put another park. It is a big site and if they can configure it right, they might be able to get some open space out of those big areas. They can see if there is any interest from the owners.
Vice Mayor Kwok said he is in agreement this is very important, and he can’t wait for the Housing Element to get locked down so what can they do to make some progress, and therefore, dissecting it into some items that are not tied to the Housing Element and get some headway done. He supports keeping this in.
Mayor Dawson said she thinks all of them are really concerned with responsibility of keeping downtown a vibrant place. When she began on the Council, it was “create a vibrant downtown and support the business community.” This is what they are still trying to focus on—a vibrant and safe downtown. What they should do is update the DSP, but this is a massive undertaking and a lot of resources. Right now, they can take the tasks for a long-term vision. Hopefully, as things get better, the City can undertake the DSP and whatever they are trying to focus on this year plays into that.
She thinks it is very important to focus on the objectives within the priorities for those that play into the Housing Element. The DeSilva plan is one of those and something that can be exciting. So, she agrees they need to break this down.
Councilmember Anduri said the objective standards are the first thing, but the most important thing after that is to figure out how to make transportation work so the 2000 new units will not result in 2000 new cars in the downtown. Just as an example, with the DeSilva property, if they put 300 units there, they need to figure out what they do for Mt Diablo Boulevard between that project and the downtown in terms of a new bike lane which they do not have now so that might affect what they do with the roads. He referred to the West Reach project of $900,000, and in looking at the plan for the downtown creek plan and look at pictures for what they are proposing for that, it includes taking over some of the parking and he suggested using that for bike lanes. So, they cannot really plan ahead with the $900,000 for a project until they determine how that impacts bicycle and pedestrian routes. So, the first thing they need to figure out what they need to do in order to provide for transportation.
Mayor Dawson said parking will be an issue because there is minimum parking, so they will need to carve out more space for bikes and pedestrians, and this might impact their parking space they have now. It sounds like a lot of this will come from Planning staff. The Council will need to talk about when getting to the fiscal sustainability in general is how much it is costing them to now have staff here and/or relevant to a consultant to help them do this.
City Council Special Meeting Page 19 of 35 March 23, 2024 Ms. Levin said when looking at these, she asked if this is the kind of direction in terms of outcomes when looking at 2024/25. Some of these will go beyond that and she asked if more clarity is needed.
Ms. Srivatsa said Council has identified 11 tasks and each one of them would last 6 months to one year.
This is in addition to the requirements of processing development applications and completing State mandated requirements. She would say at the face of it, they do not have the capacity. What may be useful is prioritizing these 11 tasks and then staff can go back and flesh them out in terms of resources and costs.,
She would be happy to work with Ms. Levin to write them up. In addition to processing development applications and Housing Element implementation, she had a meeting with Planning yesterday and they are still updating the General Plan. At some point, we will need to pause on certain tasks and focus on others, which is another thing to consider.
Councilmember Candell asked what direction does the Council think they will go on objective standards.
Councilmember Anduri said he would like to do something like Santa Cruz where they have long reports that show objective standards.
Ms. Srivatsa noted the goal was after they submit the Housing Element to the State, staff is drafting an RFP for objective standards, and that will start while they wait.
Councilmember Candell suggested identifying the particulars of what makes something “pretty and happy” here, and she asked if these are the kinds of things they can include in the standards.
Councilmember Anduri said he asked the consultant about the objective standards that might work are the ones similar to Santa Cruz, but there are a number of cities that have adopted them, and they have looked at styles and pictures and that counts as objective.
He said last year they started this when the City Manager presented the report to the City Council on March 13th where they switched from an overall plan for the corridor to 4 things they can achieve first.
They did them in the order of their priority. The first was to update the Plaza Way Overlay District and properties within the district. He thinks they need to have that on their list, but last year at this time they thought they would be able to do something there. They should have it on their list as a contingency.
Number 3 last year was study streetscape design with multi-modal options…and this is number 2 now.
He thinks they need to know how they are going to change the street to allow for greater pedestrian activity before doing any of the other things.
Councilmember Candell said they have those options at the EBMUD Aqueduct where they were going to do something along the creek. Councilmember Anduri agreed and said they have to find a consultant who is thinking about things no one has thought about before and look at the whole thing, including the rightof-way and streets in the downtown and how they can maximize them.
Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period.
City Council Special Meeting Page 20 of 35 March 23, 2024 STELLA WOTHERSPOON said she agrees with everything she has heard. The one thing she emphasized is that you have trade-offs with changing street design which impacts evacuation routes. She thinks unfortunately, the City has a terrible road network in terms of how it connects. They cannot do something to one avenue and just add others available to people to use in different ways. An example is in Berkeley, Shattuck Avenue is just auto oriented and the way Berkeley deals with that is that Milvia, which is a parallel street has a wonderful, protected bike path. So, some cities have more ability with their assets and resources than others and Lafayette has real constraints. She agrees looking at whatever right-of-way or whatever City owned area in that Mt. Diablo Corridor is really critical and the Aqueduct Path is such a nobrainer. They could have that wonderful complete bike/ped path that would connect to every other business on Mt. Diablo and then go right back up to the path. The emphasis should continue to be on trying to capitalize it. They have one boulevard and can only do so much given so many requirements on it.
ROBERT LAVOIE reiterated Ms. Wotherspoon’s comments, said anytime they talk about changing Mt.
Diablo Boulevard, it is the only road through town and everything the City is looking at downtown in terms of the housing plan is projecting to put more pressure on parking. To assume that 2,000 new housing units will be built and there is not going to be any cars is just crazy. They have BART coming along which will need replacement parking if the City builds housing there, and there is a high fire zone on the north, and the street that has banned parking on the south. So, there is no place to put extra vehicles if the City does not create some new parking downtown. He thinks the ultimate solution is having the multi-modal on the aqueduct path and keeping Mt. Diablo for two lanes of traffic and as much parking as they can get for those retailers.
Councilmember Anduri said he just remembered the other thing they need to decide on the multi-modal plan which is outdoor dining. Other cities have come up with permanent ways to do outdoor dining and the City is sort of ad-hoc now because they cannot do anything permanent until they decide what they do with bike lanes and other items.
Mayor Dawson said outdoor dining was to support resiliency coming back from the pandemic and it was also adding to the vibrancy in bringing more people downtown on an on-going basis.
Councilmember McCormick said for this year, the City owes it to the restaurants to give them this. He thinks they need a definition because it is really confusing right now. He asked what is the “corridor,” what is “downtown” so it would be nice to do that.
Councilmember Anduri said it is not the DSP. It is the corridor starting at the end of the DeSilva property and all the way to Deer Hill Road along the boulevard.
Ms. Levin asked what the Council would like to do. There is one more goal from last year to discuss. She asked if the Council wanted to break for lunch, then come back and discuss that or go ahead with that right now.
Mayor Dawson suggested continuing, and Councilmembers agreed.
Develop a Fiscal Sustainability Plan for short-term and long-term needs:
City Council Special Meeting Page 21 of 35 March 23, 2024 Mayor Dawson said this has also been on the Council’s plan for 3 years now and she asked how to start off.
Ms. Srivatsa stated Ms. Robinson can provide an update on what lies ahead.
Ms. Robinson said, as the Council knows, they did complete the benchmark survey. The Council heard the results of that survey at the last Council meeting. Based on the results, a couple of things came out. One is that not a lot of people at this time were actually even aware that the City was potentially facing this gap. Secondly, they really need to embark on an informational outreach to residents and engage them on solving this issue.
Staff polled a little bit on what people thought they might be able to support. There was some support for a sales tax measure. It was within the margin of error, but that was also, again, because they really needed to do the outreach. This is the phase the City is in right now. They are in the outreach phase which was the day after the meeting through the mid-July area. If the Council were to decide to put any kind of a measure on the ballot, they would need to do so at least by early August.
Ms. Robinson said they would need to decide at the second meeting in July, so they are in a time crunch, so they engaged the services of a public relations firm to help the City craft a consistent message that they can present to the public, so the public understands what the issue is. To Councilmember McCormick’s point, they need to have something that is easy to understand and does not take paragraphs even though it is complicated. So, they are embarking upon that right now, and their plan is to get out in front of as many people as possible and use as many vehicles as possible to get the message out—what is the problem, why it is a problem, and then the issues on how they might solve that problem.
Staff is meeting with the consultant for a kick-off meeting next Wednesday. They will be doing several Town Halls different days of the week, different times of days so people can come together. They plan to do mailers, Vistas, plan to have a hopefully robust speaker’s bureau where staff and Councilmembers can go out with a presentation, so it is a consistent message. They want to get in front of as many people as possible because they want to engage people, want them to understand, and they want ideas.
There are limited ways to solve the problem. The City can raise revenue, cut services, and/or some combination of both. The Council has not gotten into those discussions, and they want to do the outreach first. Staff has already done a first path at what services may need to be cut if they either decide not to go out for a revenue measure or that does not pass in November. So, those decisions will need to be made and staff is already working behind the scenes on what that might be.
Mayor Dawson referred to the public relations approach. Staff has talked about this already, which was one of the things that came out of the benchmark survey as well as preparing for it. People do not know what could change in their service levels, and she thinks it is important for them to understand that and not just the problem, but the consequences of it. She asked how that would be presented and she asked if the Council would have that analysis first. She asked to describe what cuts there would be, such as less projects, less service hours, as opposed to losing staff.
City Council Special Meeting Page 22 of 35 March 23, 2024 Ms. Robinson said she thinks that is important and she thinks the Council should talk about how they might be able to present that to the Council. They asked all of the departments in the past to take 10% cuts for everything. This may or may not be the best way to do it. So, what they are asking at the meeting on Thursday when they have the management meeting, they are asking staff to go one step lower,so they cut further. If the Council wants to preserve some things they necessarily will not have to cut deeper into others. Once they get that list together, they can think of ways to present that. It is a delicate balance because they do not want to get too deep in discussing cuts. They want to have an overall idea of what the Council is talking about, but if they were to get to a point where they are actually making those cuts the Council will be talking about it a lot in a lot of detail. It will likely be losses in staff and all those things mentioned like programs, services, etc. She thinks there is a balance.
Also, on the other side there are things which they cannot do or things they are not already doing that they would like to do. They talked about that. When they did the survey originally, they tried to do a hybrid. They need to plug a hole for things they are doing now, but there are aspirational things they would like to do that people have told staff that they want. So, without muddying the water, they need to say this is what they can preserve, and this is how much they need, but there are other things that are consistently being asked for by the public that people need to understand are not even on the table. So, the messaging is going to be important.
Mayor Dawson said in taking a step back, there are fiscal sustainability and planning priorities, and these are core responsibilities. She would say these are first and foremost to be kept.
Councilmember Anduri agreed, and they need to recognize when they put this as one of their priorities two years ago, they were looking at what they described as not just what they are doing now but they also had in mind looking at what people wanted to do such as other services and other investments.
Where they are now in focusing on this year, maybe it is not the long-term needs but short- and mediumterm needs. They are in a situation now where they need to figure out how they are going to have a balanced budget over the next few years.
Councilmember McCormick said what they have done thus far is approved the budget for the PR consultant in helping them with the strategy. He asked if they have or have not figured out the level of the sales tax increase.
Ms. Robinson said they have not.
Councilmember McCormick said this would be meaningful. He worries that this might muddy the water from the communications perspective if they have to figure out the level. He thinks they should talk about survival and what they lose for a lower number. If it is a higher number, they can talk about what they can get on there. It will be challenging to keep the major focus on a mixture because some people will just vote “no.” So, he asked how to manage that.
Councilmember Anduri said he thinks based on what they saw from the survey they are realistically looking at a half percent and it muddies the water if they are looking at more than that. The message is, here is what the City is doing, and just doing what they are doing now will result in a $2 million deficit.
The half percent will plug the gap and so that is what the City is looking at.
City Council Special Meeting Page 23 of 35 March 23, 2024 Councilmember McCormick said he does not agree with that, so they don’t talk about additional things the City still wants to do in this conversation. It is all really symptomatic and if they do not pass the half cent sales tax measure, they lose.
Ms. Robinson said this is what she is concentrating on. They need to be thoughtful about how they bring up the conversation about cuts to the Council. It is important and people need to know. Everybody is going to lose something that is near and dear to their heart and there is still a question about that. They will talk with the consultant and hold a sensitive conversation. Everybody also in the community has their priorities and she can imagine it will be difficult. But again, they balance that with not being so deep that they lose sight of the need to solve this, but they need to know what is on the table, but that will absolutely be part of the discussion.
They also have to talk with staff about it too to be honest because if there are positions, cuts are very critical, and they did not want to hire somebody only to have no money in a year. So, some of the cuts come from positions that are not currently filled, but others possibly could be from positions that are, and that is sensitive.
Councilmember McCormick said if the City were to interview someone for the Senior Planner position and they were to ask about the sales tax measure and cuts, if they were to join the City, he asked if currently the position is not on the chopping block. It would be even harder to hire someone knowing that the position is dependent on a November election, which he worries about.
Vice Mayor Kwok said he thinks they should keep this as a priority for this coming fiscal year, but the fiscal year starts July 1st and the Council will need to act at the third week in July, so the heavy lifting on this topic is already embodied in this year’s progress. So, the question is if they put this measure on the ballot, it is the four months up to the election and it will either pass or not. If it passes, they are either planning on how they are going to spend the money and if it does not pass, how they will cut. He thinks the heavy lifting is happening right now and over the past 12 months, but to make sure they get to the finish line in November, they should keep focused on this all the way through the election. The most important piece is public relations.
He appreciates the idea of keeping the message simple and if they have a $2 million gap and there are $10,000 households in the City, they are talking about $200 per household per year which is needed to fill the gap. The simple message is they have a $200/household gap and is everyone up for paying that and keeping services or not. Then, they would contain that $200 in the form of a sales tax or other tax, but it is still $200 per household at the end of the day.
Councilmember McCormick said the vast majority of customers who pay sales tax are not Lafayette residents.
Vice Mayor Kwok said it could be in the form of a sales tax where some percentage of shoppers or if it is a property tax, it is going to benefit the residents. If they want to do more, they would do $300 or $400 per year in order to do more. But this is the order of magnitude they are talking about and to try to keep it simple. He supports continuing to work on this and know it is the front side of their fiscal year which is most important.
City Council Special Meeting Page 24 of 35 March 23, 2024 Ms. Levin asked and confirmed there were no other comments, and Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period.
ROBERT LAVOIE said he had some general comments on the tax increase. He thinks the budget for the income should be realistic and not conservative. They are tending to make it worse than it looks, and he would encourage the Council to provide the tools for the residents to play around with different scenarios which might help in terms of people understanding what the real problem is, and staffing is a big issue. It has grown dramatically over the years and so things like a hiring freeze or freezing wages for a period of time would help to offset this problem. As they saw in the survey, even the half cent option was not really viable currently and they can do a big marketing push, but he thinks there is a big risk that this will not pass the election. So, they need to look at all options.
Another thing the Council needs to look at is the vacancy line in the budget because there will always be vacancies and how is that budgeted. They want to make sure they have enough vacancies forecasted.
Then, the City needs to itemize any unfunded State mandates and make sure the City demands the State reimburse the City for those things. Their mission was to have a low fee and services town, and this means limited infrastructure. Anything that people want outside of that norm needs to be separately funded. If they need a new park, they raised $100 million for the Library soi they can raise $5 million for the park. If people really want those things, then they need to prioritize them and separately raise funds to realize where the City’s mission and structure is, and the way the City is set up.
If they could encourage businesses to grow downtown even though they are promoting housing, that would be a great thing and maybe they can look at Florida or Texas as they seem to be able to do that better than San Francisco, for example. Also, new housing projects need to pay their fair share of the increased infrastructure and any increases in costs should follow the actual housing built and not the projections because the projections are unrealistic and probably will never be seen.
Mayor Dawson said she does not know if Mr. Lavoie listened to the very beginning where Ms. Robinson reviewed the differential between expenses and revenues and what they have as a shortfall in their reserve which is due to six factors that do not necessarily reflect staffing. So, there are larger factors at play that they have to keep in mind when looking at this challenge.
Councilmember Candell said nexus studies were on the Council’s list and Ms. Srivatsa confirmed this is under the Planning Department.
Ms. Levin suggested a lunch break for 30 minutes and when the Council returns, they want to revisit the three priorities, refine them a bit and she can work with the City Manager on the one when having lunch.
Then, she wants to make sure if there are any other potential things on the Council’s mind that are priorities and get them up there. This will wrap up the day.
Councilmember Anduri asked if they want to talk about any other priorities before looking into the detail.
Ms. Levin said they could start with that when returning from lunch and then do into the detail.
BREAK – 12:00 p.m. to 12:30 p.m.
City Council Special Meeting Page 25 of 35 March 23, 2024 Ms. Levin said the Council had the opportunity to talk about the four priorities from last year. She asked if there were other things the Council wants to put out there and discuss to see if it raises to a level of a priority.
Mayor Dawson said she has one that she thinks would not rise above what is out there, but she thinks it is a big priority for staffing to be able to protect it, have the right resources in place, and the right incentive to keep employees here and to attract them here. She would like to suggest the priority for staff retention.
Councilmember McCormick said given the other 3 priorities on the list, it is hard to argue but he thinks there are some things the City can do to help with recruitment. It is a small, close-knit community who all work well together. If they have a good candidate, he suggested going to lunch with a City Councilmember and a business leader which might help with recruiting. He would be eager to do whatever they can do to help bring people in. It does not cost much to take them to lunch to show them that the City is a special place.
Mayor Dawson expressed how much they value their employees.
Councilmember Candell said even if people do not live in Lafayette, they can bring their kids to school.
They were trying to see if City staffers get school access. Ms. Robinson said they used to, and it depends on the capacity and enrollment.
City Attorney Subramanian said she thought there were some provisions about if you work in a city, you could have your children in the City school system. Ms. Robinson said she thinks if you were a City employee they could do that. They do not advertise it because the problem is they must keep an eye on capacity and going over that.
Ms. Srivatsa said they have an employee who has a young daughter who would have loved to get into the school district a year or two ago. She checked with the District and something blocked that and she will follow up with the school district.
Vice Mayor Kwok recognized the challenges cities face to provide staffing and it has been difficult, so they do not want to ignore it until it is a crisis. At the same time, he would ask the City Manager whether she feels like this is a point to escalate to the City Council as a priority or whether there are already measures in place to address this and keep the Council informed or, he asked if they need a policy change such as on the pension plan or on something else.
It seems the City is already adjusting the number of workdays from home policies and not asking the Council for permission for that flex time working. So, maybe the solutions can be addressed from the City Manager’s office, and he would ask that before the Council makes a priority, to ask the City Manager if she needs the City Council to take this as a priority for any policy related reasons or barriers that actually are hindering a solution to this issue.
City Council Special Meeting Page 26 of 35 March 23, 2024 Ms. Srivatsa said last year the Council recognized this and changed the MOU to offer a more robust salary and benefit package. The Council allowed for telework, the 9/80, added an additional holiday, and it was a significant change to the previous MOU, and she knows that the employees are truly grateful for that.
So, the Council did step in at a point when we were starting to worry about it, but they continue to keep the Council posted. She thinks they are dealing with a low inventory of talent. As Ms. Robinson said, they are trying to use creative ways by looking at Engineer’s licenses and sending off postcards. But she would just acknowledge and thank the Council for understanding that this is a challenge. Given they are facing these fiscal challenges, she does not think this is a time to change the salary and benefits structure, but possibly next year they can take an assessment and decide what to do.
Ms. Robinson agreed and said they can do a lot internally. To be honest, the kind of thing they need to do are internal things which is why they sort of wanted that analyst position. Unfortunately, this is likely one of the positions on the chopping block. The challenge is that probably if you were to tell people in the community the City is going to get an HR analyst they will not be surprised, but in the overall scheme of all employees doing all the things that are important, this is what they will try to communicate to people because it is important. People are still doing their jobs, but she concurred with the City Manager’s suggestion.
Councilmember Anduri said the only reason he can see to make this as a priority does relate to the fiscal sustainability and the message. One of the things that is going to come up when there is discussion is why the City doesn’t either cut staff, why don’t they have a hiring freeze, or why don’t they freeze salaries.
Based on what they have discussed today, none of those approaches will be helpful to them in the shortor medium-term. He thinks they should keep the priorities to three. The only argument for making this the fourth is that it highlights how important staff is and how difficult it is to find staff and how much they depend on staff. It might make it easier for the messaging for fiscal sustainability.
Ms. Levin asked if this would get folded in under fiscal sustainability as some recognition included there.
Mayor Dawson said she thinks it could be folded in for this year.
Ms. Levin asked for other thoughts and ideas.
Councilmember Anduri said there are a number of things they want to accomplish, but none of them rise to the level of being a fourth priority. One is in the area of what they do with respect to the percentage of their residents who are seniors. He would like to see the City do more to strengthen the collaboration they have with Lamorinda Village. They have a Town Hall meeting coming up to discuss the Age-Friendly plan but are also moving towards adopting that plan and implementing it.
Ms. Levin said when the Council gets its report back from today that she will prepare, this will be areas raised but not to become a priority, so at least it will be included in the report for reference.
Councilmember Anduri said another area which will be more important is recreational opportunities and playing fields. The City is adding 2,000 units and they must do more in terms of parks downtown and recreational facilities. This fits within that second priority for now, but it is something they have to keep an eye on. It is a big item they will need to address.
City Council Special Meeting Page 27 of 35 March 23, 2024 Ms. Srivatsa commented that the PTR Commission has a 5-year CIP. They always look at their projected revenues and they plan projects. Over the last 3-4 years, they have not been receiving the parkland impact fees because we do not issue as many building permits. She has asked the Director to present his projections and it looks like at least for the next few years, the City will not be able to have sufficient funds to invest back in parks.
Councilmember Anduri said it looks pretty grim because just in terms of maintenance of additional facilities. There are existing facilities that when adding lights or turf it is very expensive to do that. So, there are those costs and that doesn’t even mean adding more parks or recreation facilities, so it will be a big item.
On top of that is open space. The City needs to have a plan given more development. They once had a group looking at what to do about open space and at some point, they will need to revisit that because there will be pressure on open space.
Mayor Dawson said in looking back at their 2021 priorities, they picked from a pool which included 18 different priorities. Besides the four eight years later, they were things like equity inclusion, increase mobility for seniors, and she thinks they should look at priority creep and once they decide it is a priority, then they should focus in on those, responding to what staff has stretched and be mindful of that. If they need to shift priorities to be timely to certain things that makes sense, but she can see how they deviated in a good way but at the same time deviate for good priorities.
Councilmember McCormick said they did a survey for the fiscal sustainability and the number one concern is street repair which they are talking about, and number two was traffic which is on-going, and open space, downtown and redevelopment. In looking at the top six and the drop off, the only one that is not considered is open space which Councilmember Anduri mentioned as one of the community’s top concerns. So, it is pretty good that the City has addressed most of those.
Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.
Ms. Levin asked how the Council would prioritize the items. She asked to consider wildfire prevention as a priority, impact of development on evacuation routes, ways to bring quicker suppression, educate on how to harden residents’ homes, and educate on insurance matters, and work with partner agencies. If staff were to say they could not do all next year she asked which of these would the Council prioritize.
Mayor Dawson said she thinks education on hardening and insurance are things that do not involve a lot of cost but will take staff time, working with partner agencies is something they are already doing, they will start working with CCTA and the Tri-Cities on evacuation routes, and she thinks these all could be done.
Councilmember Anduri said he would put this in the category of working with other agencies and generally looking at ways to make the City safer. The education focuses on what they can do within the City, and he thinks they should look at whether there should be more shaded fire breaks. He thinks they need another one in addition to the Rossmoor one along northern Lafayette. Then, there is quicker suppression and quicker identification of ignition. But he thinks they need to look at those.
City Council Special Meeting Page 28 of 35 March 23, 2024 Mayor Dawson said also they should continue to work with PG&E and their electrical plans for undergrounding eventually and also what the Fire Department can offer. They have lots of programs that can relay education.
Councilmember McCormick said when they received the update, he asked if there was anything left on the wildfire item they should be including.
Ms. Srivatsa said they were going to do the evacuation pilot exercise this year, and also the Countywide exercise.
Mayor Dawson referred to the tree ordinance and asked if it was updated relative to fire. Ms. Srivatsa said the tree ordinance is being updated on the Planning Work Plan, but it also has to do with the planning aspect of focus on wildfire in the tree protection ordinance. They would have to look at Con Fire’s new regulations when it comes to vegetation around homes and comply with that. The City values trees and has done so forever. How they balance the two competing priorities, and that will be the focus.
Councilmember Anduri said part of that is how that is reflected in the tree ordinance. An argument could be made that there is already authority to take care of that in the existing tree ordinance which is being reviewed.
He said some of these things are what the City does in cutting down trees, clearing brush, and all things that make it less likely that they will have a wildfire. Then there are things as to what they can do to prevent it. There is one aspect of planning he did not mention.
What he did mention is how do they take wildfire into account in their planning and where they have development . The other thing is they need to start thinking about the next Housing Element, the RHNA allocation, and how wildfire impacts RHNA in the next housing cycle because it is clearly not taken into consideration to the extent it should be. He thinks it goes together with wildfire and planning.
Vice Mayor Kwok asked if it should be advocacy type of initiatives for the next RHNA and for legislative advocacy around that. Councilmember Anduri said yes, and they need to retain a consultant, retain a firm, and they can start on this now. So, they need to figure out if it is a legislative solution, but they need to start now to get the message out there. But he thinks it would help them to look at how wildfire impacts the programs they can have internally. He thinks the one time they brought it up to staff in the discussion with HCD, they got their concession that the half mile zone would not be in the high fire severity zone.
So, he thinks they just need to start working on it and getting people to understand the nature of the problem.
Mayor Dawson said they can also speak with Casey Elliott, as well with Townsend Public Affairs, their Assemblymember and Senator.
Councilmember Anduri said he sees this planning element as something that is different from the other aspects of wildfire but very, very important. They cannot continue to build housing in areas where they should be putting it if there is wildfire danger. They do not have a way of dealing with that.
Mayor Dawon said they also talked about a fire station to address higher buildings, which is something on the horizon as well if they development comes in.
City Council Special Meeting Page 29 of 35 March 23, 2024 Vice Mayor Kwok said they decided to have wildfire prevention be apriority and just to put a finer point on this, he thinks internally the City has made a lot of progress. The Chief and Police Department have many activities with detection and with evacuation and so forth. Where he thinks there is room for opportunity is engaging the public. He would say that would be the one thing he would ask his fellow Councilmembers--as to whether they would agree that this is the difference in having wildfire prevention this year.
He recommended continuing what they are doing but make a push into public engagement and work on 1) how to harden your home. He remembers when they asked on a webinar what is the one thing that you would tell homeowners to do, and the Chief said ensure there is no vegetation in the 5 feet next to your home. They would support this, and it is that simple. 2) Vegetation management. Properties have beautiful trees but also branches and fire ember friendly things that need to be cleaned out. MOFD has made this a very important point in their messaging with the public that they will cite people if they do not climb up trees by 6 feet or not cut grasses, they will get a ticket. They are very assertive in getting each homeowner to manage their own property. He would love to send a message that the City is taking this seriously. It is a matter of code enforcement, communications, and he does not think this costs a lot of money. In looking at what MOFD is doing, he would like to see them focus on public outreach and he would like to see making progress with the public’s help this year and years ahead.
Ms. Srivatsa said she would go to who will own it and how much is it going to cost. She asked if this is something the Emergency Preparedness Commission could work on. They can invite Con Fire and develop promotional materials. On staff, they have John Cornell who is the only emergency services person, and it would be helpful to have the commission help in this regard.
Councilmembers agreed, but Councilmember Anduri said they are not the right body for wildfire planning.
He would suggest a Council subcommittee with staff support to think about how to approach that.
Mayor Dawson said she would like to keep the priority and include “prevention and response” and she would like to keep utility safety there because they are directly affected by infrastructure here.
Councilmembers agreed.
Councilmember McCormick referred to insurance and people can save money, keep their same insurance by making their properties safe. He thinks this is part of the outreach campaign which should be emphasized.
Ms. Levin said what she heard is this is now becoming part of the institutional way the City operates. She will make sure the significant progress made is noted.
Specific Tasks Associated with Mt. Diablo Corridors:
Ms. Levin said there were 9 tasks, and they would like clarity for priorities. For #1, she asked and confirmed this remains a priority. She asked what raises for staff to have direction and she suggested some of the subtasks could be collapsed as they are similar.
City Manager Srivatsa said #1 must be done and kept.
City Council Special Meeting Page 30 of 35 March 23, 2024 Councilmember Anduri thought #2 should be kept.
Councilmember McCormick referred to #5 and said he thought the zoning comment was zoning is to support the Housing Element, which includes no commercial. Councilmember Anduri said the City has to do this. This looks at what the City has to do to preserve commercial.
City Manager Srivatsa said she thinks the question is that the Housing Element and State law allows waivers and concessions so housing can be done on the ground floor. She asked what can be done to continue to retain that active ground floor. These are the kinds of things and that is the study.
Ms. Levin asked if some of these pressing now or further out.
City Manager Srivatsa said they have to rezone to comply with AB 2923.
Mayor Dawson said she thinks the DeSilva property is a timing item along with the Plaza Way Overlay update for the same reasons which are built into objective standards. It would be nice to create the vision for that and potential developers could see what is on that as opposed to the City reacting at how they respond. So, she thinks those two are important because they are part of planning in the downtown area, which is 3 and 7.
Councilmember Anduri suggested combining 11 and 2. City Manager Srivatsa said 10 and 11 are more direct number of bids.
Councilmember Anduri said he thinks 11 should be part of 2, and Councilmembers agreed.
Ms. Levin said now they are down to nine items.
Vice Mayor Kwok said they are saying for the BART they would need to take action in the next year in order to get into that middle plan. Ms. Srivatsa said she did not know if it was a next year deadline, but they need to take care of it. She does not think the City has the capacity to do it this year, although it is quite important. She added that there are some deadlines with the Housing Element. Staff talked about an RFP for 949 Moraga Road, so they have to maintain those deadlines as well.
Councilmember Anduri said if there is agreement that #2 is the first step in figuring out what they could do in the Mt. Diablo Corridor, then some of these things they have to wait a bit on, and they can move them down. So, the BART could go below #7 because they really would not do that until they know what they think they might need to redo in terms of transportation and circulation.
Ms. Levin said if the Council gives the City Manager some feel for priorities and there is the whole list, she asked if they could come back with some feel as to what has to happen before something else happens.
She asked if that would be doable. This is not saying staff will do them, but what would that list look like.
Ms. Srivatsa said they could do that and try and organize it by timing and one flows into the other. She suggested they also compare these tasks to the Housing Element programs. Some may already be there.
Others may be new. So, they can look at this as a multi-year list. It is not a one-year list.
City Council Special Meeting Page 31 of 35 March 23, 2024 Ms. Levin referred to the ones seen here for #1, 2, 3, and 7 and asked if these would also fall under what the Council is talking about. Ms. Srivatsa said yes. She asked if #1, 2, 3 and 7 are the most important.
Councilmember Anduri said for #6; for 949 Moraga Road, the City is obligated and way behind schedule on that. Ms. Srivatsa noted this relates to the Housing Element to see where this is still. Councilmember Anduri said he thinks there is some deadline coming up for the third or fourth quarter of 2024.
Ms. Srivatsa referred to the Housing Element chart, and Mayor Dawson said this does not mean the City has to do it.
Ms. Levin asked if for #1, 2, 3 and 7 the majority of the Council feels those are the priorities.
Councilmember Candell said she would think 7 is less of a priority because she does not think it is imminent for this year. Councilmember Anduri agreed #7 is tricky because he can see something happening that would become immediate.
Ms. Levin said therefore, the ones in yellow, with 7 perhaps being less important. When it comes back to the City Manager and she looks at priorities and what has to be done and she understands in the Council’s minds, 1, 2, 3, and 7 are most important. Ms. Srivatsa asked if 7 was kept and Ms. Levin said yes, but less important in the scheme of things.
Ms. Levin said the Council spoke a lot about things happening between now and July in terms of making some decisions. The Council talked about the fact it would be helpful to have information for the Council in the big picture of what cuts or reductions might look like and focus on short and medium needs. She asked if there were other ideas on this one right now.
Councilmember Candell said to get a temperature of where the Council is sitting, she thinks they desperately need to have this happen and they desperately need to have a half cent sales tax and it will be a full court press. The faster they can get on that full court press will determine their success. She asked staff to arm them as best they can to go out and do a lot of ‘cheerleading’ and the right messaging.
But it is critical in order to get things done in the City so the ‘wheels don’t fall off the bus.’ Mayor Dawson said the tricky part is the messaging. You look at the core values from the survey which was basic such as pavement, traffic, and wildfire. The corridor itself, which is so critical to the vitality of the City economically as well as it is just the heart of the City does not necessarily play that message. You know you have to have planning for it. It is the City’s responsibility to make sure it works, so how do you message that we need money to do that? They have an educated constituency and that could be the basic message—we need to shore up because of these reasons. Also, they need to be planning for even the things they are before the City now and to meet State requirements. If they do not meet them, they lose control. She would rather inform the public of the challenges and go out for what they can get, identify what they need as what they see as a responsible thing.
Councilmember McCormick asked if this means going for a higher amount. He thinks they need as crisp a message as they can get. They will get one swing at it, and he wondered if asking for more is a legitimate thing. He thinks some of these things will come from the firm which will help direct their messaging.
Ms. Robinson said she thinks the firm will ask them what they want to do and will tell them the best way to go about it. This is a good conversation to have because he can tell what has and has not worked.
City Council Special Meeting Page 32 of 35 March 23, 2024 Vice Mayor Kwok said he agrees with Councilmember Candell’s comment that this is a critical time, and they need to inform the public of the consequences. Where they sit today is they have not made the decision to put it on the ballot yet or not and they will use the months ahead to inform the public of the facts and as a way to decide what do they recommend for August, either half or 1% and they should do their best to ask the public if they want more, the same, or less. In July, they will then choose the percent for a reason, and they can go forward at that time. He said this is the beginning of the outreach process to work hard because 74% of the public thinks they have no problem. It is on them to inform and then test the waters of what the public wants and in July they can decide.
Councilmember Anduri said he has a different view. Based on the survey and what was presented in the public by the consultant, he agrees with crisp messaging, but he thinks they need to go out and talk about one-half percent and focus on what the City needs in order to maintain existing services. If they get into what more do you want it gets confusing and they will have a confusing discussion. He will go along with what everyone else wants to do but he thinks they are better off looking at the big picture. A way to approach this is that, based on the survey, they aim for one-half percent. Their messaging is they need that one-half percent in order to provide to residents the services they are getting now, receive public input, and he thinks they should focus on getting the public’s input over the next four months. Then, big picture, if the one-half percent does not pass, they have a huge problem. If it does pass, the next step is having conversations with the public to let them know they have stabilized the situation. The City can provide services over the next few years and what more does the public want to do, and then have community conversations about what else in terms of additional childcare, parks, recreation facilities, or open space. He thinks they learned in the survey what people are willing to do.
Councilmember McCormick concurred. He thinks the other advantage of the half-cent direction is they will not be higher as other communities. They will be matching Walnut Creek,so it is an easy conversation to have because it simplifies things. Anything they can do to reduce the complication better is attractive.
Ms. Levin said she thinks it is important when the public sees in priorities. She asked and confirmed all Councilmembers agreed with #1 as the first priority. She asked what would be number 2; wildfire or something else.
Mayor Dawson said it has been on the City’s list for 3 years and they need to make some progress and bring it up. Vice Mayor Kwok asked if they have to prioritize it.
Ms. Levin said the Council has already said number 1 is sustainability, so maybe they can do them alphabetically. Mayor Dawson said it works out alphabetically.
Councilmember Candell said she thinks wildfire has to be at the top. Mayor Dawson said they need staff and resources for wildfire.
Councilmember Anduri said sustainability must be at the top. If they do not have that they will have an enormous problem.
City Council Special Meeting Page 33 of 35 March 23, 2024 Ms. Srivatsa said there are specific tasks associated with Mt. Diablo Corridor is a little confusing and they should come up with another title. Mayor Dawson suggested “Mt. Diablo Corridor Planning.” Ms. Levin suggested “Planning and implementation related to the Mt. Diablo Corridor.” Councilmember Candell said she just does not think planning would resonate with people.
Councilmember Anduri said 2 years ago it was ‘Prepare a Mt. Diablo Corridor and Downtown Specific Plan.” They thought it was a broad plan but now they are realizing that there are individual things that must happen. He thinks it is facilitating housing in the Mt. Diablo Corridor and Downtown, but Mayor Dawson said it has a lot to do with transportation and circulation, which is a top priority from their polling.
She suggested “Mt. Diablo Corridor Circulation.”
Discussion ensued and Ms. Levin suggested “Implementing tasks associated with…” Mayor Dawson and Councilmember McCormick suggested “Downtown and the Mt. Diablo Corridor Implementation.” Ms. Srivatsa said this is a multi-year task and part of her says if it is a multi-year task, why not update the DSP. Mayor Dawson said hopefully these tasks will play into the fact that this is future planning that has no staff or funds to do so.
Councilmember McCormick said he thinks they could label it as the “Mt. Diablo Enhancement Program or Plan.”
Ms. Levin said she can reflect on these and then moved to next steps.
9. WRAP UP AND NEXT STEPS
City Manager Srivatsa thanked the Council, staff, and Ms. Levin for giving staff some sound direction. The goal now is to get into more details. She does not know whether there will be time for staff to come to the Council for the first meeting in April but possibly the second meeting in April where the Council can confirm these priorities and have them flushed out a little.
Mayor Dawson noted she will not be present for the second meeting.
Ms. Levin concluded and presented the workshop outcomes achieved:
• Discuss and Confirm the Goals;
• Hear presentation on finances; and
• Discuss staff capacity
The last thing that will be helpful for everyone is that she is interested in knowing what takeaways were from the day which the Council did last year, as well.
Councilmember McCormick: It feels like in the course of their normal meetings they are stuck with just the issue of the day, but this is the one chance to talk together and get a forward vision. He enjoyed it and thinks they should keep doing it so they can look ahead and figure out where they all stand on this.
Councilmember Candell: She agreed and thinks they have a very aligned Council which is great. They can agree on their top priorities, which is delightful.
City Council Special Meeting Page 34 of 35 March 23, 2024 Mayor Dawson: She agrees with comments and appreciates everyone and the discussion. There is a good variance between the reality of where they are and the things they want to do and challenges to get there.
So, it shows how important it is that they do inform their constituency as to whether they want to keep this City great and to do so, they need them. The focus will be to inform the public about what is happening and that they could stand to lose without their support.
Vice Mayor Kwok: They have a new Councilmember joining them today and it was very good to have a strategy session and involve new voices. The first question Councilmember McCormick asked was whether these were the right priorities, which was a good challenge for the rest of the Council. This is refreshing and maybe as a result of their discussions, they ended up with 3 instead of 4 priorities. It is great to have their new Councilmember contributing from the get-go, and diving right in. He also feels grateful that fellow Councilmembers are so articulated and have a broad range of thinking of different ideas. They do not all agree on everything, but in general, they are all pushing in the same direction. They are better off with a collaborative approach. He is grateful for that and the staff. So, he thinks today’s session was very valuable.
Councilmember Anduri: He comes away thinking with “wow.” There is a lot they need to do. It is amazing what is on their agenda for not just next year but the next 10 years when thinking about all issues. They live in a great community, great city, and they can look at it as challenges and opportunities. They have the opportunity to even make it better, but there is just so much to do. He agrees it is wonderful to work with fellow Councilmembers so well, and again, they have the greatest staff. He thinks they are in good shape to approach the future.
Ms. Levin asked what could have worked better for the Council today in terms of the process, materials, or a different facilitator. She is open to all comments.
Vice Mayor Kwok said last year they met via Zoom and in previous years they had to meet via Zoom, so this is the first time he has met in person, which is an effective way of doing it. He thinks it is better to have this type of session in person and he suggested continuing to do it that way. He is also grateful for the public’s participation as well on a Saturday. He is satisfied they achieved what they needed to do in a relatively efficient amount of time.
Councilmember Candell said by sitting at the end, it is hard to see things. She asked that for next year they get seated in a circle or something else like a horseshoe.
Mayor Dawson said she thinks the session was productive and while they took time away from family on a Saturday, they got to focus on things, and it is the same volunteer work. She thinks it worked out well and looks forward to next steps.
Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period.
ROBERT LAVOIE thanked the Council for taking their Saturday to do this. He thinks the format is great to have some flexibility and more interactive format. He found out about this last night when he was looking for something on Monday’s meeting, so maybe he was the only one, but thinks this could have been advertised better for more community input. Otherwise, he thanked everybody for sharing their thoughts.
City Council Special Meeting Page 35 of 35 March 23, 2024
10. ADJOURNMENT – 2:10 p.m.
APPROVED:
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Gina M. Dawson, Mayor
ATTEST:
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Joanne Robbins, City Clerk