City Council and Parks, Trails, and Recreation Page 1 of 40 November 25, 2024 Commission Minutes
7 City of Lafayette
City Council
Minutes
Lafayette Library and Learning Center – Don Tatzin Community Hall November 25, 2024 3491 Mount Diablo Boulevard, Lafayette, California 6:00 p.m.
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City Council and Parks, Trails, and Recreation Page 2 of 40 November 25, 2024 Commission Minutes
Mayor Dawson called the Regular City Council meeting to order at 6:00 p.m.
2. ROLL CALL
Present: City Council: Mayor Dawson; Vice Mayor Kwok; Councilmembers Anduri, Candell, and McCormick
Present: Parks, Trails, and Recreation Commission: Chair Frank Curcuro, Commissioners Justine Parmelee, Scott Robinson, Joe Daugherty, Grace Dixon, Carol Singer, Alison Hill, and Geoff Bellenger
Staff Present: Niroop Srivatsa, City Manager; Tracy Robinson, Administrative Services Director, Sonia Urzua, Assistant Planning Director; Patrick Golier, Transportation Planning Manager; Jonathan Katayanagi, Parks, Trails, and Recreation Director; Arly Cassidy, Senior Planner; Anna Tolle, Assistant Planner; Mala Subramanian, City Attorney; Joanne Robbins, City Clerk
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 (Kwok/Candell) to adopt the agenda. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Candell, Kwok, Anduri, Candell, and McCormick; Noes: None).
5. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: Led by Mayor Dawson.
6. PUBLIC COMMENTS (For Items not on the agenda)
MEREDITH MEADE congratulated Mayor Dawson and Councilmembers Anduri and McCormick on their re-election, thanked Vice Mayor Kwok for his service, and congratulated the City for passing of Measure H, noting staff and the Council worked very hard. As Lafayette School District Governing Board President, she reported recently passing a new Safe Routes to School Board policy at the November 13th meeting and a new administrative regulation.
The new administrative regulation prohibits Class 3 E-bikes and E-scooters from school campuses because of staff and community concerns about students being unsafe with them. They realized that the Class 3 E-bikes and all E-scooters are actually illegal to operate for anyone under the age of 16.The Police Department has an excellent brochure and she thanked Chief Alldritt for sharing this with them outlining which bikes are allowed for which ages.
Staff has been communicating with their school community to let them know about this and when the policy is going to be enacted is still up to their Superintendent over the next couple of months. She is hopeful that the community can join together to try to encourage parents and students to only use motor vehicles they are allowed to use. Students must register their Class 1 and 2 bikes with the school and will also have to take a special safety course yet to be designed.
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DAWN EAMES referred to the tree protection ordinance and the $25,000 Downtown Street Improvement Master Plan (DSIMP) completed in 1988 which has not been reviewed or updated for 36 years. The General Plan Specific Plan, DDG’s and Parking Management Plan all have been revised. CEQA waivers, Housing Element, Vision Zero, and development have increased congestion and have adversely impacted the mission of the City—to preserve the semi-rural quaint, small-town character of the City.
7. CITY MANAGER’S UPDATE
City Manager Niroop Srivatsa gave the following update:
From Engineering:
• Prior to the start of the rains, crews were able to complete patch paving on Estates Drive, the west end of Mt. Diablo, Via Robles, and Valente Court. They also performed maintenance striping on Oak Hill Road and on Hidden Valley Road as part of a traffic calming project. Their focus now is keeping the storm drains clear and roads clean. • Regarding PG&E’s pipeline pathway safety project, she provided background, stating in 2014 PG&E initiated a regionwide program called the Pipeline Pathways Project which involved the removal of trees adjacent to its gas transmission pipelines. At that time, PG&E indicated it needed to clear the areas around pipelines of trees so that first responders and crews could have immediate access to the pipes and pipelines so they could be inspected. This project was statewide.
In 2015, PG&E provided the City with a list of trees that PG&E wanted to remove. At first, it was 272 trees and later whittled down to 207 trees in 2018. These trees were deemed unacceptable risk and many were large oaks and other natives along the Lafayette-Moraga Trail, at the Reservoir and in Briones. In following years, there was litigation with PG&E and separately with Save Lafayette Trees.
In order to avoid litigation, the City and PG&E explored an option in 2021 in which the City and PG&E would come together, bring their gas pipeline safety experts, and their arborists, evaluate the 207 trees to see which actually needed to be removed. This exercise took three years to complete and, given time had passed since the earlier assessment, both the City and PG&E agreed that an updated assessment of those trees was necessary.
The City just received a letter from PG&E today, a portion of which she read, that PG&E “continually improves its processes and procedures to maximize the safety of their customers and communities. In addition, more recently, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration recently clarified the definition of a gas transmission pipeline.” The City has a couple of gas transmission pipelines in Lafayette and distribution pipelines in Lafayette. “Based on this clarification by PG&E, many of the pipelines in the Lafayette community have been reclassified from transmission to distribution pipelines. The Community Pipeline Safety Initiative is focused on gas transmission pipelines.
With this adjustment and their improved assessment of trees, we confirm all trees originally identified through the Community Pipeline Safety Initiative can remain in place with on-going monitoring.”
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Mayor Dawson thanked staff and Safe Lafayette Trees, as well as those in the Gas Safety Alliance and the task force that worked with the CPUC, PG&E, and the City to bring gas safety improvements. They look forward to PG&E taking the 70-year-old distribution lines into their better care and programs and voiced appreciation of this work and for trees remaining in the community.
Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.
8. PRESENTATIONS
A. All Ages Recreation Downtown (AARD)
AARD Awards $50,000 to Fund the Design of Two New Parks in Downtown Lafayette Recommendation: Accept the $50,000 award.
Grace Dixon, President, All Ages Recreation Downtown (AARD), said they are a 501c.3 and 509.a.2 non-profit public benefit corporation founded in 2023 because Lafayette lacks adequate park facilities funds. They are here to present the City of Lafayette with a check for $50,000 towards the Two Parks Collaborative project.
A few board members will join her tonight, including their co-founder and one daughter, Eden Hall, via Zoom from Princeton, NJ as well as her daughter, Claire Mueller, and David Clark.
The $50,000 donation was made possible in large part due to their receiving the Community Foundation’s Silver Anniversary grant for $25,000. Plus, they took AARD as a special project that included seed money and highlighting art during an auction event. Beyond that, the Community Foundation Board has donated hours of their time to staff art activities and the teens on their junior Board of Directors spent many hours designing and hot gluing the engaging miniature trained farm and dinosaur play tables that kept toddlers engaged for hours.
This upcoming year, they are thrilled that Lafayette Juniors has chosen AARD to be one of the three beneficiaries for their on-going fundraising efforts. They are also happy to report that 95% of AARD’s donations are directly applied to no cost, all ages recreation programs and destinations near downtown Lafayette. When she read the list of people, businesses, organizations, and foundations that donated to AARD, she truly thanked all of them. She then displayed a video of their year and said they were able to raise $50,000 altogether and had a lot of fun doing it.
Mayor Dawson and Councilmembers thanked Ms. Dixon for her efforts, said it has been an incredible fundraising event for parks, and noted one person can make a difference. A round of applause and photos followed.
B. Parks, Trails and Recreation Commission
Annual Update
Recommendation: Receive and file.
Chair Frank Curcuro introduced Commissioners Justine Parmelee, Scott Robinson, Joe Daugherty, Grace Dixon, Carol Singer, Alison Hill, and Geoff Bellenger, and also recognized Shane Reisman who could not attend tonight. All Commissioners work to make sure they have the best PTR program in the County. He also recognized Director Jonathan Katayanagi for his on-going support, dedication, and leadership.
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Commissioners then gave a PowerPoint presentation and individually provided reports on their work over the year. Their primary role to advise the Council on matters that relate to parks, trails, and recreation. They described work on maintenance issues at facilities by and between their subcommittees, provide input to GPAC, said they have key partnerships that support PTR efforts, highlighted the Youth Commission that hold events at the Community Center, Junior Board that helps to run pop-up recreation and coordinate with scouting organizations to clean their trails and build projects that have a lasting impact, have worked on the Two Parks Collaborative effort, Leigh Creekside and Gazebo Parks, growth of childcare programs, said the Trails Subcommittee worked on the trails marker report which inventories all trail makers, identifying those that need replacement, added, and repaired, and many other accomplishments.
They described the Lafayette Community Center Playground which had a soft opening in April and has become a favorite playground for families. They also described the Moraga to Reservoir Rim Trail Bridge Relocation project which involved moving the bridge and reusing its components at a lower cost of $9,000.
The trail rerouting was done by Commissioner Bellenger. They added the Community Park South Nature Trail this year which is an extension of the trail. The original trail extends from South Eucalyptus Grove to the Community Park picnic area and provides a more natural and scenic path that parallels Las Trampas Creek.
One of the goals of the Commission that aligns well with the City Council is to be Firewise. They have a lot of open space and ground growth to control. They have removed dead wood and undergrowth to make facilities safer to both visitors to the park as well as Firewise safe. The PTR is eager to establish the newest property at Hamlin Open Space, as they look forward to getting that up and running and accessible to the public. They are also in the process of evaluating technology such as a remote mower to keep down the growth in this park as well as existing parks.
Other challenges include a need for more parks and recreation facilities and they are faced with not enough funding for acquiring new parkland as well as maintaining facilities. Their Parkland Acquisition and Development Plan highlights potential opportunities, but if or when these properties become available, they are competing with buyers on the market that do not have to go through a municipal negotiation process.
Director Jonathan Katayanagi then presented the last two slides showing the leaks in the ceiling of the Lafayette Community Center. The half-cent sales tax maintains their current level of service, and it would be difficult to leverage those funds to address maintenance needs. They have also been evaluating the Buckeye Patio for some time. They have unfunded needs for the parking lots, and the Council has taken steps to apply General Funds, and there is a total of $438,000 needed for those parking lots and the City already has $170,000 allocated that can be used towards parking lots. The Engineering Department is working on how to leverage those funds with other road projects.
They are looking into technologies and equipment needed for further fire abatement. They are also finding they need more equipment, and not listed is they have recently found out that their tractor they use yearround for fire abatement and field work is in need of an engine rebuild or possible full engine replacement.
He then described the budget and said not listed with the parks and trails maintenance is the $480,000 which is before the amount which is also in the budget for the parking lot improvements.
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The Enterprise Fund is balanced against revenue and expenses. If there are overages, it gets transferred back to the General Fund and is helped to feed the surplus over the years. Their Capital funds are the developer fees that come in and they are in the red for Fund 12 for facilities. They are paying themselves back for the previous projects. One challenge listed earlier are development fees are being collected at occupation. While there is housing in the pipeline, they are not seeing those funds as fast as they have, which is a challenge to tackle in the years ahead.
Chair Curcuro and Commissioners thanked the Council for allowing them to make a presentation and said they were available for questions.
Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.
Mayor Dawson and Councilmembers thanked the PTR Commission for their work and contributions to the community.
C. Niroop Srivatsa, City Manager and Vice Mayor Kwok
EBMUD Reservoir Tower Retrofit: Proposal to shorten the Tower by Forty Feet Recommendation: Invite EBMUD Board to hold a joint community meeting with the City Council to solicit input on the Tower design.
Recused: Councilmember Candell recused herself from participating in the item due to a conflict of interest with EBMUD and left the dais.
City Manager Srivatsa gave a staff report and said Vice Mayor Kwok and Councilmember Anduri may have additional comments. In January 2023, EBMUD staff presented the Lafayette Reservoir Tower Seismic Retrofit project to the City Council at a public meeting, featuring a tower shortened by 40 feet. They had introduced the matter earlier to the Council in 2017. The Council and community expressed concerns about the proposed design and the loss of the iconic tower that has symbolized Lafayette for decades. A group of residents with extensive expertise and seismic structural retrofit design, structural engineering, architectural and construction volunteered to review EBMUD’s technical reports, analyses, and plans to see if the tower could be seismically strengthened in place in its original configuration rather than by shortening it.
The Committee presented its first report to the Council in July 2023 at a public meeting. The Committee spent countless hours over the last couple of years reviewing technical studies, reports, and plans in an attempt to work collaboratively and identify alternatives and mitigations. She called attention to the fact that the Committee’s primary objectives for the ultimate retrofit design were and continue to be safety, cost, and community impact.
Through an extensive analysis of the reports provided by EBMUD, the Committee has found that the City and the broader region would be better served if the existing tower could remain in its existing configuration while still providing the required necessary seismic improvements. A retrofit of the upper one-half of the existing tower, utilizing only a modest addition of mild steel reinforcement would address seismic risk, life safety, code compliance, cost effectiveness, and environmental sensitivity.
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She acknowledged the cooperation and help provided by EBMUD staff and Board Member Gomez who have always welcomed them and have had several meetings with them. For almost two years, they have tried to see if EBMUD would consider an alternative design that is safe and that acknowledges the 96-year-old tower, and its surrounding environment clearly represent an important regional cultural and civic resources. Those attempts over the last couple of years have failed and, while Lafayette is home to the Reservoir and the iconic tower, staff recognizes that the property is owned by EBMUD and it is EBMUD who will decide how to proceed with the retrofit. The Council has solicited community input at this point. All meetings over the last two years have been public, but the City has recently made a concerted effort to reach out to the community to ask for comments.
Staff now suggests that the Council ask the EBMUD Board if it would be willing to hold a joint community meeting early next year to solicit public comments on the retrofit design, and she was available for questions.
Councilmember Anduri said he wanted to provide some perspective of some of the reactions the Council has seen to EBMUD’s November 21ststatement. In the first paragraph, it states, “DSOD considers the tower to be a critical structure for dam safety because it also serves as a spillway and is the only safe method to drain water from the Reservoir.” It is his understanding that it is not the only safe method and he referred to a section of a September 1, 2017 EBMUD statement which he read: “The impact of a tower failure that affects EBMUD’s ability to release water from the Reservoir is expected to have limited impacts to the Lafayette community because the Lafayette Reservoir is a small watershed that does not yield significant runoff from local rainfall. There is low likelihood that runoff could exceed the Reservoir’s capacity should a tower failure occur as they maintain Reservoir levels to provide adequate runoff capacity. In the event of damage to the outlet, EBMUD would deploy portable pumps to further drain the Reservoir, if needed, and then repair the outlet line.”
The next sentence in the statement says, “Because of the safety deficiencies posed by Lafayette tower, DSOD characterizes the risk downstream of Lafayette as ‘extremely high.’” He said this is simply untrue and in this context, it is a very unfortunate statement to make. He then read from DSOD’s own materials: “The downstream hazard is based solely on potential downstream impacts to life and property should the dam fail when operating with a full Reservoir. The hazard is not related to the condition of the dam or its pertinent structures.”
So, the downstream hazard of the dam is classified as extremely high, and the Committee learned during their August meeting in Sacramento with DSOD that 266 dams in California are classified as extremely high.
Again, DSOD does not classify the downstream risk of Lafayette dam or any of the other 265 dams as extremely high because of “safety deficiencies.” It is because of the location of the dam.
Coming to the condition of the dam, the condition assessment for the dam itself is fair and there are four condition assessment levels that DSOD has. The top level is satisfactory and there are three levels below satisfactory and more than 120 dams in California are in those categories. He then read the different categories:
The bottom category is unsatisfactory which he read, “A dam safety deficiency in an unsatisfactory dam: A dam safety deficiency is recognized that requires immediate or emergency remedial action for problem resolution.” Lafayette is not in that category.
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The next category is poor which means, “A dam safety deficiency is recognized for normal operating conditions which may realistically occur. Remedial action is necessary.” Lafayette is not in that category.
Lafayette is in the fair category right below satisfactory, which states, “No existing dam deficiencies are recognized for normal operating conditions. Rare or extreme hydrologic and/or seismic events may result in a dam safety deficiency. Risk may be in the range to take further action.” The City would obviously prefer its dam would be in the satisfactory category and they believe if the alternative proposal by their Citizen Advisory Committee were implemented, it would be. But, his point for now is saying the downstream risk of the dam is extremely high because of safety deficiencies is misleading.
Councilmember Anduri then read additional statements about EBMUD’s characterization of the Citizen Advisory Committee as a group of local residents, stating: “EBMUD’s detailed analysis show that the alternative put forward by the community group. This is a group of internationally recognized architects and engineers who have come together to give their time to Lafayette that spent hundreds of hours doing this work on the City’s behalf. They are not a group that came together off the street.
He continued, stating “EBMUD’s detailed analysis show that the alternative put forward by the community group did not meet safety standards.” The next paragraph states, “The preliminary analysis of another alternative put forward by the community group was found to be less reliable, more difficult to safety construct on the 91-year-old tower, and would result in a higher price of an additional $8 million more than the current approved design.”
Therefore, the Committee feels that their alternative is reliable, constructable, and cost effective. The EBMUD statement concludes by saying, “It is EBMUD’s responsibility to move this critical project forward as quickly as possible given that a failure of the Lafayette Tower poses severe health and safety risk to residents, schools, and businesses from Lafayette to Martinez.”
First, DSOD, in its letter to the City Manager said they are willing to move construction of the dam from 2025 to 2027. So, the regulator is willing to postpone construction for another two years. Second, everybody’s first priority is safety—EBMUD’s, the DSOD, the Lafayette City Council, and the Citizen Advisory Committee.
Third, to give a sense of the risk, he added to the public materials this afternoon a string of emails exchanged between him and EBMUD’s Director of Engineering and Construction in the middle of last year. He was trying to understand the magnitude of the threat to public safety posed by the current Reservoir tower.
His conclusion was that he could not see a threat to public safety from the tower even if they assume that a maximum critical earthquake occurs and is followed before the tower can be repaired by a probable maximum precipitation event. He would point out that in some senses, they are dealing with geological time. But, in the time the tower has been there over 96 years, the City has not had either one of those events. This is not to say one or the other could not occur in the next hundred years, and they want to be prepared for it. But, the likelihood of both of them occurring within a short period of time he will leave it to the Council who can draw their own conclusion. For the purposes of this evening’s discussion, he would ask to assume that all parties put safety first and both the EBMUD proposal and the alternative proposal from the Citizen Advisory Committee will increase safety, and he would encourage everybody to keep that in mind when giving comment.
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Vice Mayor Kwok clarified and restated that the document Councilmember Anduri is referring to is an EBMUD release that was published on the EBMUD.com website on Thursday, November 21st after the City published the agenda on Wednesday for this meeting. Therefore, it is not in the agenda packet, but it is a very important document and he appreciates Councilmember Anduri spending time to review this in detail and clarify some areas of misunderstanding and setting the record. It is very technical and the Council has been part of the discussion for several years here.
Mayor Dawson thanked Councilmember Anduri for setting the context for this meeting, as well. She then opened the public comment period.
ELIZABETH BIALEK ceded her time to Luz Gomez.
LUZ GOMEZ, EBMUD, Board Member, thanked the City, the Citizens Technical Advisory Committee, and the many residents who have actively engaged with EBMUD on this project. She provided a background on the project which she knew was significant and very complex, requested a full briefing from staff, and it became clear how much thought and effort has gone into the project over the years. EBMUD has analyzed multiple alternatives to maintain the tower’s height, including those put forward by the Committee. Unfortunately, none of them have met the California Division of Safety of Dam’s (DSOD’s) rigorous safety standards. She did, however, recognize that the Council and Committee raised some valid points which is why she was pleased that earlier this year the DSOD met with City and community representatives to discuss this issue.
She wanted to ensure that the final decision on their analysis rested with DSOD.
In the recent letter to the City, the DSOD reaffirmed that the shortened tower is their approved solution to address the seismic risks posed by this critical structure. As a Board Member they must weigh the financial stewardship of ratepayer dollars alongside their obligation to protect public safety. Delaying this project further to pursue alternatives that DSOD is unlikely to approve anyway is unwise. She knows this decision is deeply disappointing for some in Lafayette, and she asked to know that EBMUD is not taking this path lightly.
The safety of downstream communities must remain their top priority as she knows it also remains Lafayette’s.
Tonight, staff has brought some postcards with details which are on the back table for the community to make themselves aware of all facts and details about the project. She also wants to address concerns about the safety of the dam itself which she knows were raised recently in the Bay Area Telegraph articles. She assured the Council that the dam itself is safe and stable under earthquake conditions. However, the outlet tower which is the structure at the center of this project, is showing its age and that is the piece that represents the safety concern they cannot ignore any longer.
The tower is essential because it serves as the Reservoir’s spillway and the main way to release water. If the tower were damaged in an earthquake, it could block EBMUD’s ability to lower the Reservoir, cause uncontrolled water to flow downstream, and even lead to soil erosion in which case it could potentially weaken the earth and dam. This is why they need to move forward with this retrofit in the summer of 2025—to address these vulnerabilities and ensure the safety of everyone who lives downstream of the Reservoir. She thanked the Council for the opportunity to speak tonight and said EBMUD remains committed to working collaboratively with the City and with staff as they move forward.
Councilmember Anduri asked if Ms. Gomez is aware that the letter from DSOD said they would be willing to put off the construction until 2027, and that the letter said they would be open to considering alternatives.
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Ms. Gomez stated she is aware of both of these things. The letter also stated they would want an alternative design to be on their desk by April 1, 2024 which is a deadline which is almost impossible to meet at this stage given the amount of money they have already spent on all delays of the project plus the other design studies they have had to do of about $500,000 of ratepayer funds. So, it is quite an expensive proposition for EBMUD.
Councilmember Anduri asked if it would be fair to say that no matter what anybody says today, EBMUD is moving forward and their decision is final.
Ms. Gomez said it would be fair to say that they want to do what is absolutely safest for the community and, at this point, after reading and hearing everything, after considering everything, and as Lafayette’s representative on the EBMUD Board, she feels the safest and best path forward is to move forward with the proposed design by EBMUD.
Councilmember Anduri said Ms. Gomez mentioned one of the two risks from the spillway and not being able to open as overtopping of the dam and he asked to explain the circumstance in which that might happen and the likelihood of that happening.
Ms. Gomez said her understanding is that this would be a quite unlikely scenario but one she personally is not willing to risk the safety of the community.
Councilmember Anduri asked if there is anything anybody could say at tonight’s meeting that would make any difference.
Ms. Gomez said she is one representative and Lafayette’s representative. She has also heard from many other residents who frankly feel their safety is more important than the height of the tower and she believes Councilmembers might have received similar comments, as well.
Councilmember Anduri noted that everybody agrees that safety is more important than the height of the tower. They really wish EBMUD would not use that as a reason. To say because of safety EBMUD must do this is simply not acceptable.
Ms. Gomez said unfortunately their regulator has reviewed all other alternatives they have presented, and the only design they have approved is the shortened tower design. They are not likely to approve a design that is considered innovative and that has not been proven in real time somewhere as being safe.
KELLY ZITO, Communications Director, EBMUD, read a letter into the record from their General Manager, Clifford Chan, provided to the City today outlining some of the issues.
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JAMES SCALA asked to keep the Lafayette Reservoir Tower as it stands today. Their family has been Lafayette residents for over 46 years. Slowly after arriving here, they discovered the Reservoir’s natural beauty and the tower—a Lafayette landmark like the UC Berkeley Tower and the Washington Monument. He began walking the paved trail 46 years ago and now at the age of 90 he still walks the trail regularly. His background was in bio-chemistry and nutrition research. He did a video entitled, “The Nature of Nutrition” used by schools, the US Olympic Headquarters, and even Acalanes High School in Lafayette. As an author of over 8 books and many articles, he wrote a column entitled, “Walking the Reservoir” in Lafayette’s town paper which is no longer published. He included stories of Reservoir walkers and explained the health benefits of walking regularly based upon published research. In addition to the physical beauty, the Reservoir offers a unique mutual benefit which is described as enjoying nature—natural beauty. Without doubt, the tower contributes to that beauty. People enjoy the tower’s uniqueness and seeing how it attracts birds that use it as a place to simply land on and then look at the natural Reservoir water life they seek to eat and thrive.
Hence, the tower with its height, contributes to the Reservoir’s natural beauty that everybody enjoys. He strongly recommends keeping the tower at its present height, noting modern engineering and construction can fix any problems that exist. In 2024, engineers can accomplish things that were impossible when it was built. The tower is a country landmark which gives Lafayette a unique place in the San Francisco Bay Area.
He asked to make any repairs that are necessary and keep the natural benchmark standing. It is special. He asked to remember it has withstood earthquakes and it withstood a plane crash, which says a lot about the great deal about the tower’s basic structure and uniqueness. He asked to keep the tower as it is today.
JACK MOEHLE, Citizens Technical Advisory Committee member, said he is a long-time professor of structural engineering at the University of California Berkeley, is a leading authority on concrete structures of which the tower is constructed. His resume includes extensive consulting with public agencies regionally, nationally, and internationally. He is a member of the Citizens Technical Advisory Committee which is a volunteer group, but it is a group of technical experts. He is one member and there are a couple of others who will speak in a few moments.
The Committee met with EBMUD officials as has been stated previously and with engineers on multiple occasions. They reviewed their engineering reports and provided oral and written comments. They expressed several doubts about methods and results presented to them by EBMUD, and several of those are not cleared up to this date. The Committee identified several alternatives. They believe they are safe, constructable, and not necessarily more costly. Those alternatives will increase the safety of the Lafayette Reservoir to levels they all desire without having to demolish the tower as proposed by EBMUD. They feel their alternatives were not adequately studied by EBMUD and they should be pursued further. They heard tonight that DSOD has only approved the shortened tower, but it is his understanding that DSOD only reviews designs presented to them by EBMUD and that the proposals the Committee presented as concepts were not presented.
Councilmember McCormick thanked Mr. MOEHLE and the entire Committee. It is impressive work and the Council deeply appreciates their time. It sounds like one concern EBMUD has is the Committee’s proposals were unproven or not used, or it was new for a dam or new for water, and therefore was not as trustworthy as EBMUD or DSOD would like. He asked if Mr. Moehle could comment on that line of reasoning.
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Mr. Moehle said there are some very interesting concepts like tuned mass dampers they could have proposed, but they did not because they understand DSOD’s position on this. They stuck with conventional approaches. One of the most conventional approaches for a very lightly reinforced concrete tower is to add more reinforcement. Their proposal was to use a center coring method to insert the bars and grout them in place and provide additional reinforcement to overcome the deficiencies of the tower. His recollection was they were informed it was an unconventional method, although it has been applied in many, many structures on the west coast, so he did not understand that as being an unconventional solution in any way.
Councilmember Anduri asked if it has been used in structures pertinent to dams.
Mr. Moehle said the addition of reinforcements, dams, towers, and other pertinences certainly has been done many, many times. Whether this particular technique for installing the reinforcement has been used he is not sure, but it is very widely used in many other structures and is pretty routine.
Councilmember Anduri asked Mr. Moehle to take one minute to talk about what he does professionally.
Mr. Moehle said his professional job for 44 years was to teach at the University of California Berkeley. What he does professionally is he mainly develops professional design guidance for practicing structural engineers.
He has served on the American Concrete Institute’s Building Code Committee for 35 years, was the Chair of the Building Code Committee for the last building code cycle for 6 years, has written hundreds of articles related to the topic, but mainly his interest is developing practical design guidance for engineers. Much of this is developed based on consulting work he does, but also based upon laboratory research he does at UC Berkeley to develop a full understanding of how materials work and how safety works. The design and safe design for earthquake-resistant structures is his main topic of interest.
Councilmember Anduri asked if Mr. Moehle feels the alternative presented to EBMUD would have been a safe alternative.
Mr. Moehle said yes; he is certain it would have been a safe alternative. Any design requires iterations in order to bring the design to a final state where all criteria are satisfied and he is not sure that was ever done.
Councilmember Anduri asked if Mr. Moehle felt in his discussions with EBMUD that they were taking on board what Mr. Moehle was considering and looking to iterations that might improve it or he asked, if he was just told it would not work.
Mr. Moehle said he did not feel fully supported in the follow-up work by EBMUD. They did several studies to be sure and they were an open and good group to work with, but one develops a feeling about these things and he does not have evidence or proof or statements he could read to the Council about. But, he felt more could have been done to accommodate the recommendations of the Committee.
Mayor Dawson said Mr. Moehle mentioned that the alternative designs were presented by EBMUD to the DSOD. She asked if this is true.
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Mr. Moehle said he has not heard their design was presented. He heard earlier today and has seen in other records that some designs that retained the full height of the tower were presented, but he does not think the designs the Committee suggested conceptually were developed and presented to DSOD, but he is conjecturing on that. To be sure, the Committee is a group of volunteers, do not have a huge engineering staff, and cannot carry design forward in that manner. So, they only developed conceptual design ideas based upon their experience.
Mayor Dawson said the Council is very appreciative of this long and deep work into the matter. She asked Ms. Gomez if any of the alternative plans presented or forwarded to the DSOD as part of the discussions.
Ms. Bialek responded, stating as already been described by Ms. Gomez and Ms. Zito, the District has spent 30 years looking at various alternatives to maintain a tall tower. They have looked at concrete infill, reinforcement at various levels, steel jacketing, tie downs, the base isolator alternative, and looked at alternative spillways. Unfortunately, doing the analyses of the tower performance following DSOD’s criteria, were found to be insufficient. They have had numerous discussions over the decades with DSOD to get their input, to share our ideas, and unfortunately they did not meet the criteria. To answer, yes, they have provided versions of those alternatives and reinforcement of the tower to DSOD in the past. She added that the concept is a reinforcement concept and can the tower withstand that structurally at all locations, and the answer was “no.”
Mayor Dawson asked and confirmed the alternative plans were not submitted because their consultants thoroughly analyzed this and found it would not meet DSOD’s criteria. Therefore, the specific alternative was not submitted.
Mayor Dawson said she does not mean to be disrespectful, but she just thinks this was disrespectful to this process—that these plans that were designed were not forwarded, especially knowing there were discussions with the DSOD and said she is disappointed to hear that.
Councilmember Anduri asked if there was ever delivered to Lafayette’s Citizens Technical Advisory Committee a detailed explanation of why their alternative did not meet the DSOC safety standards.
Ms. Bialek said yes, they had several meetings with the Committee where they explained their more detailed structural analysis of the alternatives and where specifically there were concerns. They had an open discussion with the Committee explaining their results, addressing their questions.
Councilmember Anduri asked if it was specifically communicated to the Committee why and how it did not meet DSOD standards. Ms. Bialek said yes.
Councilmember Anduri asked if they received something from EBMUD responding to their alternative that explained why it did not meet DSOD safety requirements. Ms. Bialek said this was discussed in their collaboration meetings and the written response was to the Council from the District summarizing that at a higher level.
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GORDON CHONG, member of the Citizens Technical Advisory Committee, said his understanding of the purpose of the meeting tonight was to gage the level of interest there is in saving the tower. They could go on about the technical aspects of it and what happened during the course, and he asked members not to dive too deeply into that, but there are comments that have been made that cause them great concerns.
He would like to talk about why he thinks the tower is important to the environment and more generally, to the City of Lafayette because this is the purpose of why people might be interested in saving the tower.
Beforehand, he thinks there is confusion as to what exactly the City is getting.
There is a stack of cards that shows what is being proposed by EBMUD. He showed the Council a series of photo slides of what the Committee understands of what EBMUD has asked them to do and what they are planning on doing, the Council will see what the confusion is. He said he will use his pointer to show the grayed-out portion which is what is intended to be the resultant after the EBMUD proposal which is based upon a water level here which is 449 which is the operating level they say they are mandated to maintain.
The City has asked repeatedly as to whether or not the water level could be retained at its current interim level of 440 and the answer was “no.” This is a design level they are aiming toward and what we can anticipate to be a 10-foot-high protrusion out of the water to the platform level that is 500. If you look at what EBMUD is proposing which is the next slide, this is what is being told to the public and what is in their cards. This is not the 449-elevation level. This looks like much more like a 440-elevation level. So, they are showing a lower water level they told the Committee the City could not use for their public information. So, he thinks there is some confusion which could cause misunderstanding of what the City is actually getting.
He wanted to be sure that people understand what the cutoff point of what the protrusion would be, which is closer to 440. This is, in fact, put out by EBMUD where they did studies at different water levels. They chose the 449 level as their design level. The Committee asked if they could leave it at the interim level of 440 and the answer was “no” and he pointed to what the City is getting, but this is not what they are showing on their postcards.
Regarding why this is important, he thinks everybody is well aware of the importance of the tower in terms of what they refer to as a “brand.” It is Lafayette’s brand and not EBMUD’s brand. It can be seen on a variety of businesses, non-profits, including the City’s own website.
Councilmember Anduri asked Mr. Chong to explain why he thinks the full height of the tower needs to be retained.
Mr. Chong said he thinks it is an important part of the brand, important to the environment, and the point of identity for people, but most importantly, it is part of the City’s civic heritage and their 100-year history.
Once lost, it will be very difficult to regain. There is value to the economic value to the brand, business value, property value, civic value, ability to form community, and for those reasons, he thinks the tower is a contributor to all of those factors.
Councilmember McCormick said in looking at the different water levels, he asked what is the normal depth of the Reservoir is. He asked if it is 440 as what they normally see, or he asked if it goes up to 449 in the winter and down to 433 in the summer. He understands Mr. Chong is saying the drawing is somewhat misleading because it is apples to oranges and they are showing a higher column height than the proposed sign might. But, he asked how to understand those different water levels and what to expect when someone is going around the Reservoir.
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Mr. Chong said the Committee’s understanding is the operating level needs to be at 449 constant, but they have gained an interim approval to lessen that to the 440 level but the DSOD would like them to come back to the full normal operating level which is what EBMUD’s claims are.
Councilmember McCormick said he can see in some of the pre-reading that EBMUD is going to lower the level of the Reservoir during construction. Mr. Chong said it is not during construction. The interim period was created during the drought as he understands it, so they would love to see it at 440 because it has great structural implications in terms of stresses put on the existing tall tower but they were told “no;” that they cannot make those assumptions despite the fact it has been operating that way successfully with no apparent negative impacts.
Councilmember Anduri said recognizing safety is our first priority, Mr. Chong is a distinguished architect and at one time the President of the American Institute of Architects. Safety is the City’s highest priority but he asked Mr. Chong to explain the aesthetic importance of the tower in this environment.
Mr. Chong continued the slide show to answer the question, presenting examples of how the tower is recognized and how important it is. He presented the tower in its environment and said it is important to understand that the tower in itself is not an iconic architectural piece, but part of an assemblage which is extremely important to the environment and is the reason this facility is more favored and visited than any other, although Lafayette has many wonderful paths and trails, more than 1 million visitors a year. They come here for a reason which he believes is the composition of the natural landscape, the profile of the background, the darkness of that, the reflection of the water, the natural habitats that have been created, and this iconic figure that is identifiable and gives orientation and recognition. It is recognizable, causes memory, is the result of many photos taken, and is the reason for Lafayette’s business success that he believes contributes to the downtown retail.
Councilmember Anduri asked if there are other reasons why the tower should be preserved in its current state.
Mr. Chong asked to go to the second to the last slide and said he thinks that Lafayette deserves great sensitivity to the care for the reasons he thinks the tower is a contributor to the environment and to the greater good of the City. What the Committee is concerned about is that they have heard the tower needs to be treated equitably with other facilities and that is what they see as being the potential threat to what they are hoping will not be Lafayette. The sensitivity deserves much more care than he thinks they have seen EBMUD treat the facility at this point.
Councilmember Anduri thanked Mr. Chong for his work and for gathering the petition. As a follow-on to comments, to the extent people put their addresses and cities on the petition, of the over one hundred people who signed the petition, less than half were from Lafayette, which shows this is a regional resource.
He noted 46 of the people who signed the petition were from Lafayette and then 15 other cities were represented, or 61 people, including 5 from Oakland, 4 from Pleasant Hill, Berkeley, Martinez, Richmond, Santa Monica, San Francisco, and this demonstrates a lot.
Mr. Chong said he thinks it is another indication of the importance of the facility. People come here because they want to be here. They have other options, and it is an important destination.
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MASON WALTERS said he is a structural engineer and have been for the last 44 years and a principal of a company in San Francisco that does a variety of different types of work, most of it seismically related, much of it in seismic restoration of historic structures, and seismic restoration in general, including assisting within a key role for the Aqueduct No. 3 of the Mokelumne Aqueduct system in which they helped protect that particular aqueduct as an emergency water supply after a major earthquake from the effects of ground motion of the Delta.
Aside from that, they have done a tremendous amount of work on buildings, bridges, and other structures.
He has a lot of experience with this type of thing. The Citizens Technical Advisory Committee has really solely been focused on the disposition of the outlet tower. That was their charge originally, and that was because that is what EBMUD was addressing—cutting off the tower to make it better seismically safe in an earthquake. During their study of the tower,they were informed by EBMUD that the concern with the tower at full height was not the tower itself per se, which they did prove could be reinforced to survive the maximum credible earthquake on its own. It was the interaction they claimed that with the Reservoir bottom conduits which led to the exit of water from the dam which would become the only pathway for water out of the dam in an emergency. So, since the conduits are the drainage path for water from the Reservoir in an emergency, regardless of what you do to the tower, what EBMUD’s claim was, it would overly tax the conduit system which comprises the outlet as well as the overflow.
Recognizing that, they began to look at some of the engineering work that had been done by EBMUD and the reports they had delivered relative to the interaction between the tower and the conduit and found some inconsistent results that the Committee questioned them about that were never re-examined to the Committee’s knowledge and, basically their arguments towards questioning that particular interaction, was dismissed.
The risk EBMUD was looking at was really the probable maximum precipitation which they later released in the study to the Committee postulates 37” of rain in a 72-hour period and then the danger being coupled with a maximum credible earthquake that would take hundreds of years to return.
Councilmember Anduri said he would appreciate if Mr. Walters could explain the concerns.
Mr. Walters said the concern is that there have been enough inconsistencies and holes in the information the Committee has been provided that they believe there is a demand for and have asked for an independent expert peer review of the entire system, and not just the tower. The tower is the tail on the dog. It is the entire conduit system, the actual safety of the dam, the risks that exist or do not exist from the confluence of these different factors that are extremely unlikely. So, the Committee is recommending that the peer review include a very comprehensive review of hydrology which is not their expertise field, but apparently is the reason for all of this trouble, the structural and geotechnical engineering, meaning foundations and soils, as well as the cost estimating which has been provided to the Committee only in the vaguest terms for very preliminary schemes, and it is certainly not accurate. They expect those things need to be reviewed independently because at this point they are seeing a pattern of inertia with EBMUD. They do not want to turn back for good reasons in some ways, but it is not a matter of safety. They have proven they can maintain a tall tower and the Committee has agreed to the idea of putting a metal house on top or a replica. They can maintain the tall tower, but they need to retrofit the conduits and they need to do that anyway. Therefore, the Committee thinks a comprehensive view of the whole system is needed and a peer review that is independent and apart from the EBMUD and their consultants, which is the reason he is speaking with the Council and recommending that.
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Mayor Dawson thanked Committee members for the tremendous work and the true care they are putting into this.
BILL BUCHER, Lafayette Homeowners Council, said he wrote a letter which came in late which he read into the record relating to their agreement with recommendations of the Committee to retain the current tower structure, agree the tower has become a symbol of the community, recognizing safety, and they think a solution can be found to retain the tower, agree with review of alternatives, and asked the Council to work with EBMUD to retain the tower. He referred to EBMUD’s claims of an additional $8 million to retain the tower, and he finds this amount hard to believe.
LIBBY HENRY commended Committee members for the very hard work they have done, still supports what they have offered and presented to EBMUD, thinks 90% of the community agrees with them, is very disappointed in EBMUD’s attitude, said she found the three women from EBMUD who spoke, including Lafayette’s representative, condescending and very closed-minded. The Committee members are extremely experienced in what they do and to dismiss their ideas and dismiss the community is more than disappointing to her. She would respectfully ask EBMUD to reconsider and had she known Director Gomez was going to dismiss anything the community wanted, she would never have voted for her. She finds this very disturbing that the whole community is being dismissed and thinks EBMUD needs to reconsider and suggested a strike. The tower is an historic monument of over 100 years old and is iconic and she believes it cannot be removed. She thanked Councilmembers as well for their work with the Committee. She walks with Jim Scala three times a week around the Reservoir and asked not to destroy Lafayette’s history.
CHERYL MACDONALD thanked Committee members as well and cannot imagine how many hours of work they have dedicated to this. She likes the idea of the independent review as sometimes an outside person is needed, thinks there is a way to work this out, and retain the tower the way it is, said the City has very talented and educated people who know what they are doing, and she is concerned that the Committee’s idea was not specifically presented to the DSOD, assuming it would not be heard. This is very bothersome, given the Committee put in so much work and through respect, it should have been presented. She thanked the Council and the letter they worked on today, thanked Mr. Chong for presenting the pictures of what she views as a nugget that will stick above the water which is just not acceptable. Everybody wants to see the tower and not a nugget and she asked to find a way to do that. She agrees with safety first, and Councilmember Anduri brought up the project could not be started until 2027 and this should be pursued with independent review. She also did not know about the petition and thinks many residents would have signed it which have not and asked to continue conversations.
Councilmember Anduri said he wanted to also recognize Matt Bertics and Loring Wyllie who also were representatives on the Committee and went to Sacramento and met with EBMUD. He voiced concern with the historical record and when he was talking about the November 21st statement he left out something very important. In the second paragraph, there is a sentence that states, “In 2017, EBMUD presented three alternatives to the City Council, two of which maintain the tower height. The City Council favored shortening the tower since it eliminated the hazard and ultimately, the other two alternatives were not viable.” City Council and Parks, Trails, and Recreation Page 18 of 40 November 25, 2024 Commission Minutes
A casual reader of this statement would conclude that first, the full Council expressed its approval of a shortened tower and second, that they did so because they believed it was the only way to eliminate a hazard. He has read the minutes of that meeting, has listened to the audio, and he spoke today with former Mayor Mike Anderson who presided over that meeting. In fact, there was no conclusion or even consensus reached by the Council. The Council favoring shortening of the tower is simply not true.
There were only individual reactions to the presentation and only three Councilmembers reacted— Councilmember Burks was absent. Councilmember Samson was silent. Of the three who spoke, two ventured no opinion as to the three alternatives. Only Mayor Anderson commented and he was saying that “Alternative 1; shortened tower was pursued. The height should be maintained by constructing a facsimile of the existing tower out of lighter materials.” No Councilmember said he favored a shorter tower because it eliminated a hazard. So, he wants to be sure residents understand that is the case.
Mayor Dawson thanked Councilmember Anduri for clarifying this. She expressed real disappointment in the lack of clarity to some of these statements that have been publicly sent out. The Council values EBMUD as partners and would like to collaborate on this and, as they have heard, it is a very important part of the community, history, and shared history. EBMUD formed in 1923 and this tower is almost as old, so she hopes out of this disappointment the Council can talk about having the Town Hall so they can have information come out with EBMUD and residents of Lafayette to get the facts and what the possibilities are because it is that important.
Vice Mayor Kwok thanked members of the public who participated and have taken the time to write and send in comments and petitions on this matter. He, along with Councilmember Anduri, are the Council liaisons to the EBMUD agency. He has been the lead liaison for the last two years and Councilmember Anduri and formerly the Mayor was also very active. They have been through many meetings on this deep topic for two years and it is quite complicated technically and he thinks the information presented is not always accurate which is frustrating, so they have tried to set the record straight here.
Regarding what they are trying to achieve at this meeting, he tried to boil down a few statements to frame where they are because they heard a lot and cannot go through two years of disputes. He suggested identifying where they go from here, which is more important, rather what has happened in the past. He reiterated that the City of Lafayette has had a good working relationship with EBMUD for many decades and the good times far outnumber the bad times and there are times there will be differences of opinions, and this is one of those times but he hopes it will not impair the long-term good working relationship they have.
This has been disappointing for him personally, but in a wider context, they have a good relationship and he voiced appreciation for the time EBMUD has given to meet with the City, at their headquarters, in Sacramento, and they have held a lot of engagement even if they have not come to the same conclusions.
Secondly, on whose authority is the Reservoir. To restate the obvious, EBMUD is the owner of the Reservoir.
They own the dam and the tower. EBMUD has a 7-member publicly elected Board of Directors which is their governing body and overseeing all of that, EBMUD is regulated by the State of California’s Department of Water Resources Division of Safety of Dams. The City of Lafayette are downstream stakeholders and they enjoy the benefits of the Reservoir, but it is not the City’s property and not in their budget. They also do not set the policies related to it, and are participating in a public process of giving feedback around the seismic retrofit of this tower and have been doing it for decades, but more recently in the last several years. Their priority is to hear the proposals of the shortening of the tower, addressing seismic risks, and to ensure safety to the community which is the primary purpose.
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At the same time, the community has risen with an interest to save the iconic tower so there is a historic preservation piece and a safety piece. The question is, can they do both. He asked if they can explore a way they can make this safe and have historic preservation. He thinks for two years, the Citizens Technical Advisory Committee has been asking safety related questions. They brought up examples of some of those questions this evening that were floated to staff on EBMUD and they have also carried to the DSOD. That Committee has explored and propose alternative approaches.
In this meeting in August, they were still at loggerheads with the staff in terms of not agreeing on an approach and so the Council asked to escalate the matter to the regulatory body; the DSOD. They had that meeting with DSOD in August of this year. The reason they are meeting today is because they only just, on November 8th, got a written response from DSOD based on the August meeting of the outcome of that meeting. They had nothing to report prior to getting this letter. So, when they got the letter which was in the packet, they immediately wanted to agendize this matter and let the public know of what the final decision was from DSOD after all these years of working on this issue.
In that meeting, the City was appealing to the DSOD for a third-party peer review of the different viewpoints in an effort to see if an alternative approach could be accepted and during that meeting, the Citizens Technical Advisory Committee also raised a number of technical and safety-related issues not just around the tower but around the conduits, around the dam itself, and participants from DSOD had actually been working on this project for 20 years. Those in the room know this dam quite well.
He felt they were heard by people who were “in the know” and ultimately, as seen in the packet in the DSOD letter of November 8th declined to initiate a third-party peer review. They said if the owner of the dam wishes to do that, they have no objection. EBMUD could, on their own, do that and whatever the findings are of the third-party review, DSOD said if they do not necessarily accept that, they will still review findings for its merits, but EBMUD could also do that. This was disappointing because this was one thing they were hoping that could have led to some mediated resolution with the third party.
The second point in the DSOD letter was their conclusion; that the project as currently proposed by EBMUD satisfactorily addresses DSOD’s concerns. So, he thinks this is a way of saying they heard the City’s concerns around the safety of the tower, the conduits, the wider issues, and their conclusion is that the project as proposed for shortening of the tower satisfactorily addresses their concerns and they can accept EBMUD’s proposal. On the other hand, that letter did allow EBMUD to delay the start of construction until 2027 so long as a concept could be presented by April 1, 2025 which would be a tight timetable to do a fully professional design that would likely be accepted.
In summary, he would say that the City has worked with their counterparts at EBMUD staff, worked with the regulator and in both cases, both bodies would go with the plan of record which is the shortening of the tower. They did not accept the Committee’s proposals, so the only remaining body to appeal to would be the 7-member governing body of EBMUD. So, he thinks this is where the staff recommendation is to engage the Board of Directors to have the voices of the community and City heard, and ultimately EBMUD are the owners of the dam and the tower and they have to make the decision.
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Mayor Dawson said that is the recommendation to move that forward. She knows it is possible and what they talked about was the City’s work with PG&E’s regulator and the community to come up with a plan that always had safety first but also looked at alternatives to mitigate the impact on the environment and community, and it was possible. She knows EBMUD has done similar things like this in rerouting pipelines around important trees, and it was in the plans and it obviously might have changed their schedule and design, but she thinks this is possible, as well. Therefore, she asked for additional comments and asked staff on steps to put forward an invitation to work with the EBMUD Board.
Councilmember McCormick said as Councilmember Anduri aptly pointed out, the statement from EBMUD last Thursday was incredibly disappointing. It seemed inflammatory, unnecessary, factually incorrect, and made this whole process harder than it needed to be. They are partners no matter what happens here, but it just caused a lot of angst in the community, a lot of worry, and strictly unnecessary, which he wants to put on the record as very disappointing.
They heard from the Director representing Lafayette and EBMUD staff and the direction sounded pretty conclusive. If the Council is asking staff to ask the EBMUD Board to hear one more appeal, he did not want false hope and asked what would change in the process. He wants to make sure all avenues are exhausted and also did not want to hold out a false sense of hope so he seeks to understand what they hope to gain by appealing to the Board.
Councilmember Anduri said throughout this process the City has attempted to keep residents informed about what has happened. They have had Council meetings over the last two years, information on the website, and kept citizens informed. They wanted to keep their good relationship with EBMUD, hoped they would be met with a collaborate spirit and have a solution that was both safe and maintained the iconic tower. They started more broadly informing the community over the last two weeks after they received the DSOD letter and they are at the beginning of that. He thinks they owe the community a lot more information and more attempt to inform. If they do not do that, next summer if this moves forward and the tower is taken down, he can predict there will be thousands of outraged citizens of the East Bay and of Northern California who will ask why they were not informed of this. ‘ So, the Council has an obligation to do more and let people know about what might happen. He also thinks the EBMUD Board has an obligation to come and hear from residents. This tower is very important and he really does not think EBMUD management or Board recognizes that and internalizes that. If they did, they would be in a different position than now. So, he thinks it is important that citizens and residents of the community have the feeling they had an opportunity to meet with the EBMUD Board and express their views. So, he supports the staff recommendation because the information is still spreading throughout the community. They need to reach out to the EBMUD Board and invite them to participate in this type of meeting and they need to continue City efforts to inform the public.
Vice Mayor Kwok said in response to Councilmember McCormick’s question of, what is the purpose and to expand on Councilmember Anduri’s comments, they have been very active as the Lafayette community to bring voices to bear here but this is not just Lafayette but their friends in Orinda, Moraga, Walnut Creek, Richmond, Alameda, and other users of the Reservoir. Perhaps this next step is a way to ensure all stakeholders are aware and give them a last chance to voice their views as due process.
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Mayor Dawson said they did have a City Council meeting where they did have PG&E and they also invited the Safety and Enforcement Division of the CPUC who were also there. They came together to find some common ground to move forward, so she would also recommend that as well. But, she thinks it sounds like the Council would like to move forward with an invitation to the EBMUD Board to see if they can coordinate quickly facilitate a meeting.
Councilmember McCormick asked if EBMUD is just moving forward with the shortened tower. He thinks if they are going to do this, he thinks it makes sense with moving with greatest haste because at some point, if it ends up being in the spring or early summer, it will be too late to do anything because designs will be done. So, he suggested the meeting be held as soon as possible.
Councilmember Anduri asked Director Gomez when the swearing in date is for their new Directors on the Board.
Director Gomez said it will be January 13th and Councilmember Anduri suggested and there was Council consensus to send an invite to the Board Secretary for a meeting.
BREAK
Mayor Dawson called for a break at 8:20 p.m., and thereafter, reconvened the meeting at 8:30 p.m.
Noted as Present:
Councilmember Candell returned to the dais to participate in the remainder of the meeting.
9. CONSENT CALENDAR
Mayor Dawson asked if there were any requests for removal of any items. Councilmember Candell and Jean Follmer requested removal of Item A.
Mayor Dawson confirmed there were no other public comments or requests for removal of items.
B. Authorization to Apply for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 Community Development Block Grant CDBG Grant) to support the Lamorinda Spirit Van
Recommendation: Authorize staff to submit the CDBG Grant application to benefit the Lamorinda Spirit Van Program.
C. Amendment to the Park Theater Grant and Use Agreement Recommendation: Approve the First Amendment to the Park Theater Grant and Use Agreement to extend the deadline for commencing operations to January 1, 2027.
D. Request from the Park Theater Trust for a Public Art Requirement Exception Recommendation: Approve the Park Theater Trust request for an exception to the Public Art Requirement, citing the compelling circumstance that restoring the historic neon marquee represents a significant contribution to public art.
E. Removal of Four Parking Spaces in the Oak Bridge Parking Lot to Create a Temporary Parklet for the Pop-Up Recreation Programs
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Recommendation: Adopt Resolution 2024-40 Approving the removal of four parking spaces in - the Oak Bridge Parking Lot to create a temporary parklet at the corner of First Street and Golden Gate Way.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Anduri/Candell) to adopt Consent Calendar Items B, C, D, and E.
Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Dawson, Kwok, Anduri, Candell, and McCormick; Noes: None).
10. OLD BUSINESS – None.
11. STAFF REPORTS – None.
12. PUBLIC HEARINGS
A. Patrick Golier, Transportation Program Manager
Resolution 2024-34: Implementing the City of Lafayette’s Residential Parking Permit Program on Carol Lane
Recommendation: Adopt Resolution 2024-34 to include the block of Carol Lane between Mt. Diablo Boulevard and Marlene Drive in the City’s Residential Parking Permit Program.
Transportation Program Manager Patrick Golier gave the staff report and overview of the City’s Residential Parking Permit Program on Carol Lane. Staff recommends the Council adopt Resolution 2024- 34 to include the block of Carol Lane between Mt. Diablo boulevard and Marlene Drive in the City’s Residential Parking Permit Program.
Councilmember McCormick asked and confirmed that the owner of Lafayette Car Wash spoke at the TransCirc Commission meeting.
Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period.
PETER LINGAME asked if the owner of the car wash be able to apply for residential parking permits for his employees.
Mr. Golier responded no; the residential parking permit would only be available for purchase for the six homes that front Carol Lane.
Mr. Lingame said he did not think that was the wisest decision.
LAURA LAMOTTE said she lives at 1065 Carol Lane, hoped to get a parking permit, and said it would be very convenient. She is mostly present in case there were any questions of Councilmembers, and there were none.
Councilmember Candell said she very much appreciated TransCirc Commission’s lengthy deliberations and staff bringing it back to the Council, and she voiced support of adoption of the resolution.
Councilmember McCormick said he thinks the car wash owner’s comments are valid, but he thinks the program is worthwhile to continue, and the City will be revisiting parking more holistically soon.
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Mayor Dawson noted there will be a downtown-specific workshop which would be an appropriate time, which Councilmembers said they look forward to.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Candell/Kwok) to adopt Resolution 2024-34 to include the block of Carol Lane between Mt. Diablo Boulevard and Marlene Drive in the City’s Residential Parking Permit Program. Vote: 5- 0 (Ayes: Candell, Kwok, Anduri, Candell, and McCormick; Noes: None).
Mr. Golier confirmed he will work to send notices to the six households and staff will also change signs on the street.
B. Arly Cassidy, Senior Planner
MCR01-24 Tree Ordinance Update – City-initiated amendment of the City of Lafayette’s Tree Protection Ordinance (Chapter 6-17 of the Lafayette Municipal Code) to address issues identified by the City Council and Planning Commission, City staff, tree permit applicants, stakeholders, and the public. CEQA Determination: The proposed changes in the draft Tree Protection Ordinance implement the Safety Element, which was previously analyzed pursuant to the Addendum to the Housing Element Certified Environmental Impact Report (SCH #2021080038) and adopted on August 28, 2023.
Recommendation: Introduce Ordinance 694, waive the first reading, and continue the matter to December 9, 2024, for second reading and adoption (MCR01-24).
Senior Planner Arly Cassidy gave the staff report, overview, and update on the Tree Protection Ordinance (TPO), stating changes were made after the last Council review, and she called out that Councilmember Anduri contacted her today to discuss some small clarifying changes. However, one point made does require further deliberation on the Council’s part which is the change on Topic 5 related to whether an arborist report would allow people to move directly to having no replantings nor in-lieu fees, which Councilmember Anduri stated leaves the City with no triggers for in-lieu fees. This was not staff’s intent and if the Council wishes one situation where in-lieu fees be either required or allowed, then a modification would need to be made to the proposed ordinance, and she included a suggestion of what might work for creating that situation.
She then displayed her PowerPoint presentation slide describing the original slide from the meeting two weeks ago, what was discussed on the left column which was removing all references to percentage of canopy cover and the upper main bullet is to allow in-lieu fees instead of planting in certain situations.
The second lower bullet is to remove both in-lieu fees and replantings in certain situations The two remaining bullets state, “An arborist report states additional trees would not foster healthy growth” and “additional trees would not comply with defensible space guidelines” which were both moved to the lower section under no in-lieu fees and no replanting. This ended up leaving nothing that would trigger the in-lieu fees.
In looking at an edited version of this slide, she has moved these around. Councilmember Anduri also made the suggestion that “all of these be allowed if an arborist report states.” They are not rephrased to state “Remove fees and replanting if arborist report states” and then there are three situations. This is the suggested change made.
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Regarding further modifications, the top section is what was changed; however, according to the second bullet, this removes all situations where in-lieu fees would be required or allowed, which she believes is not the intent. So, there are two options here—1) to redistribute the three situations at the top such that one or more of them would either require or allow the applicant to pay in-lieu fees in certain situations; and 2) to create or describe some new situation where in-lieu fees would still be allowed or required. She created an example such that if an applicant is required to plant greater than 10 trees, the applicant may choose to pay in-lieu fees instead of replanting for any trees beyond the 10 required. This illustrates an example of when the City may allow these in-lieu fees be paid instead of replanting at the applicant’s option where there is still a path to dollars coming into the in-lieu fund.
Councilmember Anduri referred to page 2a-15 and stated, If 10 trees were required to be planted and the arborist came back and said there is room here for three trees but not for the other seven, that the language as is, is clear enough to get the result that they plant the three trees and they are off the hook for the other seven, because he would read it that way. He said if that is the reading, he wondered if the City needed any in-lieu alternative. They want trees planted if possible rather than someone paying an in-lieu fee, but if these exceptions are there and it would not be a good thing to plant the tree, then they would not plant the tree or pay the in-lieu fee. He would be happy with that result.
Councilmember McCormick said he views it the same way. The goal is not to get in-lieu fees. It is just when you cannot get the trees planted. This is his intention and understanding. He thinks they want to simplify the ordinance so if clarifying language is needed, he likes the intent but is not exactly following the phrasing used here.
Ms. Cassidy agreed it is not perfected, but she was just trying to think of some situation that might work.
Vice Mayor Kwok asked if Councilmember Anduri was proposing to keep the language as is.
Councilmember Anduri referred to page 2a-15, Item F under Exceptions. What section 1708 is doing is talking about tree replacement, how many trees must be planted, and what kind of tree it can be when you must plant it. Then, section E talks about in-lieu fees which they do not have any more so that would come out. There is then the obligation to plant but you do not have it if there is no room. To him, that ends it.
Vice Mayor Kwok said he is fine with that.
Councilmember Candell said the fact they have no other reason to get in-lieu fees is something surprising, but it does not mean that that is not the right answer which is how she is reading this, as well. If they came up with a solution that is fair and reasonable and if it means no in-lieu fees, then she would agree.
Councilmember Anduri said if someone comes in with an application to remove a 36” oak which is an important tree, but presumably there are good reasons for removing it. The Director of Planning agrees this is fine and the calculation is done for three trees need to be put in. If there is no room for them, then he does not see an issue here.
Mayor Dawson said there should not be an issue and they have defined what is defensible space and recommended where trees can go, it covers all that without being punitive. She is fine with the language.
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Councilmember McCormick said to clarify the scenario, if someone cuts down the large tree, there is room for three trees, but the applicant does not want to plant them for whatever reason, that is not an option, so they must plant the trees because they are cutting down a protected tree.
Councilmember Anduri said in flushing that out more, if they cut down the 36” tree and put in an ADU on top of the space, that wipes out the planning area. He asked if there should be some payment for that. If the tree was cut down for a good reason, then the City wants the replanting, but if the replanting is in the public’s interest, what is done.
Mayor Dawson said in that situation, there is rationale for why in building an ADU. She asked if there is a mistake, and Councilmember Anduri said then that is a penalty fee for violation and those are not in-lieu fees.
Councilmember McCormick said he was just wondering if someone just did not want to plant trees for aesthetic reasons and would rather pay the money, he asked if the City was just not allowing that under any circumstance.
Councilmember Anduri said he would say the City not allow it because they are cutting down a protected tree presumably for good reason, and the City is saying they need to plant but if there is no room, they do not do anything. If they do have room, and do not plant within the time period, then they are in the penalty period.
Mayor Dawson asked how that is enforced. Ms. Cassidy said staff typically requires photographs of the planted tree. They do not have a long-term follow-up mechanism but they ask the applicant to send photographs of the tree in the ground or however many trees showing they are there, installed correctly, and with the new ordinance it would be during the rainy season for a better chance of success. They have also found that in larger development projects, neighbors are attuned to the development proposal, especially if large trees are being removed and staff often receive reports from neighbors that trees are not surviving or were not installed correctly, etc. so there is a secondary backup.
Mayor Dawson asked if a heritage tree is removed, she asked if they might want to consider fees for larger trees under Major Trees. Councilmember Anduri said this is covered under Subsection E on the last page; 17, letter E.
Ms. Cassidy said while on the topic, she pointed out that in speaking to David Clark, who will speak under public comment, he was going over this item and noticed that the first whole sentence; “The person who destroys or removes more than 25 protected trees, a major tree removal project, in violation of this chapter, etc.” A major tree removal project is defined as someone who is correctly applying for a permit and it does not make sense to have someone in violation who is correctly applying. So, it makes sense to remove that subphrase, “A major tree removal project.” So, she suggests including that in the revisions.
Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period.
DAVID CLARK said he had trouble reading the statute. There are some areas which he thinks are unclear.
He knows the Council wants to approve this tonight, so he has some suggestions. He referred to Attachment 2.a., pages 2a-1 through 17. He went through this chronologically and he can hand his revisions to staff when he is done and provided the following comments:
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• There are three action verbs in the statute, “remove, destroy, and excessively prune.” Sometimes all three terms will be seen used together and sometimes not. A lot of times it is “remove or destroy” and there is no reference to excessive pruning. He thinks those should all be the same.
He did not think there is a situation where those would not be in lock step. Another factor is that there is a definition of “destroy” which includes “remove” and “excessively prune,” so he did not think all three were needed. He did a PDF search which shows up in about 30 places in the statute.
So, for clarity purposes, it would be good to address that. • Along the same lines, there is a reference to 25% with respect to excessive pruning. He asked if it is more than 25% or he asked if it is 25% or more. That is used in both iterations, which is easy to get rid of.
• On page 2a-1, there is a reference to the Downtown Creeks Plan. He would like that to read the Downtown Creeks Preservation, Restoration, and Development Plan. • On page 2a-3, there is a reference to a legally issued building permit. Elsewhere in the document it is called “properly issued building permit.” He thinks they should be lined up equally. • On page 2a-4, there is a reference to a tree or a plant. It is the only place in the whole document “plant” shows up. He would remove the word “plant” unless there is a reason for it to be there. • In that same location, there is a reference to a creek bank and elsewhere in the act the City has defined that to be in accordance with Chapter 6-18 of the Flood Damage Prevention Act. He would put that same language here.
• On page 2a-5, there is a reference to “tree protection zone.” Tree starts with a “t” and it is not in the right place here. It should be moved to the definition so it lines up correctly alphabetically. • There is a definition of “protected tree” on page 2a-5 which does not say anything. It states to look at Section 6-17.04b and he suggested it say, “For the definition of a protected tree, see Section 6-17.04b” which is where all of the terms are defined. Councilmember Anduri asked if Mr. Clark yes; he would accept something that reads, “Protected tree means a tree that is protected by Section 6-1.704b? Mr. Clark said yes, because once you get to Section 704b there are other trees identified such as a downtown tree, a street tree, a riparian tree, and so these are all picked up, as well.
• There is a reference on page 2a-7 to a “creek channel.” Elsewhere, it is just “creek” so he would be consistent and would remove the word “channel.” Also on that page is the properly issued building permit which should line up with the other one. • The 25% item on page 2a-8 is where there is a parenthetical reference to “excessively prune” then “remove 25% or more of the functioning leaf.” The definition of “excessively” is more than 25% and here the parenthetical is incorrect and he would remove the entire parenthetical.
Councilmember Anduri agreed.
• On page 2a-9, under 6-17.05b3, last line, “…causing an adjacent tree to die”, there is an explanation of “privately maintained street trees” and it is confusing. There is reference to an adjacent tree and it is not clear. He would remove the word “adjacent” because it is hard to tell what that means—adjacent to the property, adjacent to the tree that caused the problem in the first place, etc. Councilmember Anduri said he would leave it in. • Lastly, he referred to the one Ms. Cassidy referred to regarding removing the major tree removal project on the last page. The “remove, destroy, excessively prune” is a bit of a challenge because sometimes it is “remove, removal,” sometimes it is “destroy” and “destroyed,” and sometimes “destruction.” So, he recommended being consistent.
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JEFF KOWALKSI said he submitted written comments earlier in support of the revised tree ordinance; however, he was heartened by the accomplishment of the team saving the park trees in cooperation with PG&E, and in hearing the comments about the tower, celebrating the prior and not at all diminishing the latter important topic, he moved to add that all trees in Lafayette are very important to their town. Many of their trees are far older than the monument. In fact, they pre-date even the City’s settlement date.
They are part of the City’s deep history and valuable present.
For trees though, it is not the seismic or flood threat that imperils them and requires action. Instead, it is climate change. We are already seeing today a broad die off of trees that were planted under the goals of their prior plan originated 50 years ago. The updates in the new ordinance are an excellent step forward and he urged the Council adopt them. Yet, as valuable as these changes are, they address only part of the challenge to the town. To truly meet the moment, they need a dynamic approach; one that includes a commitment to regularly reviewing and updating the list of tree species appropriate for Lafayette. Modern arboriculture offers clear guidance on which trees are best suited to adapt to evolving conditions like ours.
He asked that the Council support a process for periodically amending the list of approved trees aligned with those recommendations and best practice and continue to bring Lafayette into a safer, still greener future. He said he is eager to help the City adapt to these changes ahead and retain their outstanding landscape.
CHERYL MACDONALD referred to the downtown area and asked to know how many people know there are light poles that are immersed in trees. In the wintertime, when canopies are thick and lights are facing up, many people walk under those trees and do not have light. She asked that the City consider this with the current situation and for the future. The irrigation system on the east end was let to go to a nonfunctioning system. The businesses have had to get creative as to how to make their areas pretty. Some have put in fake flowers and some have put grass and bark. The trees already pose a problem to these businesses due to the lack of water. Now, these trees which have been planted by the City that are raising the sidewalk are dumping leaves and are leaving businesses, which are often small, open to lawsuits.
In a letter Dawn Eames sent out talks about Russell Beaty’s comments that under no circumstance should property owners be responsible for maintaining trees and other plantings in the City’s right-of-way. This used to include the sidewalks, so she asked the Council to consider that it go back to the way it was and that the businesses are responsible for their own storefront to the sidewalk. She also likes the idea of the City taking time and revising the master plan for types of landscaping that blend and enhance the rural area of the City of low maintenance, native species, and drought-tolerant. Her other comment is that since the tree ordinance is being updated, she asked if any businesses contacted about this because this is a concern of many businesses, especially the small businesses. She thinks they should have a chance to provide their input. If not, she asked that they be given a chance to comment.
Mayor Dawson asked that the DSPI was saying property owners should not be responsible for those trees even though they are on their property. She noted it depends if they are on public right-of-way or not.
Ms. MacDonald said trees are often in the bulb outs which are City property and are usually on the curb, or on the north side of the sidewalk between the sidewalk and the tree, often in the bulb outs. The trees were planted by the City and not by the businesses.
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Mayor Dawson asked staff if these are City trees or property owner trees. City Attorney Subramanian said that question is not part of this ordinance and she thinks it has always been the obligation of the property owner to maintain the trees even if they are on City property, including sidewalks.
Ms. Cassidy confirmed and said there are some City-maintained trees that they identify in their internal GIS layer. They are only in the downtown mostly along Mt. Diablo Boulevard, but they are not all trees on Mt. Diablo. All other trees are the responsibility of the property owner.
ROB LAVOIE voiced support of Dawn Eames’ letter and refer to his comments on the 12th which he submitted after the cutoff of the last meeting. He is also concerned about the liability for trees planted in the median between the sidewalk and street. If the City forces someone to accept a tree there and makes the property owner liable, he thinks they should have the option of declining the tree. He also mentioned in his other letter that anything near a streetlight or power pole or line should be planted in a size that will not grow tall so it needs maintenance all the time. The tree should be designed for the right height. He hopes the Council will also comment on whether they are able to change the lot coverage and exemption of tree permits. He thinks with increasing fire concerns requiring people to replace a tree with several other trees that are too big for the property is just creating more problems for liability.
It sounded like the property owners are still responsible for trees planted on their property except in the downtown, but he suggested looking at that in the future. He knows his neighbor had to pay for a large oak tree that was on the side of his property but next to the street which he did not plant.
Councilmember Anduri summarized the changes, including Mr. Clark’s to be able to complete this tonight:
• Page 1: 6-1701(a)(3), there is the phrase “destroyed or removed” and this was changed to “destroyed, removed, or extensively pruned.”
• Under (b)(1), reiterate Mr. Clark’s comment that Downtown Creeks include the full title of the Downtown Creeks plan.
• Page 2, 6-1702(b); introductory part, where it states “Arborist report means a report by an arborist developed in a manner consistent with the guidelines for report-writing established by the American Society of Consulting Arborists.
• In 6-1702(c), delete canopy as the City no longer uses canopy cover or the percentages. • On Page 4, (s); Native Riparian Species or Riparian Species, means a tree. Delete “or plant.” • On page 5, Under Native Species, number 11 would be “Oregon White Oak Quercus Garryana.” • As Mr. Clark pointed out, letter “u” should be re-alphabetized. The protected tree would be simplified to read, “Protected tree means a tree that is protected by Section 6-1704(b) of this chapter.”
• On Page 6, Oregon Oak would be Oregon White Oak Quercus Garryana.” He noted that Quercus Alba is actually a Midwestern and East Coast Oak and does not grow in California unless his online research is wrong, but someone must have included it for a reason and he suggested leaving it.
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• Mayor Dawson referred to 6-1702(z) under definitions, where it states, “remove means to cut down or extract a tree.” She asked if they would add “cut down a tree to ground level” because this was discussed. Ms. Cassidy said the definition previously had “cut down completely” and her understanding from the Mayor’s comment at the last meeting was not all trees are cut down completely and there is sometimes a stump. They took out completely, but she may have gotten it wrong. Councilmember Anduri noted they still want that to be covered and this is why staff took the word out and confirmed it covers cutting the tree down to ground level. • On Page 7, In (bb)under Riparian area, delete the word “channel.” Ms. Cassidy said there were also two small things that were left in (aa): a Class 3 ridgeline has a strike-through and that would be removed, and down in 1703 there is a section that is underlined and that would stay, and the underlining would be deleted.
• On Page 8, in 6-1704(a), remove the parenthetical and just stick with the definition. Two lines down where it states, “It is a violation of this chapter for any person to remove, destroy or extensively prune a protected tree.”
• On Page 9, under (b)(2), the last sentence states, “Trees whose dying or death is caused by the property owner, applicant, or other party” it states, “require a tree permit for removal.” He recommended instead stating, “…do not qualify for this exception.” • Under (b)(3), Mr. Clark talked about the word “adjacent” which he thinks works because it is adjacent to the repair area.
• On Page 11, Section 1706(e), it states, “When the removal or destruction would be when the removal, destruction, or extensively pruned.”
• On Page 14, Section 1708(a), it states, “removed or destroyed” and replace it with “removed, destroyed, or extensively pruned.”
• On Page 15, Section 1708(c)(3), this can be deleted—“Replacement trees shall not be an excluded species as defined” because the City is already stating what they would be in 1 or 2. • Councilmember Candell referred to the area right above that, under Species (c)(2), there is another one as well as in (1), and Councilmember Anduri agreed these should be deleted, as well. • The current letter (e); Use of in-lieu fees would come out because we do not have any. • On page 17, Section (e); Penalties, Major Tree Removal, after it states, “more than 25 trees” delete “a major tree removal project.”
Ms. Cassidy stated Councilmember Anduri named a number of the listed situations where they have “destroyed or removed.” If she finds other, she asked and confirmed with Councilmember Anduri that she should add “or extensively pruned.” Councilmember Anduri added that if someone extensively prunes a tree, the City requires them to plant additional trees.
Mayor Dawson asked and confirmed with the City Attorney that the Council can introduce the ordinance, as revisions are minor.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Anduri/Candell) to waive first reading and introduce Ordinance 694, as amended, and continue the matter to December 9, 2024, for second reading and adoption at a public hearing. Vote:
5-0 (Ayes: Dawson, Kwok, Anduri, Candell, and McCormick; Noes: None).
C. Anna Tolle, Assistant Planner and Sonia Urzua, Assistant Planning Director City Council and Parks, Trails, and Recreation Page 30 of 40 November 25, 2024 Commission Minutes
ZT01-24 Accessory Dwelling Unit Ordinance Update: City-initiated Zoning Text Amendment to Title 6 of the Lafayette Municipal Code, modifying Chapter 5, Article 3, entitled “Accessory Dwelling Units” to comply with California State Law regarding ADUs and program implementation of Lafayette’s Housing Element, including but not limited to removing owner occupancy requirements for ADUs; increasing height limitations; and removing maximum bedroom requirements for Class C ADUs, as well as City initiated updates to allow a bonus JADU if deed-restricted to lower income.[CEQA Determination: The proposed ordinance is statutorily exempt from CEQA. Under California Public Resources Code section 21080.17, CEQA does not apply to a City or County’s adoption of an ordinance that implements California’s ADU Law.] Recommendation: Introduce Ordinance 695, waive first reading, and continue the matter to December 9, 2024, for second reading and adoption.
Assistant Planning Director Sonia Urzua gave a PowerPoint presentation and overview of the ADU Ordinance update which is the City-initiated Zoning Text Amendment. She gave a background of the Planning Commission’s review and recommended approval to the City Council. Since then, two new bills were signed into law in September that take effect in January 2025. Staff incorporated changes into the ordinance and returned it to the Planning Commission last week, where they considered the ordinance and recommended approval to the City Council.
Primary changes that took place between August and September was a change in what was originally introduced as a Bonus JADU. Staff received advice that State law required the City to refer to is as a Bonus ADU with special features. She then provided a high-level framework of the existing ordinance, State law bills that affected ADUs and JADUs, presented revisions required by State and those City-initiated, and said staff recommends the Council introduce Ordinance 695, waive first reading, and continue the matter to December 9, 2024 for second reading and adoption.
Councilmember McCormick said it seems most of this is codifying what is being done. Regarding the Bonus ADU with low income and asked how it works. He asked if the expectation is that if a homeowner creates an ADU, they would verify annual income, which he thinks a homeowner might be ill-equipped to do.
Ms. Urzua said staff discussed this. Once they refine all revisions, they will go through the ADU program, ensure all forms are clear, information and education to the community is clear, including any additional deed restrictions which speak to short-term rentals, not being able to sell the ADU separately, and others.
What they do currently for the BMR program is they have annual questions they send out to people and they reply. When she discussed limitations with people at the counter, they will not force anyone to rent their ADU. But, if they do rent it, they could ask them and indicate the need for documentation in case HCD checks. However, they will be ensuring they have the right system in place to ask.
Councilmember Anduri referred to page 2 of the staff report under Objective Standards, Height Limits, number 3, it states, “An ADU that is attached to the primary dwelling may be up to 25 feet in height.” Right above that it states, “if detached it is 18 feet.” If he has an ADU and attach it to the house, he will get an extra 7 feet of height which is automatic and ministerially approved.
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Ms. Urzua said regarding height calculation, it depends where the ADU is because people can go up to 18 feet if they are within the ½ mile of a major transit stop. It is an incentive that if close to a transit stop, then they can get more height. In the third option, someone does not need to be proximate to a transit stop. They can be anywhere, so the dwelling heights need to match the existing home. If someone already has a second story and wants to add an ADU on top of a garage, then they can match that. So, someone cannot attach a 25-foot ADU to a 15-foot house as it must match the single-family residence.
Councilmember Anduri said on page 6 of the staff report at the top, the carryover is talking about tree protection. The last sentence states, “The City cannot impose any tree replacement requirements or similar development standards on Class A or Class B ADUs.” He asked if this means with a relatively small lot and the backyard has a 48” oak tree which covers the entire lot, someone can put their ADU where that tree is and no one can say anything about it. Ms. Urzua said correct, and it is very clean what one can and cannot do. Councilmember Anduri voiced surprise with this and confirmed this is in the State law.
Councilmember Anduri said in looking at the ordinance itself, on Exhibit A under 6561G, the definition of efficiency kitchen. He knows the City must take everything subjective out and in the existing ordinance, they talk about square footage and it seemed pretty objective. Now they are saying “a food preparation and counter and storage….reasonable size in relation to the JADU.” Ms. Urzua said this reminded her of an edit staff is also recommending which is to this particular provision to add in relation to a JADU or a Bonus ADU to capture the two types of JADUs.
Councilmember Anduri asked why they were putting a reasonable requirement here. The old ordinance spells out number of square feet. Ms. Urzua said her recollection is that it is the JADU changes.
Councilmember Anduri stated under Efficiency Kitchen it states “counters that total at least 3 square feet in area and not more than 15 square feet, and food storage cabinets that total at least 3 square feet in area and no more than 30 square feet.” So, it is absolutely objective, but this is being taken out and replaced with a reasonable standard. Ms. Urzua said this is way the current JADU State law describes an efficiency kitchen.
Councilmember Anduri referred to I; Height, there is new language. In determining the height, appurtenance attached to an accessory dwelling unit….It goes onto say that these things are excepted from the height limit calculation. So, what the City is excepting from the height limit calculation are penthouses, cupolas, spires, belfries, domes, etc. So, he can design his 13-foot-high house and put on a 20-foot cupola which neighbors would love and he asked if this is okay and not count as the height? Ms. Urzua said there the change is because State law does not allow the City to cross reference sections.
So, instead of cross-referencing Section 6513 which is a typical height exception section, they incorporated the actual language. So, that is the classic exemption height exception they typically work with.
Councilmember Anduri said if someone comes in with a home design with a belfry or a dome, he asked if that is not counted in the height. Ms. Urzua said staff does not and she thinks they saw this more recently in the Park Theater feature. They saw there was a projection for the elevator tower and staff counted that as part of the height exception.
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Mayor Dawson asked the City Attorney if that is something understood. If there is a flagpole sitting on top of a building, one would think there would be issues with adding height to a building. She asked if the definition applies and she asked how would one define a penthouse and saying this is just their second story penthouse.
Councilmember McCormick said he did not understand the list at all. He assumes there is a copy and paste from a State regulation.
City Attorney Subramanian asked Ms. Urzua if staff copied this from their existing ordinance. Ms. Urzua said yes.
Mayor Dawson said this seems questionable. It was from the City’s code but originally it was from State code and she asked if staff could verify that. City Attorney Subramanian said the City Manager is checking on this.
Councilmember Anduri asked if someone comes in with an ADU application that has a 20-foot flagpole or a 20-foot belfry or a 30-foot water tower, this is not counted as height.
Ms. Urzua said typically their experience is that a water tower or flagpole are installed on the ground level and not on top of a building.
Councilmember Anduri said then if someone builds an ADU and they attach to it on the ground a flagpole, it can be 30-feet. Ms. Urzua said the flagpole can be 30 feet if it is on the ground and ground mounted.
Councilmember Candell referred to the last sentence, and said parapets are not higher than 3 feet, but all of the other ones have no limit. Mayor Dawson said it also states, “No necessary mechanical appurtenance” and she asked who defines “necessary.”
Councilmember McCormick said he would assume this would be an elevator. If it is just following the LMC, the right thing would be to change the source. They cannot address it here because they have to address it at the source. Councilmember Anduri said no, the source does not matter for this purpose and they cannot cross-reference. Ms. Urzua said that is correct. Again, for Class C, this is the definition of height and this is what is seen in the City’s typical calculation of height. Instead of cross referencing the exception section, they added the actual language. The concern is with the current exception.
City Attorney Subramanian said the City Manager just found it. It is in the LMC, Section 6-513 which is a general reference to building height. It specifically says the limits of heights of structures established in this part 2 of this title for any district shall not apply to chimneys, stacks, fire towers, radio towers, television towers, water towers,” and on and on.
Councilmember Anduri said everything mentioned has a utility feature to it, but cupolas, belfries, domes, and monuments do not. Ms. Subramanian said cupolas are listed, and it is all in there. It is Section 6-513 and she could read the full list.
Councilmember Anduri said possibly no one has applied for a belfry in Lafayette, and Ms. Subramanian confirmed it is a direct copy from the existing LMC. Ms. Urzua said it is currently part of the City’s ADU ordinance.
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Councilmember Candell asked if the Council can change that if they choose. Ms. Subramanian said yes, but it would only then apply to ADUs because they otherwise have it.
Councilmember Anduri said he does not see any problem with it applying only to ADUs. Ms. Subramanian said this should be double-checked to determine if there are restrictions that only apply to ADUs. If they can, she asked if there is a desire to omit some of these exceptions or all of them.
Councilmember Anduri said he thinks it should be just what they want to accomplish. If the Council moves forward with this and come back in a few months and see if they want to take this out. He thinks they want to move this along to get it approved on the 9th.
Councilmember Anduri referred to the next page, K is Livable Space and L is Living Area. He did not go through to make sure each of those was actually used, so he will just have to rely on them as separate definitions for separate purposes.
Councilmember Anduri referred to the next page, Section 6-563B4, they come back to “The attached ADU may not exceed 25 feet.” He does not see any of the other qualifying language there for the 25-foot height. Ms. Subramanian asked if the desire is to have that 25-foot height only exist if it matches the height of the primary dwelling. Councilmember Anduri said yes. It talks about the height limitation imposed to the primary dwelling. It does not say the height of the primary building, so the underlying zone that applies could be 35 or 39 feet which is their standard. Ms. Subramanian said staff could tighten that definition to ensure it does not exceed the height of the primary dwelling.
Councilmember Anduri said his other question was going to be where the 17-foot trigger go. He asked if this does not apply to ADUs. Ms. Urzua said now the range is between 18 and 25 feet for Class C.
Councilmember Anduri said then it does not apply if something is above 17 feet staff looks at privacy effects on neighbors for ADUs. Ms. Urzua said no, it does not apply.
Councilmember Anduri referred to subsection F; the rental term. “No ADU or JADU may be rented for a term that is shorter than 30 days.” He asked and confirmed this is the existing code.
Councilmember Anduri referred to Section 6-566, Class C ADUs, under G; Architectural Requirements. “Each ADU is subject to this section shall comply with the following development standards: 1) the ADU’s exterior including walls, trim, windows, doors shall be the same material, texture and color as those of the primary dwelling.” He asked if the City was enforcing that. Ms. Urzua said yes.
Councilmember Anduri said he believes there are some ADUs out there that are different. Ms. Urzua said it might be if they are an A or a B. From a staff perspective, they still look at it and encourage applicants to consider the architectural exterior to match. The Class C is the opportunity where they can provide that comment.
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Councilmember Anduri referred to the bottom; the Tree Protection section begins under H. He wanted to confirm that the way he reads this is that tree removal is at will. If someone is doing an ADU, they do not need to apply for a tree permit. People can just remove it if the ADU is going where the tree is going.
Ms. Urzua said they do have to call it out. For Class C, they must include that information in their site plans to show which trees, etc. After that, the City can still not require a tree permit and they can cut the tree.
She said part of the function of that is since it is a ministerial permit, they talk to them about it. They still discuss this and staff can point to the information provided about the existing trees and what their plans are for it, and staff can tell them what to replace it with. There is just no extra permit staff can require.
Councilmember Anduri referred to Creek Setback and asked if this means that even if the creek setback extends to the house and takes the entire backyard, the City must allow the owners to have an 800-foot ADU. Ms. Urzua said yes, and one refinement is that if there are any projections, porches, or decks that cannot encroach. It is just the actual building that can.
Councilmember Candell said she sent off something to the City Manager saying if someone could make a statement about why we do this. She asked if there is a requirement by the State for each City to adopt their own duplicate ordinances whenever State laws change, or she asked if that is just a best practices approach.
Ms. Urzua said State law provides guidance as to what the local jurisdictions can do, but they also see it as an opportunity to add some additional features. So, by adopting their own ordinance, the City can add some of their own components as well. So, language around short-term rentals and deed restrictions can be added. Anything that staff considers objective standards that is different from the State can be added, as well. If they want to be more flexible and more accommodating for ADUs, they can do that as well. So, they can take into consideration the community’s interest and make something that is favorable to the City so it is a best practices.
City Manager Srivatsa asked if Councilmember Candell is asking the question if State law changes, which occurs a lot every year, are cities mandated to adopt them into the code. The answer is “yes.” The City must follow State law.
City Attorney Subramanian said yes, the City must follow State law, but if the concern is it is changing so frequently and staff time is spent amending this ordinance and bringing it back frequently to the Council, she thinks this last update in State law had a poison pill; that if they did not make the amendments, their ordinance was void. So, she was not sure if the previous revisions had that same sort of requirement, but this one specifically did. That was why there was a rush to bring it forward. All of the unique features put into the ordinance for this community would still be in effect.
Councilmember Candell said if the City never adopted one, they would not have to do it. Ms. Subramanian said yes, that is correct. If they just stayed strictly with State law, they would not, but then they would not have some of the updates previously mentioned.
Councilmember Candell said her question was on the bonus ADU on page 5 of the staff report. The terms of the low-income deed restrictions were shorter than the other cities. She asked why, which is the 5 and for VLI and 10 years for LI. She asked if these were in their Housing Element or suggestions for the Council.
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Ms. Urzua said these are recommendations based on the other two jurisdictions they were able to find that also had similar programs. She studies the implementation plan all the time and she did not think they were specific to say 5 and 10, but she can check.
Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period.
DAVID CLARK said he wanted to follow up on Councilmember Anduri’s question about the creek setback.
He sees the changed language that refers back to A3. He asked what is it in A3 that causes the potential encroachment into the creek setback. Page 25 of the staff report states, “Subject to subsection A3 above…” and when looking at A3 above, there is a laundry list of things. He is not sure which it is that would cause a limitation on the setback or encroachment into the creek setback. There is open space and a minimum 800 square feet size.
Mayor Dawson said it is subject to the size of the unit itself and whether it is a Class A, B or C.
Councilmember Anduri said he thinks this is referring back to the section that says “You have to allow an 800 square foot ADU.” Councilmember Candell said similar language is in SB 9. The City abandons all setbacks and everything like that and allow the minimum size to get in. They have to be allowed 800 square feet even when abandoning all setbacks.
ROB LAVOIE said he wanted to follow-up on the State law which wipes out most of the City’s objective standards, but he remembers reading somewhere that there was a court case related to one of these State mandates. In the court case, the court went back to the City’s objective standards. The idea that he got out of that was that if the City wants to have any objective standards that maybe would be helpful in a court case if the City is being sued by the developer or property owner, if you keep objective standards, even if they are generally ignored by the State, they may be helpful in a court situation. Possibly, the City Attorney can comment on that, but it seems like if there is anything the City can do to protect itself and resident interests, they should do that, even if the State bulldozes over it most of the time as it could come in handy in a lawsuit.
Mayor Dawson said the City is trying to tighten its objective standards to be more precise so they are not interpreted as subjective standards. Even though the new State laws allow for more than they would want, the City still has its objective standards in place.
Vice Mayor Kwok asked to revisit the height definition on Exhibit A, second page, H regarding appurtenances being exempted and those being radio towers, television towers, windmills, etc. He reasked the question if there is any leeway here to edit this in the spirit of modernizing their language and builders might face such as a satellite dish. This exists nowadays and this is more likely as well as solar panels which could be 6” to 8” up off the roof, which might be a mechanical appurtenance, but he suggested adding “satellite dish, solar system, TV antenna, deleting words like oil and gas well derrick, windmills and wind chargers or grain elevators. These terms are not used anymore. As a substantive matter, he asked how Councilmembers feel about a penthouse because that becomes a loophole where you could add something substantive if they do not mean it. He thinks this is a chance to clean up language.
Councilmember McCormick said the penthouse stands out which is a living space and it makes no sense as it being an exception to the height limit of a living space.
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Mayor Dawson suggested limiting it to “necessary mechanical appurtenances, including satellite dishes, solar systems, TV antenna,” etc. Councilmember McCormick said everything mentioning could be bolted onto a structure and then taken off of a structure. He was not sure a chimney could be used or not. Mayor Dawson said these other items are built, and Vice Mayor Kwok said it is an eclectic mix. He recommended modernizing the language and not keep perpetuating the outdated language.
Councilmember McCormick asked if they are getting so far into the changes that they cannot move forward with their timeline.
Councilmember Anduri said this has 45 minutes of discussion written all over it, and he thinks they go ahead and then come back next year.
Mayor Dawson asked if they could just include it because they do not need to refer to it. It is questionable and asked if they need to include the reference. If they are not allowed to reference the old code, she asked if it needed to be included.
City Attorney Subramanian said if the City is allowed to remove it and have different standards, in theory, the Council could delete the entire red-lined section and not get into the weeds about a penthouse versus other things. She did not know if there is a necessary desire about the necessary mechanical appurtenance, and Councilmember Candell said this might be the only exception.
Councilmember McCormick asked if they could redefine height and remove everything from appurtenances to the end. Mayor Dawson and Councilmember Candell suggested they not being higher than 3 feet. Ms. Urzua said not higher than 3 feet speaks to the parapet walls or fire walls. The necessary mechanical appurtenances should be attached and no stand-alone.
Mayor Dawson clarified that they are proposing to remove the entire paragraph except for the very end.
Councilmember Anduri said someone could make the argument that anything is an appurtenance and recommended taking the whole thing out.
City Attorney Subramanian said she thinks they could just say “Necessary mechanical appurtenances attached to buildings are exempted from the height limit calculation.” This is presuming they can have the different definitions.
Councilmember Anduri said the first sentence ends with “structure.” The next sentence would read, Necessary mechanical appurtenances attached to buildings are exempted from the height limit calculation.” Councilmembers all agreed.
Councilmember Candell said Councilmember Anduri referred to the efficiency kitchen and how State law is totally unobjective, and the City should probably keep its original one in. She asked if they could keep it in.
City Attorney Subramanian said she can confirm whether they can keep the original one and if so, this is what they will do. She thinks they have the direction, noting that both the two issues the Council pointed out are only limited if State law prohibits the City. Otherwise, staff has the direction from the Council to make the revisions if they are not limited by State law.
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Councilmember Anduri said the third one to look at is 6-5634 to make clear that it cannot exceed a certain height. He also has a question about the terms on the very last page for VLI. “The affordable restriction shall apply for a minimum of 5 years and low income 10 years.” This struck him as low, but he asked if there were other cities that have time periods that short.
Ms. Urzua said there are not that many other programs out there.
Mayor Dawson said she saw there were two other cities which she saw at the Planning Commission meeting. This 5 and 10 years was lower than those two cities, and Director Wolff mentioned that it is easier to amortize for the owner and the cost of building. But, she would like to see a higher term, so she could see at least 10 years and asked for any comments.
Councilmember Anduri said he would support 10 years. Mayor Dawson said the moderate was a longer term, and she asked if the Council would support 10 and 15 or adding 5 years to both. Councilmember McCormick said this is exactly what San Diego is—10, 10 and 15. Councilmember Anduri said, however, Lafayette is not restricting moderate income. San Diego is 10 and 10, and Councilmembers agreed with 10 and 10 for LVI and LI.
Mayor Dawson asked and confirmed these were nominal changes and the Council could move forward with introduce as amended.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Candell/Kwok) to introduce Ordinance 694 and continue the matter to November 25, 2024, for a public hearing. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Dawson, Kwok, Anduri, Candell, and McCormick; Noes:
None).
13. ITEMS REMOVED FROM CONSENT
A. Minutes – November 12, 2024
Recommendation: Approve.
Councilmember Candell stated the City Clerk already has the suggested edits which was changing a word to “tariffs” because she brought up a company stockpiling for tariffs. City Clerk Robbins stated Jean Follmer also requested this be removed.
Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period.
JEAN FOLLMER said she would like to comment on the public comment by Libby Henry. Ms. Henry requested “Lafayette stands united against hate; that the Council direct staff or the police to conduct an investigation and find the origins on posts on Nextdoor.com and other social media outlets of the nasty, false, and smear campaign against candidate Lauren Herpich,” which should not be happening in Lafayette. She wanted to echo this and could offer a couple of suggestions.
Mayor Dawson said the minutes were removed to provide edits and not actually commenting on the nature of those comments. This could have been brought up during public comments, and she apologized and said she should have made this comment earlier. She said Ms. Follmer can attend the next meeting and make comments on December 9th.
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ACTION: It was M/S/C (Candell/Kwok) to approve the Minutes of November 12, 2024, as amended. Vote:
5-0 (Ayes: Dawson, Kwok, Anduri, Candell, and McCormick; Noes: None).
14. COUNCIL/COMMISSION REPORTS
A. Councilmembers report on activities and consideration of matters a Councilmember wishes to initiate for placement on a future agenda.
Councilmember Anduri referred to future agenda items and asked what is the plan now for the Housing Element.
Assistant Planning Director Urzua said staff is currently finishing up the staff report and it will go to the Planning Commission on December 2nd. Then, they intent to bring it to the Council on December 9th. She was unsure if there was availability for a special meeting on December 16th, and City Manager Srivatsa said that date works, and Ms. Urzua agreed to work on the matter Councilmember Anduri said he would like to see the City complete the Housing Element in 2024 so the 30- day period for zoning can start during the holiday period. Ms. Subramanian said for zoning, it is an introduction, a second reading and adoption which must be done at a regular meeting, and then 30 days it takes effect. Therefore, there is no way to complete it by 2024 for the zoning ordinances.
Councilmember Anduri asked if the zoning would be heard on December 9th. Ms. Urzua said it has several components. The Council must re-adopt the Housing Element, adopt the Addendum to the Certified EIR, the zoning text amendments, and the rezoning of the parcels, as well as amendments of the maps and the Land Use Element.
Councilmember Anduri asked about the sequencing and asked if the Housing Element must be finally adopted before they can consider the first meeting of zoning. Ms. Urzua said it can all be concurrent. The Council can adopt the Housing Element at a special meeting but they cannot adopt the zoning at a special meeting. Ms. Urzua said staff will bring all those elements at the same time for two meetings.
Mayor Dawson said the zoning meetings would happen at the first meeting in January. Councilmember Anduri said according to the HCD letter, the City is not considered to have a Certified Housing Element until zoning is adopted per their letter. Therefore, he confirmed the City would have to submit it to HCD and wait for HCD to provide certification to the City. Councilmember Anduri asked and confirmed with the City Attorney that the City can send off the Housing Element back to HCD once the Council has adopted the ordinance and does not have to wait the 30 days for the effective date. They can simultaneously track some of the time. The earliest they can get something to HCD is the week of January 12th.
City Attorney Subramanian suggested staff provide a schedule of this for the Council and the public since the matter is not agendized.
B. Councilmember Anduri and Mayor Dawson
Resolution 2024-39 Appointing one member to the Creeks Committee Recommendation: Discuss and direct.
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Councilmember Anduri reported there is one vacancy on the Creeks Committee because of Austin Payne’s departure. Chair Will Elder and he met with Douglas Bleakley and his application is in the materials. He is not a Lafayette resident and they confirmed with the City Clerk that for this particular committee it is not necessary to be a Lafayette resident. In the interview, he appears to be a very strong candidate, spends part of his time with Sustainable Contra Costa, is looking for something else to be doing, and recommended he be appointed.
Councilmember Anduri said the only change required in the Resolution is to change the third “Whereas” and change “citizen” to “person” and then in the “Therefore, Be it Resolved, change the word to “person.” Mayor Dawon opened the public comment period.
JEAN FOLLMER suggested the City Council come up with a process for appointments that is consistent.
When she applied for the Environmental Task Force opening on August 20, 2023, she was the only applicant. She followed up and subsequently was instructed that the City Council generally waits until there are more than one applicant to fill a vacancy which was on September 25, 2023. Following that, another person applied and then there was a robust public advertisement for that position and five of them ended up applying for the vacancy. She is not seeing that advertisement for this position, especially considering this applicant is from Walnut Creek. So, she asked for a consistent application process so certain people who apply do not feel they are being treated differently or unequal to any other applicants.
Councilmember Anduri said he thinks this is a very good comment and thinks the Council should consider establishing guidelines so all staff members and Chairs of Committees and Commissions are aware of a need to advertise, under what circumstances they would interview if there is just one applicant. He suggested a subcommittee of the Council might work on guidelines.
Councilmember Candell suggested it be part of their milestones or goal setting discussion, and Councilmember Anduri agreed. He noted they are getting good applicants and he agreed with review of setting standards.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Anduri/Dawson) to adopt Resolution 2024-39, as amended, appointing Douglas Bleakley to the Creeks Committee for a term that expires January 30, 2026. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Dawson, Kwok, Anduri, Candell, and McCormick; Noes: None).
C. Mayor Dawson and Councilmember Anduri
Resolution 2024-41 Appointing one member to the Planning Commission Recommendation: Discuss and direct staff.
Mayor Dawson said she and Councilmember Anduri interviewed and Roger Deming applied who is new to the community with a legal background. He brings a great vision and great legal background to the position which is necessary. He has a young family and she thinks he would be a great addition to the Planning Commission.
Councilmember Anduri pointed out that they had three applicants that they interviewed. All three applicants were exceptional. They had to pick two which were appointed at the last meeting but one had indicated he could not serve due to a family matter, so he withdrew. They had the third person who was equally as good and he voiced support of Mr. Demings.
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Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period.
JEAN FOLLMER thanked Councilmember Anduri for his clarification of the number of applicants who were interviewed and for clarification of her earlier comment.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Anduri/Dawson) to adopt Resolution 2024-41 appointing Roger Deming to the Planning Commission for a term expiring June 30, 2026. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Dawson, Kwok, Anduri, Candell, and McCormick; Noes: None).
15. WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS
A. Letter from Rabbi Yisroel Labkowski requesting permission to place the Menorah in Lafayette Plaza for the month of December 2024 and the lighting to take place on Wednesday, December 25th at 4:30pm.
Recommendation: Discuss and direct.
Vice Mayor Kwok stated he has attended this event in the past which is wonderful. He thinks it is a good use to bring the public together and voiced his support for approval.
Mayor Dawson opened the public comment period, and there were no speakers.
ACTION: It was M/S/C (Kwok/Anduri) to permit Rabbi Yisroel Labkowski to place the Menorah in Lafayette Plaza for the month of December 2024 and the lighting to take place on Wednesday, December 25th at 4:30 p.m. Vote: 5-0 (Ayes: Anduri, Candell, Kwok, McCormick and Dawson; Noes: None).
16. ADJOURNMENT – 11:06 p.m. with thanks to our military service members and their families who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service, and Mayor Dawson wished the community a Happy Thanksgiving.
APPROVED:
__________________________________
Gina M. Dawson, Mayor
ATTEST:
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Joanne Robbins, City Clerk