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PORTOLA VALLEY TOWN COUNCIL SPECIAL MEETING NO. 1025, January 26, 2022
CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL
Mayor Derwin called the Town Council’s Special Teleconference-only meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Ms.
Hanlon called the roll.
Present: Councilmembers Jeff Aalfs, Maryann Derwin, and John Richards; Vice Mayor Sarah Wernikoff; and Mayor Craig Hughes
Absent: None
Others: Jeremy Dennis, Town Manager
Cara Silver, Town Attorney
Laura Russell, Planning & Building Director
Sharon Hanlon, Town Clerk
Attendees: Rita Comes
Mary Hufty
Bonnie Crater
Kim Marinucci
Dale Pfau
Ed Holland
Catherine Magill
Scott Elrod
Patty Dewes
Nan Shostak
Gary Hanning
Robert Younge
Bob Turcott
Ronald Eastman
Rusty Day
David Cardinal
Karen Askey
Ellen Vernazza
Bruce Roberts
Jane Wilson
Rob Jack
Bob Adams
Caroline Vertongen
Angela Hey
Kristi Corley
OPEN COMMUNICATIONS
Rita Comes thanked the Council for posting the number of people in attendance. She said people are still having problems with their landlines, including her own, and she wondered if the Town can do anything in follow-up, or if there was someone they could speak with about it, other than AT&T, who has not resolved the problem.
Nan Shostak thanked the Councilmembers for their time in volunteering for the Town. She commented as a member of the Geologic Safety Committee regarding the Town’s Evacuation Plan. The Committee has not been contacted about evacuation after a damaging local earthquake or evacuation for a wildfire following an earthquake. She said according to the County’s new Draft Local Hazard Mitigation Plan, Volume XLVII
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Portola Valley faces damaging seismic hazard from two earthquake faults – San Andres and the Monte Vista, which runs along Arastradero Road up to Alpine Road and possibly across it to the Portola Valley side. If either should rupture one or two evacuation routes would be cut off. A fire often breaks out after an earthquake, making the situation far worse. Secondly, the Safety Element of the General Plan under revision soon includes a portion concerning seismic safety. Mr. Shostak said the current seismic section is 12 years old and needs updating to include new information. The advice and expertise of the Geologic Safety Committee should be reflected in both the Evacuation Plan and the Safety Element, with the Committee involved. She requested a meeting as soon as possible between Committee members and the staff and consultants working on these projects.
Hearing no further public comments, Mayor Hughes closed Open Communications (1) Welcome – Reverend Beth Phillips, Christ Church
Town Manager Dennis introduced Mother Beth as “one of the most wonderful people in the world,” and he thanked her for coming to the meeting.
Reverend Beth Phillips, Episcopal priest, said she is literally next door where the Carillon Bells are. She shared that her father is a practicing Buddhist, her mother a lapsed Catholic, her best friend Jewish, her husband Lutheran, her next door neighbor on one side is a Muslim and on the other side is Hindu. She feels that her dog is agnostic. Coming from such a diverse background, she realized that in the Portola Valley larger community there is even more diversity. Different faith traditions, or no faith traditions at all are present, but the one thing all have in common is a desire to see generations, their children and their children’s children, thrive, and the decisions made together in community have an impact on that. She said she wasn’t sure about praying at a public meeting but thought they could at least hold together some common intentions as an invocation. Praying in the name of a good and gracious God, or the divine, she said it all really goes back to the source of all love. In the name of Love, and love of neighbors, she made the following intention:
“Let us meet together. Let us talk together. May our minds have common understanding. May our actions bear fruit together. May we share our thoughts and intentions. May we have common aspirations and may there be harmony among us. Amen.”
Mayor Hughes thanked Reverend Phillips and expressed appreciation to members of the faith community for coming to remind them of why they are here, sharing the same goals.
CONSENT AGENDA
(2) Approval of Minutes – Action and Detailed Summary Minutes for January 12, 2022 (3) Approval of Warrant List – January 26, 2022
(4) Appointment by Mayor – Commissions and Committees Membership Appointments for 2022 (5) Appointment by Mayor – Member to the Wildfire Preparedness Committee (6) Appointment by Mayor – Member to the Emergency Preparedness Committee (7) Recommendation by Town Attorney – Adoption of a Resolution Confirming the State of Emergency and Need to Continue Conducting Town Public Meeting Remotely. (a) A Resolution of the Town Council of the Town of Portola Valley Confirming Existing State of Emergency and Authorizing Continued Remote Public Meetings Under AB 361 (Resolution No. 2876-2022)
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Mayor Hughes invited public comments regarding The Consent Agenda.
Councilmember Derwin moved to adopt the Consent Agenda. Seconded by Councilmember Aalfs, the motion carried unanimously, by roll call vote.
REGULAR AGENDA
(8) Presentation – Brian Weber, District Manager to San Mateo County Mosquito and Vector Control District
Town Manager Dennis introduced Mr. Weber and Ray Williams, Board Trustee. Town Manager Dennis shared that he has worked in many communities throughout his career and has never enjoyed a relationship with a special district the way he does in his regular meetings with Ray, who, along with Brian, helped lead an organization that is one that is rarely thought of except when something has gone wrong, because usually it is going very right. He commended both men on their leadership, their desire to be communicative and collaborative with the Town, promoting activities within the community and the county. He noted that Brian is the brother of Portola Valley’s own Scott Weber.
Mr. Weber shared that the District has been serving public health since 1916. He related a brief history, stating that they are one of the oldest mosquito control agencies in the United States. Much of their origins had to do with people wanting to develop the Peninsula. With San Francisco’s expansion individuals reached out to an entomologist at the University of California Berkley to ask how to get rid of the mosquitos. He related some quotations from 1904 including, “We captured in five minutes a pintful of mosquitos.” A quote from 1912 said, “Mosquitos were so thick that life was unbearable,” this coming from the Peninsula Hotel in San Mateo. He said they live on the Bay side which was primarily marsh at that time. The marshes would hold standing water, especially at high tide. In the winter, the marsh would breed mosquitos that could fly up to 20 miles, and thus wreaked havoc on the Peninsula communities.
Currently, the District is an independent special district funded by property taxes and special assessments. Their 21-member board includes representatives from every city and one from the County at large. Their mission statement is “to safeguard the health and comfort of the citizens of San Mateo County through a planned program to monitor and reduce mosquitos and other vectors.” Their equipment includes an airboat which traverses the Bay at low tide when they search out mosquitos at Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge.
Mr. Weber explained that the majority of funding for the District services is through property taxes. He pointed out the original “Old District,” on the Bay side. Much of the work there focused on the salt marshes, and over time it expanded. About 20 years ago, as West Nile Virus was moving from the East to the West, it was determined that they would protect the remaining citizens with a proactive mosquito control program, which was voted in by the citizens. Ad valorem and the special mosquito control taxes are other sources of funding.
The District provides various services, including primarily mosquito control. The agency has over 10,000 mosquito sites mapped on a GIS mapping database, so that staff can proactively seek out sources of mosquitos and use biorational materials or integrated pest management to eliminate mosquitos from the standing water. Mosquitofish are the only proven biological species that can control mosquito larvae, and the staff distributes these into abandoned swimming pools, ornamental ponds, anything that cannot lead to a natural waterway. These fish control larvae because they really just eat anything. Mosquitofish are bred at one of the District facilities and kept in a holding tank. The District distributes 20 to 30 pounds of the fish per year.
Insect and tick ID is another service the District provides in which a resident can call and report an insect or a bite. Residents can also visit the District headquarters in Burlingame where the laboratory will identify the insect. If it is an insect of public health importance, they will also either offer a follow-up inspection of Volume XLVII
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the home or give advice, if it is not a public health concern, on what may be causing the insect to enter the home. The District also does some municipal control work for rodent inspections in a few select cities.
Rodent inspections are primarily conducted when a homeowner calls. The technician traditionally will do the inspection with the homeowner and a full inspection of the property to determine what could be attracting the rodents, how they are entering the home and how to permanently resolve the problem.
Another of the primary services used by Portola Valley residents is yellow jacket and wasp control. If the resident can identify where the nest is located, the staff will either dig up the nest or use another control method.
Mr. Weber explained that disease surveillance is the first step in integrated pest management. The District staff sets thousands of mosquito traps per year using dry ice in a container. The trap emits CO2, collects mosquitos in a net, and based on what kind, how many and the location, staff uses the information to determine if or where they need to act next.
Mr. Weber pointed out one of the most important tools of integrated pest management, which is community education. The staff goes to farmer’s markets, city council meetings, San Mateo County Fair, schools to teach about vector-borne diseases. The District also has a full functioning laboratory, where staff collects and tests birds and mosquitos for West Nile virus. They also do “tick flagging” which involves dragging a flag along trails, picking off the tics and bringing them back to the laboratory to be tested for Lyme disease. Usually n San Mateo, depending on the location, they see no more than three percent of ticks having Lyme disease; however, in the majority of tick populations they find Lyme disease is less than one percent.
Mr. Weber shared that the District is testing well over 3,000 batches of mosquitos in traps containing 100 or more mosquitos. Over the past two years there have been low results for West Nile virus, and none in Portola Valley recently. Tick dragging has been done in Portola Valley including outreach at schools with children playing outdoors where the forest meets the play area. Portola Valley receives much of their tick sampling because of the type of community and its interaction with trails and forests.
Mr. Weber said that while Portola Valley makes up less than one percent of the population in the County, the calls coming in from Portola Valley make up six percent of their calls, indicating that the community is well-educated about their services and also that the services are needed. Portola Valley residents made 159 calls to the District in 2021, with 94 of them being for yellowjackets. Sources of mosquitos in Portola Valley include 312 known water sources. These are sources that have historically bred mosquitos – anything from a backyard fountain to a large, flooded field and creek. Roadside ditches and abandoned swimming pools are also included. The nearly 1,000 known source sites are inspected roughly three times per year, resulting in larvicide applications which are products not harmful to other invertebrates in the water.
Mr. Weber shared the map of Portola Valley showing the mosquito sources distributed throughout the town. The map is used to indicate when an inspection is due, what happened at the last time they visited a site, and additional information for staff. Many of the mosquito sites in Portola Valley are tree holes and natural drainage. Tree holes are not unique to Portola Valley but unique to most communities above Highway 280. Tree holes can breed mosquitos well into the summer and breed a certain type of small mosquito that will bite during the day, primarily in the shade, as opposed to at dusk and dawn. They are very difficult to control. Some methods include filling the holes with concrete or sand or expanding gel or a larvicide application. The staff looks for the least impactful method and often work with the homeowner to fill the tree holes in. The one positive is that these mosquitos traditionally do not carry disease transmissible to humans; however, they do carry dog heartworm. Most residents with dogs are treated monthly with an agent to prevent transmission of heartworm from these mosquitos.
Another unique feature of Portola Valley is horses and stables. Mr. Weber noted that often there are water sources on these sites. The staff often gets called regarding “mystery bites” on the horses and will work to determine the sources of the bites. Because of the way stables are situated, they often lend to Volume XLVII
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rodents visiting. The staff helps determine where the attractants are and gives advice to the owner on measures to make it less attractive to rodents.
Mr. Weber spoke of Searsville Lake, with Stanford Dam nearby. He said mosquitos follow vegetative corridors. Applications of treatments are done by helicopter and treat the green vegetation that lines the lake. Without the treatments, the mosquitos would follow the vegetative corridors and make their way to the town. Stanford University compensates the District for these applications, which are typically done in July and into October. Application timing is based on surveillance and the time of year. Mosquitos coming from this area can transmit West Nile Virus, which is why the treatments are so important.
Mr. Weber indicated two tropical, invasive mosquitos which are of great concern. The mosquitos can carry diseases such as Dengue fever, chikungunya, and others that native mosquitos cannot transmit, but these new ones can. About 10 years ago Menlo Park, very close to Portola Valley, was the only district to date that was able to eradicate that species, and they have been invasive Aedes mosquito-free for eight to ten years. He said in 2022, to keep these eradicated they will do extensive surveillance for this mosquito, and this requires a bit different type of surveillance. Within the Portola Valley area, they surveil for this mosquito so that if they find it, they can attempt to eradicate it. Mr. Weber shared a photo of a new tool, a UAS, which is a drone that can map remote areas to find water sources and do control applications in hard-to-reach or dangerous areas. The drone does not require going into the habitat, as it has a very precise camera and can deliver precise treatments in very targeted areas. The District has recently obtained special government license through the FAA and State Health Department to use this piece of equipment. However, through the Department of Pesticide Regulations, staff is working towards getting the pesticide application portion of that. Mr. Weber said this equipment will be a game-changer for controlling mosquitos and public health.
Mr. Weber shared a photo of Rachel Curtis-Robles, PR Director, providing education to students and said they will continue to try to coordinate educational activities with the schools in the community as well as the public. Lastly, Mr. Weber shared a photo of a yellowjacket trap and said he recently has been communicating with Town Manager Dennis. They have agreed to do a preliminary study to evaluate yellowjacket populations in Portola Valley and looking at different ways to suppress those populations.
Mayor Hughes asked what residents and the Council can do to help the District in controlling these things, whether there are things people should watch out for, and what to do if they see them. Mr. Weber replied the best thing to do is to continue promoting awareness of the District’s services, and when they have mosquito bites, or if they notice rodent droppings around the house or raccoons or skunks going under the home, to contact the District, and they will come out for all those services. A major item which they rely on the public to report in the summer is reporting dead birds. Staff will come out in less than 24 hours, collect the dead bird, and test it in-house to determine if it died of West Nile virus. Based on the results, they will do a host of actions following that, leading up to determining if the community is at elevated risk for virus transmission. This is probably the most important thing they could ask of the public, but also just calling them anytime they need to.
Mr. Williams noted that they have also connected their technology to the Town’s so that things can come through Town Hall directly to the District, using such platforms as PV Connect.
Mayor Hughes invited questions from Councilmembers. Seeing none, he invited questions from the public.
Mary Hufty said she has had wonderful experience with the District. She lives on Corte Madera Creek and they have, over the last 30 years, come out pretty much every year and removed the log jams along the creek, which is an enormous service for them. It gets rid of mosquitos, standing water, and also gives fire access and decreases the amount of flammable material along the riparian corridor. She said this year they said they couldn’t do it anymore. She wondered if there is any chance that they can get them back into this. Mr. Weber responded that part of the problem with them operating in creeks is that the Volume XLVII
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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now requires a streambed alteration permit, so although they are not altering the streambed in their removal of logs, trimming, and things they have historically done, they are being held up by regulators. He said recently OneShoreline, which focuses on flood control, he has been communicating with their District Manager to determine whether, as a means of reducing flood control and standing water, OneShoreline, can hold the permit and allow them to do the work under that permit.
He said they have more than 30 creeks in the county, and it requires an enormous amount of work. He remarked that their staff enjoys that type of work. He encouraged Ms. Hufty to give the District a call and show them the location, and they will do everything they can.
Mayor Hughes thanked Mr. Weber for his presentation, adding that he has used their yellowjacket removal services. When a gardener finds a nest, removing is unpleasant if they are not properly equipped, and having the District be able to come out and do this is a very useful service, as well as all their other services. Mayor Hughes thanked Ray also for all his work within the town. (9) Annual Council/Committee and Commission Workshop
Town Manager Dennis said this is the third year that this item has been on the Council’s agenda. It is the formal kickoff of the FY 22-23 budget development. He said starting with the committees and commissions is an important and integral portion of the budget development process. The workshop allows the Council to hear from committee chairs or representatives on the issues they have discussing or plan to discuss in coming months, and which of them they would like to see included as part of the Council’s budget priorities. The Council priority process is the next piece of the development of the budget. This will happen at the Council’s next meeting on February 9th, where there is discussion, partly based on the current night’s discussion, partly on staff input, and partly based on other information, starting to hone in on what the Council would like to set as priorities for the coming year. These two components guide the staff as they put together the budget for review by the Finance Committee and the Council in June of 2022. Discussion will include how Council Liaisons fit into this process. The Liaison serves as a resource as needed in all the committee and commission meetings. Councilmembers attend those meetings and when they have provided direction to any individual committee, it is typically a goal to transmit that information via the Liaison. Committees make a variety of recommendations to the Council, both through this process and other programs they wish to see implemented.
Town Manager Dennis invited chairs, or representatives thereof, to share what their committees have been thinking about and discussing.
Bonnie Crater, representing the Nature and Science Committee, thanked Councilmember Aalfs for coming to their meetings as Council Liaison. She said most of their programs in previous years had been in-person, either indoor education programs at Town Center or outside. In 2021, due to the pandemic, they switched to on-line meetings and were grateful for the support from the Town, particularly Kari, who set up their Zoom meetings and helped them advertise their programs. In 2021, they ran nine online events. Hundreds of Portola Valley residents attended. They held five wildflower talks from Dan Quinn, a local photographer. Other residents spoke about ticks and Lyme disease, earthquakes, climate change in the arctic, and galls. The talks are all posted on the Nature and Science page, with links to the events from 2021. She said for 2022, they are hoping as the weather warms to do some outdoor educational events around nature and science for Portola Valley. They are planning four events. A star party will include local astronomers and looking at some sort of celestial event through telescopes provided by the astronomers. They hope to do an event called, “Our Watery World,” talking about all the water elements of nature, an event particularly suited to children. They would like to do an event around pollinators and wildflower seeds, to try to promote the natural environment. Lastly, they hope to do a compost day as an educational event, teaching how to do composting with a do-it-yourself composter, or they may have some sort of offer to allow folks to purchase a composter. The events will be relatively inexpensive to run, but they are requesting $1,500, which is about their usual request, for various banner advertising and other event costs.
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Kim Marinucci, Chair of Race and Equity Committee appreciated Councilmember Derwin and Councilmember Richards serving as their Liaisons. She shared on what it was like to start a new committee. She spoke about stages of group development – it is formed; it begins to storm; then you start to norm; and then you hit your stride and start performing. She said she would put their committee at the norm and perform stages and added that they did not skip the storm stage, as there was a lot of storming.
She said two members left the committee. Another person joined, and they have one opening. They are getting their bearings on what they are about and what they are doing. They have a mission statement and objectives for the committee and are doing some standard things such as looking at Town policies and determining where their bias may be. Because they have a committee member on the Housing Committee, they have a housing subcommittee within their group, which is important, intensive work, and they have not gotten into the depths of it yet. There is another subcommittee looking at how to attract more people of color to Portola Valley. Additionally, some who went to the Town Picnic may have interacted with them when they put up the Town seal and asked people what they thought, what it represented to them, how they felt about it, and what other kinds of symbols would represent Portola Valley today. They found it to be a great way to engage people in conversations leading to other related topics. They now have a subcommittee, including almost everyone on the committee, that is looking at using the Town seal, not as the most important issue, but as something tangible that is not necessarily high stakes as a way to engage people in the skill of dialog about Portola Valley’s problematic history and what to do about it. She said in the end, they will make a recommendation to the Town Council about what the committee thinks should be done about the Town seal. Their intent is to use the process as a way to practice listening to each other and discovering how to, not just cancel, but finding the middle ground. They were asked to put together a budget just as they were forming. She said they have a small budget of $1,750, which she thought, as they discover more of who they are and what they will be doing, that may change.
Dale Pfau, Chair of Emergency Preparedness Committee, spoke of a few of the things impacting the budgeting process. They are pursuing an upgrade to the Emergency Communications radios, which are primarily amateur band radios, from analog to digital radios. Through Ham bands they can get on the internet and have access to worldwide communications between people who have availability to repeaters. They will be upgrading, which will allow them to coordinate better with CERT partners and probably with the virtual EOC. He said this could cost $7,000 to $8,000 over the course of the year. Mr.
Pfau reported that, in concert with CERT, much of what they have historically done for medical supplies is now transitioning to CERT. They now have a CERT trailer onsite. The EPC also has medical supplies in the Buckeye Room. They will be going through them to consolidate them. They will retain some medical supplies in the Buckeye Room but will probably need about $2,000 to update and refresh the emergency medical supplies. The Committee supports a number of outreach events through the year. One is the Emergency Communications and Safety Day in June, the Town Picnic, and they generally have another event with Woodside Fire, for which they generally need about $2,000. He said there are two new members joining this year, so they hope to increase their outreach efforts.
Ed Holland, Chairman, Bicycle, Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee, thanked Mayor Hughes for his help as Council Liaison. He presented the significant actions of the Committee in 2021, particularly pursuing the outcome of the Pedestrian Safety Study and starting to see the implementation of those things come into shovel-ready projects, including striping and changes at various intersections, particularly crosswalks, to improve safety. The Committee is taking an interest in the Housing Element participation, with regard to how changing uses, ADUs and properties, and an increase of population in the town might influence pedestrian safety, on street parking, school safety, and safety during emergencies. They hope to have input on these things within the Housing Element process. Another significant area of consideration has been continued interest and concerns over parking related to recreational visitors in town, particularly associated with Windy Hill. They started with a study raised by concerns of residents of Willowbrook Drive and also drawing into that a more holistic view, taking into account a review of the parking on Portola Valley and at the top of Alpine Road. They have seen changes begin on some of those items, such as red lining in certain areas of Willowbrook. There is a report from their consultant, Paul Krupka, which is ready for high-level review of the Committee to look at the possible changes in signage on Portola Road and perhaps on Alpine. These things have been slow in coming Volume XLVII
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around, but he said he is learning that it is simply how things work. He hoped they could pursue them with as quick a pace as possible. He said Howard Young has been a great liaison with the Town Center and staff. Mr. Holland also noted a huge success in collaboration with Parks and Recommendation, which is also a potential consideration for a budget item, with a need to work out cost and implications. Last year they reverted to a new Town Picnic in collaboration with Zots to Tots. The event was a huge success. The support from the Town to enable the road closures to happen and support from law enforcement and Town volunteers was incredible. He felt it should be a model for the event going forward. He reflected that without the ability to do things like that, it simply is not Portola Valley. He hoped to look at the budgetary implications of doing these sorts of things, and the organizational and cross-committee work to make them happen again as a routine and comfortable kind of procedure.
Catherine Magill, Chairman, Conservation Committee, spoke of the Committee’s core values – to provide guidance and information to the community to ensure that Portola Valley development maintains harmony and subservience to the environment. She said that their main responsibilities are to do site visits associated ASCC reviews, providing advisory information, both to the ASCC as well as an opportunity to educate the homeowner on using native plants, how to care for them, and trying to maximize the use of appropriate low-water use for the environment. The Committee does tree removal permits. One of their big jobs has been oversight and guidance for Mr. Young and the Public Works group on maintaining a number of the high priority Town-owned properties, such as the Town Center, Spring Down, Frog Pond, Triangle Park, and Ford and Rossotti Fields. The Committee offers Mr. Young guidance on when things should be mowed. They helped restore the meadow at Spring Down and provided guidance on trying to keep the weeds down to allow the wildflowers they seeded to come out. They are working with Mr. Young to develop a five-year plan so that he knows in advance how to plan. This year, because of the rain in November, mowing needed to be earlier than in past years. The Committee has been working with the Fire Department to help provide information for clearing, trying to get rid of as many flammable or invasive trees as possible, and working on making sure the clearing is thoughtful and pays attention to nesting periods and other things that may not be on top of mind. They have been working with the Housing Committee on Committees. Their main focus besides the review responsibilities is providing educational and communication tools. They have created a brochure for the Native Plant Demonstration Garden in the Town Center. They have worked with Mr. Young to replant plant and give it a facelift. The Committee provides a “Tip of the Month,” and “What’s Blooming Now,” which give a bit of information to the community on what is happening in the environment and suggestions on native plants for gardens. She said they are doing an in-person Broom Pull this year, and they also hope to do an evening lecture later in the fall. Ms. Magill remarked that the Committee takes its education role seriously, and they expect to continue that and working on refining some of the guidelines that the Town is going to be using for ADU approvals. They expect to need $4,000 to $5,000 to support their activities, although they spent much less than that this year because of COVID. They do not have any huge things on their to-do list. She thanked Councilmember Richards for being the Council Liaison.
Scott Elrod, Chair, Sustainability Committee, summarized the Committee’s activities over the past year.
They are focused on citizen behavior, and he said they need to walk a fine line in terms of educating people about options, encouraging different behaviors but not pushing too hard or being preachy. He said they had a great display of options for people at the Town Picnic, including technologies to limit watering, limit showers and such. One big interest of the Committee was in coming up with a backup power option which people could adopt, short of getting a gas generator. The Committee looked at a lithium ion battery bay system that could run a small number of appliances and lights and a refrigerator for up to 18 to 24 hours, including a solar charging unit. This was a demo at the Town Picnic, and they are now going to make this available for loan to Portola Valley residents via the Library. The Committee worked on a detailed climate change reading list, which is now on the town website. There are a lot of postings on the PVForum website. The Committee has been all about education, and it will continue to have that focus.
He said in the coming year they will emphasize revamping the website, which is quite outdated. They do see the Committee of Committees and the focus on ADUs as being a principal way to effect sustainability.
They are intrigued by the notion of checklists, even in the case of ministerial approval of ADUs. He thought that might be the way committees can influence how things are done, not be an item on whether they are done, but to try to put some of the interest of the different committees into the way things are Volume XLVII
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done. He said they are looking forward to the rollout of the smart water meters and will play a role in sending out information packets to people about how to benefit from them. Mailings around such things will be one of their cost items. The budget has been variable, in the $4,000 to $10,000 range. The past year it was closer to $10,000, in part because they purchased the demo unit to loan out. He said there may be other pieces of hardware that represent options for people that they would want to buy and make available as loaner items through the Library. He said their budget would likely need to remain at about $10k. During COVID they have had to cut way back on events. There have been some events that the Committee has championed in the past – the Sustainability Book Club, seminars, and a movie series which seemed quite popular. They hoped to get back to some of those things in the near future. He was appreciative of Councilmember Derwin’s working with the Committee.
Patty Dewes, Chair of the Parks and Rec Committee, shared the Committee’s priorities for 2022, which are basically the same as for 2021. First, she mentioned the successful Zots to Tots and Town Picnic. As several people had referenced, it was the only communitywide event held in the Town for 2021. They had a tremendous outcome with almost twice the number of people as in the past registered to run, race, bike, walk in the Zots to Tots race. She announced that if anyone ordered a Zots to Tots t-shirt and don’t have it yet, they should call John Meyers, because “he needs his garage back.” She said they hoped they will be able to have the Zots to Tots and Town Picnic in 2022. Their budget last year was about $22,000 and they feel that is more than adequate, and they would request that for 2022 as well. Ms. Dewes listed other things they worked on in Parks and Rec. One was the court usage policies and practices which has become a conversation point with many people, as pickleball continues to gain in popularity and participation. There are almost 200 pickleball players registered in the group that they manage. They play on the courts every day for two to three hours, with between 20 and 40 participants. It is growing and, as such, is creating demands on the courts, so they feel they need to think about making some changes. In particular, they are considering a proposal to dedicate one court to pickleball fulltime to eliminate having to put up and take down the nets and having permanent nets so that people could play pickleball anytime which they cannot do presently. To the extent that this is done, they want to ensure the tennis players are treated equitably with time on a court dedicated to tennis only. There would be one more court that could be reserved for either tennis or pickleball. She said with the reservation system installed last year, they could manage that effectively. Ms. Dewes said these are the types of opportunities the Committee is looking for, to allow people to use the courts the way that they would like to, while ensuring that they are available for all. She noted that they need to also accommodate the Corte Madera tennis team as well.
The team will start up in March after missing last year due to COVID. They will use the courts in the middle of the day, which takes time away from residents, but it is the right thing to do for their neighbor.
Ms. Dewes brought up the town’s fields – soccer and baseball. Parks and Rec is looking at the field usage fees for those. In the past the fees have been player-based which seems to have grown out of favor, particularly with some neighboring towns, and it is difficult to manage for some teams that have different populations for their players. They are looking at doing analysis on moving to a per-hour based field usage fee, and this will be coming back to the Council in the next couple months if it is necessary to do anything. Ms. Dewes commented on her pet project for someday, a dog park. She said there are several rogue dog parks around town because they don’t have an organized one. She said at Town Center off-leash dogs are a constant presence, and illegal, as well as unsanitary and unsafe. The Committee continues to look for opportunities for a dog park, working closely with other committees to make sure that if they do identify something, that it meets the tone that the Town is striving for, as well as the dogs and their owners. She said they have put in an application to the State of California, and offered up to $200,000 for a grant for some type of Parks and Rec project. They have put in a request for $180,000 to put restrooms at Ford Field, which has been a need for quite some time. There are porta potties there, but restrooms would be nice. She said $180,000 is less than half of what they think they would need to put restrooms in at Ford Field. The difference, if granted, would have to be made up by either Town funds or private funds. They have done this before, as with the Ford Field renovation and the Town Center. The Town has been somewhat generous, but it is something they would have to work on in 2022. Regarding any impact from the Housing Element decision and actions, Ms. Dewes felt that for Parks and Rec that would primarily be focused on if there’s more people in town, there will be more demand on the Town’s facilities. She said they would need $22,000 for the Town Picnic. Also, if one court Volume XLVII
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is dedicated to pickleball, there will be some equipment costs, which they are researching at present. If a dog park were identified, they would need fencing and materials for it. Right now, the only known quantity is the Town Picnic. Everything else is work in progress.
Nan Shostak, Geologic Safety Committee, said the Committee is newly reformed. There are now four members, with space for one more. Chet Wrucke was Secretary of the Committee when they last met and is the de facto leader until new officers are elected. The first meeting is planned very soon, at which time they will elect officers and prepare a budget. She expects the financial needs to be minimal, if any, and the Committee will notify the Council of their budget decision. The Committee’s priorities for the immediate future will be to work with Town staff and the other committees on the evacuation plan and the Safety Element. They anticipate working with the Planning Commission on an ongoing basis during early phases of development proposal, to help with site assessments before any buildings are planned. They anticipate being a full partner with Town staff and the geologic consultant, Cotton Shires, early in the process of assessing sites for development where there is any question of seismic hazard.
Gary Hanning, Chair of the Trails and Paths Committee, said that, recognizing their budget is largely in the Public Works Department, the Committee does not have a lot of budget needs for committee activities. Their number one priority for this year is bringing back the Horse Fair, which is a community outreach program with the goal of connecting residents with the history of Portola Valley’s equine past.
They last held the Horse Fair in 2019, at which time they had good turnout. Each year the attendance had been growing, largely with families and kids. COVID forced them to put the Fair on hold, and they look forward to resurrecting the program. The date is set for May 14th at Town Center. He thought the budget for it would probably be the same as the last year, unless there has been a significant increase in cost for vendors and facilities, which they do not anticipate. Another of their priorities is Alpine Trail and Safe Routes to School, Trails and Paths. Alpine Trail is unique in that it is present on both sides of Alpine Road and also includes sections designated for multi-uses and single use. Bikes are allowed on some sections and not on others. Horses are allowed on certain sections and not on others. They hope to improve signage, which would be an undetermined amount. Public Works would probably carry some of the cost.
They also hope to work with the School District to better map out the Safe Routes to School between Corte Madera School, Town Center and Alpine Hills, as well as the Nathorst Triangle.
Mr. Hanning continued, sharing that the Trails Committee also plans to produce a new trail map this year and have begun work on it. The existing trail map is over 20 years old, so they are looking at using more modern technology for the map with an overlay of all the town trails. They hope to better identify starting and endpoints, the usage of each trail, and have a map that can be used electronically as opposed to a printed map. This will require some funding which is yet to be determined, depending on the mapping tools used and associated royalties associated with them. Also, any consultants hired to actually do mapping would require funds. Another priority for the Committee this year will be to support the Building and Planning Department with a checklist for ADUs and SB 9 projects, to be used by ministerial reviewers to screen applications for compliance with regulations related to trails and paths. For example, drainage, scoring of driveways that cross the trail, landscape near trails, mechanical equipment and hardscape. The reviewers do not have a lot of such information to make the determination whether the project would fit well with any existing trail. With the new trail map and the checklist, a ministerial reviewer would be able to quickly determine if there was a trail on the project site and, if so, whether it meets the requirements on the checklist.
Finally, another priority of the Trails and Paths Committee will be to continue to support the Public Works Department. Mr. Hanning thanked Mr. Young and his team for being advocates for the trail system and doing a great job maintaining and keeping the trail system open and safe. Without them, their trail system would collapse. Although they are a small team, and mostly unseen, they do an amazing job, whether mowing, clearing trees, et cetera. The Committee will continue to support Public Works with identifying short and long-term maintenance issues on the trails. They have been developing a capital-intensive project list, the budget for which would likely come out of the Public Works budget. They are helping to identify and prioritize projects on the trail system that will require larger than normal capital outlays. For example, re-weatherizing a trail with base rock. To allow the trails to be open year-round to all classes of Volume XLVII
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trail users, it requires use of certain materials on the trails and conforming to certain standards to keep them safe during rainy months. The Committee is also working with Public Works to coordinate volunteer workdays on the trails, something they want to bring back. Most trails in Portola Valley were originally built by volunteers. They will experiment with a trail day coming up in the Ranch. Outside and local volunteers will be used to accomplish some tasks. If this is successful, they hope to do more of them. Mr. Hanning concluded with thanks to Mayor Hughes for his support as their Liaison for a number of years.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff was excited to hear about the projects the Committee is working on. In regard to the Alpine Trail, she said a pet peeve of hers lately is the increase of trash, seen everywhere in California.
She felt this is seen more on the Alpine Trail than on other ones, given its proximity to the road and traffic.
She wondered if this is ever discussed within the Committee and if they consider it part of their purview.
Mr. Hanning agreed and said largely due to the pandemic, they saw a dramatic increase in the number of users of all of he trails. With that came more trash, more user violations, et cetera. The Committee works with Mr. Young on this. He said it may seem easy to just put a trash can out there, but it actually isn’t that easy, with the cost and logistics involved. It is something they have looked at in the past, but something he did not feel the Public Works Department can handle in its current form. He said if the Council would like them to look deeper into this issue, they would be happy to do that. Generally, they try to stay true to their Trails and Paths element, which is built on the honor system that says, “What you bring in, you take out.” For the most part, he feels it works, particularly pre-pandemic. However, post-pandemic, it may not be the best solution. He said it is within their purview and they may be able to address it, depending on funding and support for it, not just with money, but also with staffing support in the Public Works Department. Mr. Hanning went on to acknowledge every property owner in town who hosts a trail on their property, as they deal with things like trash, dog droppings, increased number of users. They are often overlooked and under-thanked. On behalf of the Trails and Paths Committee, he thanked them for everything that they put up with in order to provide an amazing community service to the residents and to the general public.
Mayor Hughes recommended the PVConnect app, which can be used on trails to take photos of things such as an accumulation of trash, a fallen tree, et cetera. In the PVConnect app it can be automatically tagged with the GPS coordinates. The Public Works can then go out and take care of such things.
Ed Holland said as a regular trail user he has seen an increasing use of bicycle use on trails, which is generally not permitted. When he has occasionally spoken to people about it, they have claimed the don’t know anything about it, because there is no signage. He wondered if Trails and Paths had any plans to improve that information to support those rules being upheld. He commented that he wanted to know when the volunteer days are, as he enjoys the trails very much and would love to help. Mayor Hughes responded that the Committee will be looking at improving signage and additionally, working on the trails map, which help people understand better which trails are for what purpose.
Mary Hufty commented on behalf of the Westridge Architectural Supervisory Committee, in conjunction with Mr. Hanning’s presentation and his great work on the trail system. She said Westridge has about ten miles of trails within the Westridge community which it offers to the public. They carry the expense for its maintenance and have been honored by good cooperation between the Town Manager and Mr. Young, who have been wonderful about helping them, but essentially the cost of maintaining the trails goes to Westridge. The map has included Westridge trails in the past and will continue to do so. They hope, however, that the contributions of the Westridge community will be recognized in terms of both finances and significant volunteer work to keep the trails open.
Rita Comes was appreciative of all the people in town who are volunteering their personal time to serve on councils and committees. She said she would like to hear from some of the committee, such as the Undergrounding Committee and others, when talking about housing and making plans for infrastructure in the future. She did not remember them having a meeting in a while. She reiterated the phones issue and other infrastructure issues they are running into without having someone to follow up with in the town.
Mayor Hughes replied that he is the Liaison to the Undergrounding Committee and he thought there is some work around undergrounding budgeted for this year. He has noted emails regarding organizing a Volume XLVII
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meeting and getting something on the calendar. He said once the date is set, she is welcome to make public comment there.
Mayor Hughes invited comments or thoughts from the Councilmembers and Town Manager.
Town Manager Dennis extended appreciation to the Chairs and Committee members who do incredible work on behalf of the Town and continue to be the bedrock for everything they do. He appreciated hearing from them on the things they are looking to see included on next year’s budget. He looked to the Council for any recommendations, suggestions, opinions to help with the process. Staff will come back at the next meeting with detailed notes on what was heard so that the Council can consider them, in addition to the detailed minutes. He said a big thank you and requested to hear from the Council if there was anything they would like to be highlighted.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff echoed the thanks for the amount of time community members spend volunteering on committees. She wanted to highlight an item in the Consent Agenda and draw attention to red page 49, where all of the committees are listed, including all of the vacancies, for those who may want to get involved and participate.
Councilmember Aalfs thanked all of the committee members who spoke, as well as all of the volunteers in town. He was interested to see the next round of this. Most of what he heard sounded very appropriate as continuations of the good work of the committees.
Mayor Hughes also thanked the volunteers for time spent on the committees. That which was presented by the various Chairs was a very high-level overview of what the committees work on. Many individual items are highly detailed, technical discussions about issues that are not as obvious as they seem. The level of complexity the committees attend to is very deep and a tremendous help to staff and the Council. [The Council took a five-minute break]
(10) Recommendation by Town Manager – Resolution Adopting Volume 1 and Introduction, Chapter 15 (Town of Portola Valley Jurisdictional Annex) and the Appendices of Volume 2 of the San Mateo County Multijurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (a) A Resolution of the Town Council of the Town of Portola Valley Adopting Volume 1 and Introduction, Chapter 15 (Town of Portola Valley Jurisdictional Annex) and the Appendices of Volume 2 of the San Mateo County Multijurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (Resolution No. 2877-2022)
Town Manager Dennis presented this continuation of an item on the December 8th Council agenda. The Council had requested it be continued to a later date. The initial staff report from the December 8th agenda could be found on the top of red page 66. He welcomed two guests to the meeting – Dan Belville, Director of the Department of Emergency Management, formally OES with the County of San Mateo; and well as Bart Spencer, Lead Consultant for Tetra Tech, who works with staff on development of local hazard mitigation plans. He said the staff report covers the primary elements of the discussion quite well.
He highlighted the issues around not adopting the multi-jurisdictional local hazard mitigation plan, stating that the plan, as developed, is a plan that is worked on between 20 cities in the County of San Mateo. It is the largest geographic area in California that puts together a joint plan. It is an accomplishment that everyone in San Mateo is quite proud of in regard to continuation of this cooperation between cities. The plan is a vehicle for communities pre- and post-disaster to apply for grants for mitigation, adaptation, resiliency, et cetera. The County component is Volume One. The chapter associated with a town is the vehicle through which they can make application for grants. Portola Valley is currently unable to do so because the plan has not been adopted by the Council, and there are currently a number of grants that he would look into and/or apply for, related to a variety issue, including fire.
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Town Manager Dennis pointed out on red page 61 a description and context to the conversations staff has had over the development of the hazard mitigation plan with the County. Chapter One is primarily a County product with some input from the cities. The County uses a variety of data sources to put together, particularly where there were community concerns shared by staff and the Council, on exposure and loss rates associated with fire. Those tables are directly related to the very high fire severity zone maps that are created by Cal Fire. On page 572 of the Plan, it shows the different assessments on wildfire. In the very high fire severity exposure table, for example, that corresponds directly with the very high fire severity zone in Portola Valley, regardless of adoption by the Town Council. This is about nine percent of the town. In conversations he had with one of the consultants in August and continuing into September and December, staff indicated some concern related to what the data set appeared to be showing about fire risk in Portola Valley, particularly around the high and the moderate zones. He confirmed this with various staff at the County, and the consultants. The exposure tables for high and moderate are related to the draft maps and appear to tell an incomplete story from the perspective of the data set they are using, which is the richest data set that they have in order to compare across San Mateo County fire risk. Staff communicated this and that they would like to see opportunities to correct this over time through maintenance opportunities, which start after adoption. As a living document, he said there are multiple opportunities to go back and provide different data sets, engage in conversations with other communities in similar positions. The Town of Woodside also shows zero percent in high and moderate, which all know to be untrue as well, and other cities have similar issues.
Town Manager Dennis said he hasn’t directly engaged with other cities on this but understands that some cities have contacted consultants about various things they would like to see corrected in future iterations of the plan. He said they want to work with partners on a more current data set that can tell a more accurate picture of fire risk. The data sets allow creation of a component within each chapter around risk rankings. The Town did not create or design this; rather, it was related to the data sets, the maps. The staff report of December 8th described the instructions for the preparation of the document and did include an opportunity to work with the powers that be to make corrections to risk ranking where possible. This involves a conversation ultimately with Cal OES and the federal government through FEMA. At the December 8th meeting, he said he didn’t provide this particular language at the time but was just looking for direction to write the draft. It is a description of ways to approach that conversation, and they are hopeful that the risk ranking will change from moderate to high. Regardless of it changing or not, it still qualifies the Town for grants, which is the important element to consider. Town Manager Dennis invited Mr. Belville and Mr. Spencer to offer any further comments or insight.
Mr. Belville, Department of Emergency Management, addressed the Council and said Town Manager Dennis summarized very well where they are. The LHNP falls under his responsibility in the Department of Emergency Management, and he reports directly to the County Manager. The process started last January. They did extensive outreach and came up with a very robust plan, of which they are very proud.
They think it puts the County in a very good position for grant funding. In fact, he is seeing grant opportunities almost weekly. One in the last couple of days covers the area above Portola Valley. They are looking at regional grants to address the fire hazard element. He said Mr. Spencer’s company, Tetra Tech, does this type of work all over the nation. He said Mr. Spencer is a resident of San Mateo County and has a vested interest in emergency preparedness, having worked in the field for 30 years. He said they are both happy to address any questions the Council may have arising from the Town Manager’s presentation.
Mayor Hughes invited questions from the Council.
Councilmember Derwin said there were 20 cities, unincorporated county, and 15 special districts included in this very large multi-jurisdictional plan. Other than Portola Valley, she asked if there are any of those public agencies that have not adopted this plan. Town Manager Dennis responded that all agencies have adopted the plan at this time. Mayor Derwin responded that out of 36 public agencies, Portola Valley is the only one that has not adopted it. She said her understanding is that this is not a risk assessment document, but rather a funding opportunity document. Town Manager said this is a fair assessment. The document does assign risk and mitigation measures which are detailed within the Town’s chapter, but its Volume XLVII
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primary purpose is to associate identified risk with an opportunity to apply for the grants. For example, no one from FEMA is going to open the document, turn to a particular page and articulate a concern related to particular data and not provide a grant opportunity on that basis. He felt it was worth noting that some of their partner agencies, particularly Woodside Fire Protection District approved his through a consent process on their own Board about a month ago. Their ranking showed fire is the third highest threat to their entire district. It did show it as high fire risk, which makes sense since they have a considerable amount of high fire severity zone within the state responsibility area. This is true in some other communities as well.
Mr. Spencer added that when they assemble the plan, they take the best available data. Unfortunately, that is Cal Fire, and the FRAP (Fire and Rescue Assessment Program) maps and the maps that they put together to create fire severity zones are lagging behind. Looking at all of the fires in the state for the last several years, technology to go through an improvement is delayed by several years because people have been out fighting the fires. If there are issues, it is the State. There are other ways to create an update. Sonoma County did this when they did their hazard mitigation plan. The risk rankings seen in the document on based upon data provided to them from other government sources and is not something that Tetra Tech creates or the County creates but is collected from USGS for earthquakes or Cal Fire. It is collected from valid agencies that Cal Fire and FEMA have recognized. Unfortunately, they are behind, but that is up to the State, and they have to use the information that they provide.
Councilmember Derwin thought it was important for the community to note that wildfire is not the only hazard taken into account in this enormous plan. It also includes tsunami, drought, flooding, landslide, earthquake as well as broad climate change and severe weather, even dam failure. She reiterated that there was a lot of back and forth with the County over the Town’s chapter of the plan due to the perceived inaccuracies. She acknowledged that they are inaccuracies, but she questioned if they approved it as it is in its imperfect form if it will be a detriment to them in the future. Mr. Spencer answered no, because as Town Manager Dennis indicated, the plan must be adopted in order to go in and change it and to be eligible for grant funding. He affirmed her pointing out all of the other hazards the County is subject to, such as flooding, drought and severe weather. There are many other opportunities for grants, and the amount of money available through the BRIC program (Building Resilient Infrastructure in Communities) as well as the COVID mitigation money is substantial, and the Town could miss out on that. He suggested that the Council adopt the plan and then put into place a maintenance portion of it to say they want to create a study and apply for a grant to get a study to look at certain things to make the necessary updates to the factors that have gone into assembly of the plan. He said FEMA recognizes that over the course of five years things change, and during that time period it is incumbent upon jurisdictions to identify updates and put them into the plan.
Mr. Belville reiterated that it is a five-year plan with one-year updates, and they are already scheduling the first-year updates in the next month or so. There will be changes from different jurisdictions with similar interests in other areas, and this might be Portola Valley’s for example, where they would make note and try to seek a grant to upgrade the understanding of the fire risk within the town’s jurisdiction.
Town Manager Dennis added that much of what Mr. Spencer was describing is underway, particularly at the Woodside Fire Protection District level. The CPAW (Community Partners Assistance for Wildfire) grant is, in part, expected to fund the Foundation for Community Wildfire Protection plan for the entire district in lieu of two cities and the County. Those would be the kinds of things they can bring forward to help adjust the ranking, although the ranking is not a proxy for anyone’s perception of fire danger risk in Portola Valley. Public comments suggest that was the impression but that is not accurate.
Councilmember Derwin appreciated the input and said she feels there is much confusion about the document and why it is important, and that it is critical that they adopt it.
Councilmember Richards thought it would be helpful to stress, as pointed out, that the real point of the document is to basically generally state the hazards that exist in the community overall. They are not specific hazards but more of a general compilation of all of the hazards that might come their way, so that Volume XLVII
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when they do come, they can point to the fact that they had prepared in some manner for it. His understanding was that they have a substantial list of hazards in the town, hazards that have been entered into the Portola Valley’s section of the document. Town Manager confirmed this and said as he has reviewed other jurisdictions’ action items, Portola Valley has more action items and measures, and more associated with fire than other similar jurisdictions. Unfortunately, it does not reflect the risk ranking.
Councilmember Richards said the main issue is really to have them identified in order to be able to apply for grants related to those.
Mayor Hughes inquired about the focus on making modifications or updates in the coming years on the risk assessment side and the descriptive side. He asked if they also have an opportunity over the coming five years to update the mitigation strategy, so if there was some strategy not contemplated in the current draft of the document, and in two or three years they come up with something they would like to do, they would have an opportunity to add it and be eligible to apply for grants for it as well. Town Manager said this was the case. Mr. Spencer reiterated that it is a living document, so as they go through the next five years, if the priorities of the Town change and funding becomes available, they can put action items in or take action items out. The items do not all have to be mitigation-related, but the avenue for doing that is the hazard mitigation plan. He said mitigation is one of the elements in the emergency management wheel. Some of the hazards that the town faces – earthquake, flooding, fire, et cetera – the one big thing they are working on now is the Zonehaven effort and the evacuation planning effort, so if the Town wanted to put an action item in related to evacuation planning for the town, that could be put in. He added that the mitigation is also a launching point for being able to ask the Emergency Preparedness Committee, for example, what things they are doing to get the town prepared. It might include such things as people having to-go bags ready, having the evacuation maps to get out of town. Basically, the Town ways in an out and if those become congested, it is doing public education on how to get out of town. The mitigation is a launching point for others, so they could add action items in related to mitigation as it leads into other areas, like preparedness.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff thanked Mr. Belville and Mr. Spencer for their input. She remarked that there was high interest in this and she hoped those with questions could get their answers directly here. She expressed her desire to highlight transparency and communication and hoped this was providing an opportunity for that.
Mayor Hughes invited comments from the public.
Robert Younge appreciated the conversation. He said he was confused and appreciated the opportunity for clarification. His understanding was that the County had a document that came out that they had prefilled in. He asked if any of the other towns or cities changed the document and, if so, why did they do it if it is not important to do? Mr. Spencer responded to his question, explaining that in going through risk rankings, FEMA and Cal ORES are more interested in whether it’s a high, medium or low than they are in an actual number. For a jurisdiction to be able to change it from one level to another they have to have justification beyond stating “It could happen.” There are many factors that go into justification of a move from low to medium, or medium to high. One example would be Pescadero, because they recently had a fire and because there is a lot of drought and climate change in the area, they want to change the risk rankings in the area from medium to high. It is more than just potential conditions but rather a recent event to be able to justify a change in ranking. He said other cities did change their ranking based upon recent occurrences. Some jurisdictions said they would like to change it, and he told them they would be asked for their justification. He said their rankings had to stay as is because of the criteria that both certifying agencies lay out, as opposed to a Tetra Tech criteria. Mr. Younge asked about Moritz mapping that was done a number of years ago. Mr. Spencer said he had spoken with Town Manager Dennis about that, and it is something they can look at in the future as part of an update, as appropriate.
Rita Comes said during the December 8th meeting it was understood that there was going to be another meeting before December 20th, so that there could be discussion with the public, because the public made many comments at the December 8th meeting, indicating their distress at signing of a document with such incorrect information. Then, that was changed, and the message was that it didn’t need to be Volume XLVII
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signed by December 20th and would be followed up at a later date. It was then on the Emergency Preparedness Committee’s agenda and then moved on to the next meeting. She said the residents have been expecting a discussion on this item without being limited to the three-minute limit on comments. She said they anticipated an actual discussion on this and now are getting the message that it simply must be signed even though it is incorrect. She referenced the Safety Element as well as the Evacuation Plan as items that are coming up and said the public has been asking to be part of that and not limited to two or three minutes to question or comment. She requested that the residents be allowed to be part of the discussion, because the feeling is they can’t pursue more housing in the town until they have such meetings to get residents’ questions and comments aired with the whole town able to hear and see who is in the room. She said she wishes to see her fellow neighbors and that people have been very passionate about these things, and this is a missed opportunity, because there are very intelligent people in town. She said they see the Town signing something that is incorrect and misrepresents their beautiful town and puts them possibly at risk. She asked how many grants have been applied for in the last fiveyear period.
Mayor Hughes responded that there were some items of misinformation in her comments. The item has been circulated around the public for a long time. It was in the Weekly Message back in both March and July of last year. It circulated through numerous committees. PVNU affords an opportunity to have discussion with neighbors, and they are welcome to have meetings with fellow residents to discuss items in front of the town and bring them to the Council. He said there has been a lot of commentary on this, along with a lot of expert involvement and helpful clarification from Mr. Belville and Mr. Spencer. Staff has done great work in clarifying the item as it came to them on December 8th.
Bob Turcott thanked the Council for pulling the hazard mitigation plan from the Consent Agenda on December 8th for further consideration and the Town Manager for the additional information he has provided about the plan. He said his understanding of the Volume One County data that so dramatically underrepresents the town’s risk was derived from the Cal Fire maps, which incorporate the moderate, high and very high fire hazard designations made by local jurisdictions, which is why Woodside’s very high fire hazard severity zone is so large on the Cal Fire map. Woodside adopted the Fire District’s findings, and Cal Fire incorporated their designation into the map. He said it seems that the responsibility for the mischaracterizations in Volume One lies not with the County or the staff or with Cal Fire, but it lies with all of the Town Council since 2008, because they elected not to designate any moderate, high or very high fire hazard zones in Portola Valley. Regarding Portola Valley’s chapter in Volume Two, the methodology of the plan, the formal letter of intent from the Town, and table 15.1 of Volume Two make it clear that, “This annex was developed by the local hazard mitigation planning team.” Specific members of the Town staff are named who presumably conducted the work under supervision of the Mayor and Vice Mayor. Mr. Turcott said it is worth citing for the record just how egregiously the Town’s hazard is misrepresented. Table 12 of Volume Two lists risk ranking scores assigned to the town’s natural hazards.
The risk scoring is identical to what Woodside assigned for each of its natural hazards, except for wildfire.
Woodside identifies wildfire as its highest risk, by far, whereas Portola Valley assigns it approximately one-third the risk cited by Woodside, far below earthquake, landslide, and weather. It is lower than weather, barely greater than flooding and barely within the medium risk range. Mr. Turcott said this plan is why it is critically important to have the public meaningfully engaged in such work. He urged the Council to adopt the approach of including the public in the revision of the Safety Element and other planning and policy development that affects life safety.
Councilmember Aalfs requested to respond to Mr. Turcott’s comments. He stated that it is not true, and the FEMA map incorporates the high fire, the very high fire severity zones, regardless, and the fact that they did not adopt them in 2009 has no bearing on this hazard risk. The reason the hazard risk is ranked lower than they all think it should be is partly because the maps are inaccurate, and partly because it doesn’t incorporate the high and moderate risks but focuses on the very high fire severity zones. The fact that the Council in 2009 did not adopt the maps does not have any bearing on this, and they got a low ranking regardless.
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Mayor Hughes added in regard Mr. Turcott’s point about scoring that the scoring algorithm was performed by Town staff. His understand was that they were applying a scoring system developed by the County and by Tetra Tech, so they were constrained on how they were arriving at the scores based on the data that they were feeding into the scoring system provided to them. Mr. Spencer remarked that as they put together the risk rankings, they are looking at high, medium and low, and there are many factors that go into that. The number is irrelevant. When Cal OES and FEMA look at the FRAP maps, they are looking at the fire severity zone, which are still included in the information, whether the Town Council adopted them or not. The information that they get from Cal Fire includes every aspect of the County, so whether the Council has adopted it or not is irrelevant. There are many factors that go into how a fire severity zone is created. It is a Cal Fire calculation, and they just take the data provided by them. He said changing the number from 9 to 29 will not change anything. Their medium stays medium. If they want to change the medium to something else, then they have to adopt the plan in order to do that. This is the process set in place and is not a Tetra Tech process, but a Cal OES and a FEMA process. Tetra Tech abides by them.
Ronald Eastman wondered if anyone had reached out to FEMA to find out how this information is used, because it seems there must be a purpose for them asking for it, and the purpose may rely upon the information being accurate. He echoed Ms. Comes and Mr. Turcott’s comments. He felt the hazard mitigation plan makes it imperative that the community be involved in the development of the Safety Element Update and the evacuation plan. He said they live there; they know where the problems lie; and these are matters which affect their property and their lives and there are many capable citizens ready and willing to step forward and help make sure these things are done right.
Rusty Day said Mr. Eastman made the important point – it’s not about water under the bridge. He felt the reality is it can’t be changed and the only choice they have is to adopt it, and then update as they are told.
He said they can’t correct it because that would acknowledge that it was wrong. He said Councilmembers and staff say this assessment is wrong and needs to be changed, but he has not heard anyone acknowledge just what is wrong about it and exactly what change needs to be made. He said he has also heard that they must have a basis to change the risk ranking, an objection, professional assessment of the town showing there are very high fire hazard severity throughout town far beyond those identified by Cal Fire. He assumed that would provide such a basis. He disagreed with Councilmember Aalfs’ statement that it doesn’t matter that the Town didn’t adopt Cal Fire and Woodside’s recommendations because they’re already incorporated. He said Woodside adopted Cal Fire but also adopted Woodside Fire Protection District’s expanded designation of very high hazard severity areas throughout time, and this is why their risk ranking is 52 instead of 18. Mr. Day wanted to hear how the low ranking and low risk exposure that they state in the document for wildfire risk affects the scoring of their grant requests for wildfire mitigation when compared to communities like Woodside, Hillsborough, Belmont, San Carlos or Redwood City with much higher rankings and exposure reported to FEMA. Finally, he stated that the document is the product of staff working with consultants without citizen participation or oversight and is why the document is in the shape it is in. They are now engaged in an evacuation capacity study, a Safety Element update and an evacuation plan with no citizen participation or oversight. He said they are setting themselves up to repeat the same mistake. He requested that the Town Council change their process and open it up to citizen participation and engagement.
Councilmember Derwin responded that this is a County multi-jurisdictional document, having had a robust public outreach process between February and August of last year. She said every single public meeting can be found on the County’s website. She underscored that to say that this was done with staff and consultants and no public comment or input was patently false.
Mr. Belville spoke regarding the impact of the rating on the Town of Portola, reiterating that they have to rely on the FRAP map while acknowledging it is a number of years old and could use improvement, but they have to rely on that data as it gets recorded and submitted to FEMA. He said FEMA’s eyes don’t see this any differently. They see the risk in the entirety of the County of San Mateo, Portola Valley notwithstanding, and they can take this up at the next opportunity to see if a grant can identify a greater risk than has been identified. However, in the end, it will not impact FEMA’s view in terms of fire risk in San Mateo County.
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Councilmember Aalfs reiterated Councilmember Derwin’s comment that this has been a public process.
Also, staff has been handling this and working with both the County and FEMA to correct the maps and will continue to do so. He felt that the questioning of staff’s motives, the maligning of their intentions was uncalled for. He said the Safety Element will be a public process and residents will be invited to participate. They would like for this to be happening faster than it is, and they are still waiting for a lot of information for it, but the public will be invited to participate. Staff works with the Council at all points on this, and in his opinion, have done a very good job of representing the interests of the Council. He said he is tired of the implication that because staff is directing some of these things, because they have the technical expertise to do so, that they are somehow to blame for this or that they are not acting in the town’s interests is simply unfair.
Councilmember Richards pointed out that another avenue of public input that has been around for awhile that many are not aware of is the County Emergency Services Council. He has been the representative from Portola Valley on that Council for at least 10 years. He said this product has come through that committee with representatives from all 20 towns in the county. It has been discussed and described and there have been opportunities for public input as far back as he can remember. He states that the notion that this has been done in any way secretively is absurd.
Mayor Hughes added to Councilmember Aalfs’ comment about public process, stating that all of the items that Mr. Day mentioned have gone through extensive public process and will continue to. Regarding the evacuation plan that Mr. Day implied was done in secret by staff, the RFP for it was approved by the EPC and the Chair of EPC before it went out. The discussion about the process, obviously the primary work for it is being done by staff, who are employed by the Town to do this work and who spend their full professional lives on these things and understand all of the technical details that seem to be escaping many residents. He said they are trying to help everyone understand what this document is. He felt staff had done a very good job both within the Town and the County at putting together this complex, multijurisdictional document assessing all kinds of hazards.
Mary Hufty spoke for Portola Valley Neighbors United and said in fact each individual neighbor speaks as themselves and not as Portola Valley Neighbors United. She thanked the Council for putting up with this and said she sees the discomfort on their faces. What she didn’t see was the experts. She pointed out with the format in use that there are two experts there right now, but they don’t see them. They only see the Council’s uncomfortable faces, feeling badly that people are not representing ourselves well, or not talking clearly, or may be lying. She said whatever they are doing, they are just expressing their concern, but she thought it would be nice to be able to see the speakers, the experts, that were supposed to be reassuring them, and it was a format issue she wanted to point out. She said the role of Portola Valley Neighbors United is educational, trying to track what is being said, find out other sources of information, trying to stay with the truth as best as possible. She said it is very uncomfortable to be told that you’re not truthful or that you’re not trying for the truth, because that is what they are doing, is trying for the truth, and they are hopefully all in that together. Mayor Hughes replied that the reason for not seeing the two consultants is they have their cameras turned off.
David Cardinal thought, having been involved in various governments, said this is one of the most transparent he has seen. Volunteers are welcome on all of the committees, which in many cases have openings. He could not imagine why anyone would think their voices are not heard. They may not get their opinions ratified, but he was very impressed by their listening and their patience. He felt they are very fortunate to have a great volunteer town council and dedicated staff. He did not understand the ranting and raving about things they all agree on. They all live in the town and all think fire is a big issue.
They all think safety is a big issue. Nobody denies that. They may have disagreements about how to approach that, but he didn’t see why it needs to become some sort of weird diatribe about peoples’ opinions.
Karen Askey thought they all wished they were at the Dutch Goose. She was appreciative for the clarification about the Hazard Mitigation Plan and the consultants being in attendance. She understood it must be adopted, and then they can make changes. She said as they talked about the maps, she recalled Volume XLVII
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that Portola Valley’s was blank compared to others. She went back to red page 339 and looked at the map in the agenda packet from December 8th, and it does show Portola Valley as not having the yellow/orange/red to it. Her request was that when they go back and look at the maps that they double check that, because it looks like it was perhaps not the map from Cal Fire. Mayor Hughes thought it was a reproduction of the Cal Fire map which has a very high fire severity zone, but none of the other types for Portola Valley.
Ellen Vernazza was still confused about the point of the Hazard Mitigation Plan. She looked it up to see what it was for and read that it is prepared to reduce the loss of life and property by minimizing the impact of disasters. She said the hazard mitigation plan they are proposing to adopt doesn’t seem to do either one of those things. It seems to be only related to obtaining grants. She said she would have liked to be more in on this to start with and, although Councilmember Derwin said it was available from February to August, she asked how, as a resident, she would have been notified that this was something she could get it on or have input into, or even to read it. She asked if all the Councilmembers have read all 800 pages and know what it is in it.
Mayor Hughes said the Town has put out information about this several times. It was in the weekly newsletter, drawing attention to the County’s work on this in the March 18th and July 15th editions last year, during the County’s process. They have also had multiple meetings in Town which have been agendized and noticed.
Town Manager Dennis said in a couple versions of their weekly message to the community they attach to the County’s information and posts in multiple updates through different avenues. He has also seen it in many of the meeting minutes. It was included in many of his Town Manager reports. He said they always look for ways to increase that awareness and will continue to consider that in the future.
Mr. Spencer responded to Ms. Vernazza and said that in looking for action items or ways to improve the mitigation process, the driving force behind this is the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000, which is the crux used to put all of this together. In the process of identifying the risks and the hazards, the last part of the process is to identify action items. Those can be projects. They can be changes to building codes or zoning codes or things like that. Each jurisdiction has identified various action items that relate to mitigation. The reason why it is driven by grants is that many of the action items are very expensive and far exceed the budget of many jurisdictions. They also encourage partnership, and since Portola Valley is in a corner, they may say, “Well didn’t you work with the Town of Woodside?” or “Why don’t you work with Woodside Fire?” et cetera, looking for collaboration in some of the projects. Some exceed a political boundary, so they go into other jurisdictions, so there are action items associated with trying to minimize or eliminate risks and help improve the mitigation efforts of each jurisdiction.
Bruce Roberts thanked the Council and consultants for their participation. He felt that the frustration of some residents is that they were looking for an opportunity for more of a community meeting. There was some mention of such an opportunity to participate in the discussion of how to exit the town in an emergency. He said he has not heard any timing for this. He said they continue to desire an opportunity for interaction without a time limit for comments and would like to know soon if they will announce a specific date, time and place for a public discourse on the issues.
Jane Wilson wanted to express her view that she trusts the Town’s staff, Town Manager and Counsel to do the right thing and adopt the resolution and take on the corrections later.
Rob Jack addressed his comment to Mayor Hughes, stating his hope that he will open himself to more public discussion. Regarding some of the Mayor’s comments expressed, he said the residents of the community are not ignorant or stupid, and to be derogatory towards residents of the town of which he is the Mayor of is inappropriate. He asked the Mayor to represent the entire community and not one faction of it. Mayor Hughes apologized for implying any such thing about residents. He said he believed he was Volume XLVII
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talking about knowledge of particular technical details of the process of producing the document under discussion.
Mayor Hughes invited further public comments. Hearing none, he brought it back to the Council for discussion.
Councilmember Aalfs thanked Mr. Belville and Mr. Spencer for their attendance and the work they are doing in general. He thanked staff and Town Manager for their work in bringing this forward. He said they know it is a complicated process. They don’t have a lot of choice on some of it, but more importantly, as flawed as it is, the plan is doing what they need it to do, which is qualifying the town for grant funding to mitigate hazards going forward. It is recognizing that fire is enough of a threat that they qualify for the funding they will need to address. He pointed out that the downside of not having adopted it far outweighs the shortcomings of the report itself, which they will also work to amend. He said he is very happy to share with the public what they are doing in this conversation and, more importantly, what they are doing in general to make the town safer for fire. He said there have been many public conversations about all the things they are doing. The Wildfire Preparedness Committee was formed three years ago, because they realized there was more, they could be doing, and the group has been meeting and doing great work for three years. He said they want to hear the opinions of the residents on this, but in the meantime, he also supports the staff work, and the other agencies that has gone into making this part of the overall strategy for keeping Portola Valley safe. He said he fully believes they should adopt the plan tonight.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff agreed with Councilmember Aalfs’ comments. She wanted to thank Mr. Belville and Mr. Spencer for their contributions and felt it was very helpful for the public to be heard directly from the Department of Emergency Management at the County level. She strongly agreed with moving forward.
Councilmember Richards agreed with the previous comments and felt they need to move ahead and not dwell on this any longer.
Councilmember Derwin thanked Mr. Belville and Mr. Spencer for producing the document that will help keep 700,000 people safe. She thanked staff for their work since late summer and fall.
Councilmember Derwin moved to adopt the Resolution adopting Volume 1 and Chapter 15 of Volume 2 of the San Mateo County Multijurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan. Seconded by Councilmember Richards, the motion carried, 5-0, by roll call vote.
(11) Colleagues Memo – Transparency and Communications
Vice Mayor Wernikoff said she has been talking a lot about how to improve transparency and communication, which they hear about a lot at Council meetings. She thought they should review the things that they are doing, because, despite sharing it in a variety of different ways, not all people get the message, and different people like to hear communications in different formats, et cetera. She shared an extensive list she had developed of the ways community members can stay informed and participate. She said the most important way to stay informed is to subscribe to eNotices. From there one can pick the topics they want to be notified about. She said the notices that come out that are easy to digest, as opposed to Council meeting minutes and videos which are difficult to walk through. Those that subscribe can get the Weekly Update and Town Council meeting summaries, which are very digestible. She said for someone who feels they haven’t been informed and haven’t heard about things that were discussed, this is where things can be seen by subscribers. Subscribing to San Mateo County alerts is also important for everything being discussed within the community with respect to wildfire safety. Attending committee and commission meetings is another means to staying informed. These are all posted on the Town calendar, including minutes and Zoom recordings. She said people may not realize that the Town is on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and even has a YouTube channel where people can review the town meetings.
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Vice Mayor Wernikoff encouraged residents to join a town committee. In particular, there are openings on many committees, including the Wildfire Preparedness Committee. There is a lot of interest in that topic, and she encouraged people to consider joining it. All of the committee meetings are also open to the public, so residents can still participate almost as much as committee members. People that are concerned about limitations to comment during Council meetings would discover that committee meetings are more casual, and there is more dialogue. She reiterated her encouragement to people passionate about these topics to consider joining a committee or at least attending the meetings, where they can have a back-and-forth dialog at those meetings.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff advised that other important meetings going on currently include the Housing Element Committee, part of which is the Safety Element. She heard comments that the Safety Element is not a public process but said that is not true. The Safety Element will be discussed in the Wildfire Preparedness Committee, the Emergency Preparedness Committee, and the Geologic Safety Committee. The public is invited to all of those. Regarding the topic of a community meeting, she suggested that all of those meetings are open to the community, but in addition to that there will be a separate, specific community-wide meeting. There are formats and meetings that are available to the public on the Safety Element. She also offered a reminder that Housing Element Committee meetings are monthly. There have been five so far, with great attendance at the last one. Other than that one, there have been maybe five to ten people attending. She said there is another one coming up on Monday. At that meeting they will discuss the housing affiliate partners. In February, they will have an update on fire mapping as it relates to the Housing Element. There was a lot of interest in that topic, so she encouraged folks to flag that meeting.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff commented that there is interest in the pipeline development projects and advised that all of that information is on the website. All the Town’s financial statements are available to manipulate using an OpenGov software program. They also are doing smaller group meetings through PV Donuts. She said the Council is also planning for the community-wide meeting. She said her list outlines all of the ways they are pushing the meeting out, including dates. She encouraged people to reach out if they have questions. She wondered if they could have a discussion on if the Council thinks there are other things they could be doing. As part of this item, she said she would love to hear from the community if there is something not on this list that they could be doing.
Councilmember Derwin complimented Vice Mayor Wernikoff on the thorough job compiling the list. She added a few more places where people can get more information, especially given the previous discussion. She said the County of San Mateo always pushes out bulletins to Councilmembers after a Board of Supervisors meeting, so she wondered if residents would be able to get on that email list. Town Manager Dennis said they will put that in the message to the community on the website. He said Kari Chinn, the Town’s Communications & Community Engagement Analyst , is looking at a variety of those kinds of updates as they come through, including everything from the Mosquito and Vector Control District to County of San Mateo to state, regional and federal elected officials. Usually, it is a click away to sign up to whatever newsletters they have. Councilmember Derwin thought people would also be interested in hearing from ABAG, regarding all of the regional housing matters, and MTC, which is housing as well as regional transportation and the long-range plans, such as Plan Bay Area 2050, including the long-range plans that are akin to the mother of all the stuff that filters down to the housing.
She thanked Vice Mayor Wernikoff for the nice list.
Councilmember Aalfs remarked on Vice Mayor Wernikoff’s gathering of a whole bunch of sources of information for carrying a huge stream of information in one place. He thanked her for the resource and said it also underscores the reason why people get frustrated at this. There is a lot of information being pushed out. He said he thinks they literally just pick and choose carefully and while everything seems important, every now and then they think “People have really got to know about this one.” It gets pushed out on every channel, and sometimes it gets exposure and sometimes it doesn’t, not because the residents aren’t intelligent and inquisitive, but because they know they are pushing a lot of things at them and it is hard to keep track of all the information out there. He said he understands the frustration when someone feels the something got by them. He said they do the best they can and staff does the best they Volume XLVII
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can to get all the streams together. Kari Chinn curates the streams regularly. He said he can barely keep track of all the information they are putting out and that he can get confused and miss things in town as well. Councilmember Aalfs said citizens are always free to email Councilmembers. He is currently setting up a time to walk with a neighbor in the Ranch, and he tries to respond to all of his emails if he can, but sometimes things slip, and he apologized for that. He said he is happy to talk to people one-on-one on these topics. He said they are there because they represent the townspeople and a lot of the times that he has been doing this, he feels like he barely hears from people. He reiterated that they do want to know what the citizens think, and sometimes they cannot do what they are being asked to do, for a variety of reasons. He understands that that is frustrating. He said it’s not that they aren’t listening, and sometimes it’s not even that they don’t agree with you. They do the best they can but have limitations on what they can do, also.
Councilmember Richards agreed that Vice Mayor Wernikoff’s list is fabulous and compared with what they did 20 or 30 years ago, with just an occasional printed newsletter, this is phenomenal. He said there have been some calls to get back to the newsletter for people who don’t use electronic media. He said this tends to be phenomenally expensive and hard to get out, but he thought they had been successful a few times, putting out individual cards for messages they wanted everyone in the town received. He said this is a great demonstration of how thorough they at least have tried to be in contact with the residents.
He agreed with Councilmember Aalfs’ comment that many times they feel like nobody is listening at all, because they never hear from anyone. This has happened to him as well – no phone calls and no emails – but he always loves to hear from people. He said they will keep trying to do their best.
Town Manager Dennis shared some of the events they are trying to plan in the coming months. The Housing Element, they have had one very large community meeting and plan to have another one as part of that. As the Safety Element kicks off, they plan to have one community meetings. He said there have been requests, which he concurs with, to plan a large-scale community meeting around some of the fire issues. He said that planning such meetings is an enormous undertaking, with chicken-and-egg elements associated with it. In particular, when inviting people who don’t report to him, it is much easier to tell his staff to come to a meeting than to tell the Director of Emergency Management to go to a meeting. They try to balance not having multiple competing meetings on any given day, which limits things considerably.
He said that nothing from staff should indicate anything other than an interest in trying to get things planned as quickly as possible with opportunities for people to participate. As Councilmembers said, a large meeting isn’t always the only way to participate. There are other perhaps even more effective ways to participate in discussions. He acknowledged the frustration that people may have at times, stating that scheduling is tough.
Mayor Hughes agreed and said that although large meetings allow everyone to be in the same room, it does make it hard to have people speak for more than about three minutes each, because otherwise not everyone gets a turn. This is why he hopes the PV Donut style meetings and having a larger number of small meetings will allow people to have more in-depth conversations.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff clarified that they are still planning the large meeting, and it is on the list.
Mayor Hughes invited public comments.
Bruce Roberts thanked Vice Mayor Wernikoff for her letter. He wondered about the Wildfire Preparedness postcard and Safety Community meeting, he presumed they would be Zoom meetings, but wondered if this has now been scheduled or is going to be scheduled, and if it would include the evacuation discussion. Town Manager Dennis said the timing, with COVID and other issues, does cloud some of the planning opportunity and effort related to what kind of event it is, COVID seems like its on a track right now where they might be able to do more things in person relatively quickly, but he hesitated to assign particular dates to that. The community meeting as described has not been planned. They are talking about whether or not there is a need for a separate evacuation discussion or if that can be part of something broader. He said that he is happy to take any input from residents across the board and requested emailing him with thoughts and suggestions. He said Councilmembers are also letting him Volume XLVII
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know what they would like to see as well. He thanked Vice Mayor Wernikoff for all the time she has put into this.
Karen Askey thought the Town has done a great job with eNotices and online tools. She felt that those attending the meetings know about that, but there are many other residents that don’t know. She wondered if there was an outreach program that could be done, but not via email, that could at least make people aware of their ability to sign up. She would love to be able to sign up for viewing the residents’ letters to the Town Council. Though Town Manager Dennis mentioned that they are in the weekly recap, just having those pushed out would be great, because it is a way for her to keep in touch with what other residents are looking for. She said there is a tremendous amount of information out there, and it is how to get all the people they are not hearing from engaged. She thinks the Donuts and the town meetings are a great start. Vice Mayor Wernikoff responded that they are putting up banners at Town Center and at Ford Field promoting eNotices, and also, they will be doing a postcard mailing.
Outside of that, she said she is open to ideas about how to get people engaged.
Town Manager Dennis added that he has a draft postcard that they plan to send to residents with a QR code that can be scanned to take them directly to the website with these resources. He related that he has been doing this 25 years and communicating with the public is the holy grail of public service. He has participated in myriad efforts, new tools, and engagement opportunities with public members. Often it is the same people who use the new tool, so they try to deploy a couple different strategies. One is to go where people are to try to engage folks. He added that regardless of how much quality information they push out or how many different tools they have, it takes a commitment from residents to participate on some level and sign up for things. It is a critically important area to him and his staff, and it can be challenging when information is available, and they are trying to find ways for people to access it.
Bob Adams didn’t think he has been heard criticizing staff or the Council. . He said he thought they were doing everything they could to do the right job as best they see it. They do not always agree, but he respects that they are thoughtful about it and try to listen to what people have to say. He said he talked to Town Manager Dennis and Vice Mayor Wernikoff about a town meeting at the January 12th meeting. He wasn’t sure there was an agreement to have a town wide meeting. He said he is now confident there will be one. He saw Vice Mayor Wernikoff’s list and where it said near the end “Town wide meeting in March,” and wondered if that was true. Vice Mayor Hughes replied that it was. Mr. Adams said he is confident that they will have a date and a meeting. He thought part of the problem they have is that it is frustrating to everyone to hear FEMA or the Emergency Services group or anyone else say, “We know this information is incorrect, and there’s no way you can fix it now. You can fix it later on, but you can’t fix it now.” He said that all that does is reveal that the government is kind of screwed up, at least from his standpoint. He clarified he was not picking on them, but the process has all these pieces to it and it is very difficult to manage. He said he is not unintelligent, or uninformed, or someone who stands back and looks from afar, and it has taken him three months to figure out how this all works. He said it is not a criticism, but he was trying to explain how people get very frustrated because it is so convoluted, even if it doesn't appear so to them. He said he currently has no problem with the Council approving the Hazard Mitigation. It made perfect sense for where they are because it’s a screwed-up thing that they have to say yes to, so that they can fix it later on, which seems ridiculous, but he understands that it is the process. He summarized by saying he appreciates the Council and the staff and thinks they are trying to do the right job. He said they are frustrating the residents unmercifully, but unintentionally. He thanked the Council for the meeting they will have in March.
Councilmember Aalfs responded that government is slow and cumbersome, and it looks just as convoluted to him after 13 years of participating in it as it does to Mr. Adams. He said he gets frustrated, too. Although some of it is for a reason, partly so that the five Councilmembers can’t just go around doing whatever they want and trampling over the public. Some of it is just because it’s a cumbersome process to hold them accountable. The public meetings with the comment periods are a little frustrating, but it is there to make sure that everybody who wants to say something to them can say it to all of them. They do have private conversations, but they do not make decisions behind the back of the public. Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the others. The Council knows it is Volume XLVII
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frustrating, and at times it is frustrating for them. He apologized for that and reiterated that they are all doing the best that they can, as are the residents.
Town Manager Dennis suggested to try working in it as opposed to volunteering. He expressed that the book some of them will write at the end of their careers about how cumbersome the process is will be a good book. Mayor Hughes reflected on the amount of interaction there is at the county or the state level, where there are 30 million people to manage, or the country with 300 million people to manage and remarked that FEMA has rules in place because it is not just little Portola Valley that they care about. It’s 300 million people across the entire country who have to submit their forms in the standardized format with the regulated scoring scheme, et cetera.
Mary Hufty reiterated previous comments, that the Councilmembers are heroes, because they sit and listen to them and try to sort out what the next step is and try to offer things. She said they deeply appreciate it. She said she would like to hear a little bit more appreciation for what Portola Valley Neighbors United is trying to do which is to inform, engage and activate the community. That, in itself, should be something that they offer to the Town Council that they can do this. They have put their resources together. They have an educational 501(c)3 and they have a way of supporting the Council.
They consider themselves a unique and valuable asset to the greater Bay area that has brought a lot of environmental awareness to the entire country and that is part of the solution to climate change, to housing, to affordability and fairness and all the goals they share. They are trying to help the Council activate the community. She spoke to the possibility that they might see each other as being on the same team, working to the same goal and not feeling like its them against the Council but more like they are trying to help engage the community to make it a safer place, to make it more environmentally sound and to make a better world by acting local and thinking global. Mayor Hughes responded that he doesn’t see it as PVNU against the Town. He said they have collaborated in the past, sharing information making sure that what is going out is accurate and consistent. He looked forward to collaborating like more in the future, as it is a great way of reaching people in ways they don’t normally do.
Caroline Vertongen said she has been a longtime and very active resident of Portola Valley. She said they have met with all of the Councilmembers, except Vice Mayor Wernikoff, and she hoped she would accept her invitation to meet with her. There are several issues they need to address. She wanted to affirm everything the residents said. They want a collaborative approach. She did not think frustration is the right word, because they have shared their professional and community experiences throughout the years and feel they are not being heard. She said they hope to come to a resolution. She said they met before, and there are several issues in the community that should be addressed. She requested that Vice Mayor Wernikoff respond to her email that she will send.
David Cardinal said as someone who grew up in one of the last towns in America to elect everyone through a public townhall meetings, all for public voices, he didn’t think anyone in their town has gone unheard. He said he believed everyone on the Town Council could recite the opinions and perspectives of the top 20 people who contribute by heart. He felt there was a difference between being unheard and being disagreed with. He said they should have more town meetings, but that’s not the same as everyone getting to have their opinion become law. Regarding the PVNU saying they want to collaborate, he felt it did not ring true. He did not see anywhere that they have acknowledged the efforts of the Town to adopt some of the most strict fire safety building codes ever, or take a lot of major steps. He said he wasn’t sure what their point is, but he did not see them as being very collaborative at this point, although he felt they should work with them. Mayor Hughes said the PVNU has worked with Town staff in the past on messages that have gone out where they have made sure information was accurate, but he said it has been a little while since that was being coordinated with the Town.
Rita Comes spoke first as a resident to thank Vice Mayor Wernikoff for her list of ways to communicate with each other and get information. She hadn’t heard an update recently about how the hybrid meetings at the schoolhouse was progressing, because she does miss seeing her fellow neighbors’ faces in the room or as part of the Zoom and being able to see them. She said many of her fellow neighbors don’t have technology skills and although she has been using QR codes for years, some of them do not know Volume XLVII
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what they are. They are not good at Zoom and are in bed by 8:00 p.m., so wished there are other ways, especially meeting in person, to reach out to those neighbors who are not up on technology.
Unfortunately, because of the storm on December 23rd some still do not have internet and phone at their homes so they can’t participate. She went to say if anyone wanted more information about PVNU and what they are doing, she asked that they visit the website and see what they are doing in the community and reach out and speak to one of them. They are all available.
Angela Hey said what she sees at the meeting had nothing to do with the subject, but has to do with people wanting to be heard and wanting to have a floor where they can talk for a long time. She said that is very painful sometimes, that people dread hearing problems because then they feel if they’ve heard it then they have to solve it, so they would rather not hear the problem. She said what hears in the town, for example, with Zoom, they could easily use Zoom with everyone’s faces on. Ms. Comes just said she would like to sees peoples’ faces, so Ms. Hey asked why they don’t do that. It would make people feel listened to. She said it’s very well sending out information and reports, but that’s not what people want.
They want to be stars where they can stand up in front of people. She wondered about having an old fashioned debate, because what people want is empathy from the Town Council and to be heard.
Whatever the subject is, people want to feel that they’ve had the debate, although debates are very old fashioned. She thought when they have a town meeting, people should be allowed to talk for more than three minutes. Even if it goes on all day, at least people have had their say and everyone has gotten together. She said she has been on thousands of Zoom meetings where people can all see each other, and she felt it was a simple thing that could be fixed. Mayor Hughes thought there were some technical limitations that they have with Zoom, one being that because the access information for the meetings has to be published publicly, they had a fair amount of trouble when they first started using Zoom with Zoom bombers. There was a Trails Committee meeting the previous week, and the committee meetings generally do have the ability for everyone to turn their camera on and all be participants, but that has led to Zoom bombings with evil internet users joining the meetings and broadcasting porn and disrupting the meetings. The Council meeting are structured as webinar-style Zooms to make sure they will not be interrupted.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff replied to Angela’s comment, saying they have been running the meetings as webinars all along because of the Zoom limitations. She said it is a very standard format if you look at what other communities and non-profits use for this type of meeting, for that reason and many others.
She agreed that they would all rather be together, and the timeline for that is close. She responded to Ms.
Comes, saying she has mentioned this at every meeting. They all want it and all are waiting for the Old Schoolhouse to be ready, and that is right around the corner. Also, she reminded people that they are having a big community meeting sometime in March.
Town Manager Dennis said they were hoping to have all the supplies in hand at this point to start the work in the schoolhouse, but that is not the case. They are victim to the supply chain issues that everyone is affected by. There have been delays in a number of the pieces of equipment that they purchased, so they are probably about a month behind where they thought they would be. They were hoping to be in the Community Hall in early February, but it may be more like March, although he has no control over when they will get the supplies, and they want to test the equipment and also see where things are with COVID.
They are very much ready to get back into the schoolhouse and see people again and have that familiar relationship and communication.
Kristi Corley said she attended Woodside Council meeting the previous night. It was in person, and she was impressed by this. She said they are using the same contractor the Town is using to set up the schoolhouse. She said it seems that the Town didn’t sign the contract in a timely manner to get it up and running. She appreciated that Woodside has made this available to their residents. She said she appreciates open and honest transparency in governance. She said what she learned the previous night regarding SB 9 was that they are now realizing that there is a mountain lion restriction to SB 9. She wondered what the Council will be doing with respect to that due to the SB 9 law that says that wildlife habitat should be protected over building. She encouraged the Town governance to look into this and to Volume XLVII
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read the Woodside agenda and talk to their town manager. They are putting off accepting SB 9 applications until they learn about the mountain lion habitat governance which is written into the law.
Greg [no last name given] thanked Councilmember Wernikoff for her initiative on transparency and communication and said it is a very welcome initiative. He said many of his sentiments had already been expressed, but he wanted to endorse what many said about public participation and listening. He felt it was very helpful to understand better the inability to conduct a Zoom session in a group style because of the Zoom bombing. He suggested a solution involving use of a password system since they rarely have more than 100 people participating. People who are interested could sign up for the meeting and be issued a password. That way they could protect from Zoom bombing, while everyone who wants to see one another can do so. He asked for a response to this request.
Town Attorney Silver responded that she sits on the State Brown Act Committee, and they just had a discussion about this. She explained that with Zoom you can issue passwords, but that does not comply with the Brown Act, because you cannot restrict access to a meeting by any member of the public. So if the Town were to just release passwords to a select number of people, or just to residents, that would not comply with the Brown Act, since you have to allow anybody that wants to attend the meeting to attend.
What has been discussed in the last statewide Brown Act Committee meeting was that with most agencies using Zoom as the platform for remote meetings, you have to publish the password, and web crawlers search through all of the public notice meetings and obtain the passwords, and if you have the password, you are able access a public meeting. There have been experiences with the Zoom bombers in all cities, so virtually all cities have had to move to the webinar format.
Ron Eastman mentioned that he doesn’t need to be a star. He responded to Councilmember Aalfs’ comment. He didn’t feel that criticism of the process or the product equates to a personal attack on staff.
He said he was sorry if he came across that way, because that is not his intent. He said when they take exception to complaints or criticisms or suggestions from the community by casting them as personal attacks on staff, it seems like an attempt to delegitimize what someone is saying and makes it difficult to believe that you’re being heard, and makes him feel like he is being rushed off. He appreciated the Council’s hard work. He mentioned the Friday question-and-answer sessions in Parliament, stating it is never pretty, depending on which side you are on.
Councilmember Aalfs responded that Mr. Eastman’s point was well taken. He said sometimes he tries to draw a distinction between criticism of their actions and questioning of their motives. He said it is frustrating at times, even though he signed up for this and knew what he was getting himself into. He said at times there have insinuations that because something is being handled by staff and not by the Council, citing a comment once that “Jeremy doesn’t live here and doesn’t represent us.” He thought that to be very unfair. He said he tries to be open-minded to disagreements and even criticisms people have of the Council and said he will do his best not to resort to that. He did ask that people understand that the Council live here in town, his family lives here. Jeremy and his staff report to them, and their job is to make sure that they are serving the interests of the Town. He said he thinks his colleagues and he all agree that they are.
Mayor Hughes invited further comments from the Council on the Colleagues Memo. Hearing none, he thanked Vice Mayor Wernikoff for her contribution.
(12) COUNCIL LIAISON COMMITTEE AND REGIONAL AGENCIES REPORTS Councilmember Richards attended the Conservation Committee meeting as discussed previously.
Councilmember Aalfs mentioned that Peninsula Clean Energy, along with six other California community choice aggregation groups, signed on to a contract through California Clean Power, a new entity that the CCAs have created. The contract is for a fraction of a 69-megawatt battery storage facility that will be serving their needs as well as others in California. The details as far as pricing are not public. He is Volume XLVII
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excited about it because it shows that the storage projects when factoring in all the things they do for a load-serving entity like Peninsula Clean Energy are very financially feasible. They are past the tipping point where large-scale storage will become a significant part of getting to a carbon-free grid within the next decade or sooner. He did attend the Housing Element Committee as well.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff also attended the Housing Element Committee meeting and reported that it was a great meeting. There was a presentation from Susan Hartman, Community Development Director from the Town of Paradise. She shared about their learnings with wildfire resiliency and how they are managing their housing element as well as information about their vegetation management strategies and other things. There was a mapping presentation from Zeke Lunder. He is working with the consultant who is supporting Portola Valley for the Housing Element. They saw some live maps in a preliminary view of mapping and the types of maps they will be using. Step two of the mapping process will be in Housing Element on February 22nd, and she encouraged people to plan to attend that. There will other inputs, including looking at the existing maps, Cal Fire, very high fire zone, the Moritz maps, 30-percent slope issues, evacuation access. All of these things will be considered together and discussed again on February 22nd. The other thing covered in the meeting was that how the Safety Element will dovetail with the Housing Element, and she encouraged anyone interested in this to log in to the materials online for that meeting. There is a great graphic that shows how the two elements will work together and the meetings that will occur around that as discussed earlier. Woodside Fire Protection District also participated in the meeting, with a presentation from Don Bullard, which people can reference. All of the inputs will be taken together and incorporated into the maps, which will part of the Safety Element. She said for people who are curious about SB 9, the SB 9 ordinance language that was passed references the Safety Element, so as soon the maps are finalized it will pull through to the SB 9 ordinance. There will also be an opportunity to use the maps to update the ADU ordinance. She said this is the level of content that is discussed in the Housing Element Committee meetings, so she encouraged people to attend and participate.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff also attended the CAC. They will be planning a kids movie night. There is a lot of excitement about PV Palooza on June 11th.
Councilmember Derwin reported on the January 13 C/CAG meeting. Ken Brown, Strategic Consulting, was hired for federal advocacy, which is the first time C/CAG has ever hired a federal lobbyist. There was a legislative update. The Governor’s budget came out on Monday and included funding for transportation, climate, housing, homelessness, sea level rise, education. C/CAG has a few asks for transportation improvements and two stormwater projects in Redwood City and San Bruno. There was an update of their legislative policies for 2022. For the first time in five years, C/CAG will have a five-percent increase for their member cities. Going forward, it will be the most recent annual CPI at a rate not to exceed three percent. The Town’s bill will be five percent higher. This will happen in June when the budget is adopted.
There was a technical presentation on San Mateo County vehicle miles traveled and a VMT estimation tool, since through CEQA, all are going to VMT. It was extremely technical. They did a countywide stormwater program update as they look ahead to their next five-year cycle. They support 20 municipalities, OneShoreline and the County with all the permit regulating requirements with one full-time staff and 35 to 40 consultants. A big driver is legacy pollutant PCBs and mercury in the water, but they are also doing stormwater on the parcel scale, green streets and regional projects. An example of a regional project is Colma Creek watershed, where they are doing groundwater recharge and water reclaim for green streets. They have their sustainable streets master plan, rainwater harvesting where they’re giving rebates for rain barrels. She will make sure that is advertised when it starts up again. There was a report from Gina Papan from MTC who just gave $19.6 million in Caltrain right-of-way funds to SamTrans.
Councilmember Derwin reported on the San Mateo County ExpressLanes Joint Power Authority meeting on the 14th. They received an update on their logo for the equity program. They had an update on the opening schedule for the southern segment. The tolling will start on February 11th, so everyone should get their Fast Track flex transponders, because if you want to go on the Express Lanes you have to have Volume XLVII
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one. She thought this could be pushed out in the newsletter as well. There was a closed session regarding Cal Trans negotiation over Express Lanes.
Councilmember Derwin had a Resource Management Climate Protection Committee meeting on the 19th, including a BAWSCA report from Tom Francis. They are still in drought, but went from exceptional and extreme to severe. Tom does not expect much change to the state declaration until April or May. Lake Shasta is 34 percent. Trinity Lake is 30 percent. Don Pedro is 55 percent. Hetch Hetchy is doing well at 81 percent full which is 28 percent above where they were at this time last year. They are above the median, but January has been completely dry. The upcountry snowpack has been good, but they need snow in February and March. SPUC declaration of water shortage emergency, she said right now there is a voluntary ten-percent region-wide reduction which is against the baseline of fiscal year 2019-2020.
They will consider moving to mandatory rationing if performance is not there, so they are doing monthly tracking beginning this month, tracking the water use through the water agencies. BAWSCA is working with member agencies to find opportunities to transfer supplies. There was a report from the Water Supply Reliability Roundtable. BAWSCA is finalizing a contract with the consultant. The group will start talking about her thing, which is to talk about stormwater, gray water, reclaimed water, et cetera.
SPUC released their long-term vulnerability assessment covering risk associated with climate change and water supply. The Water Research Foundation will hold a webinar to learn about it. Regarding the La Honda Community Microgrid, folks came back to remind them that La Honda has a lot of power outages that last for a long time, and their water system needs pumps. When there is no electricity, the pumps don’t work, and the children have to haul buckets of water from a well to the schoolrooms to flush toilets.
They are laying out short term, mid-term and long-term solutions. A short term would be putting 15 kilowatts of solar power on one of the roofs and get 46-kilowatt portable power box batteries for the teachers. A midterm solution is to establish a clean power exchange, climate protection center, where people could swap out batteries, get in out of the cold. The long term is the microgrid. She advised Councilmember Aalfs that it would be good for him to talk to them. She will also put them in touch with Anna Eshoo’s office for funding opportunities.
The last presentation was Peter Florin from Energy Solutions which is a new program offering incentives for single and multi-family homes to put in heat pumps for space and water heating, but they are working with contractors as opposed to residents. The rebates will go through the contractors to the consumers.
This is for single- and multi-family homes, and a low-income component. The incentives are high.
Councilmember Derwin said when she put in her heat pump water heater, she got a bit of money back.
Councilmember Aalfs added that this is why the rebates go through the contractors. They are trying to get the contractors to basically recommend heat pumps as the default, whereas they are locked into the technology they’ve been pushing for ten years. Councilmember Derwin said this is why the contractors would like to get a small portion of the rebate.
Councilmember Derwin reported on a Sustainability meeting on the 20th. The garden tour has been bumped to spring to 2023, again because of COVID. There was a woman in attendance who has her own podcast book group, called “All We Can Say,” for women in climate leadership. It would be fantastic if ended up joining. Scott and Stephan are the Chair and Vice Chair. Rebecca is Secretary. Randy did an update on SB 1383, the recycle bill. They talked about website planning, what to include, how to structure it, what the role of the Committee is. They also chose which areas they all want to work on and some of the projects they would like to work on.
Mayor Hughes attended two town meetings. He said it was nice to be back at Parks and Rec after a couple years. Some of the same people and some of the same issues are still there. They had two main items. One was thinking about re-doing the tennis courts for one of them to potentially be a permanent pickleball court. Currently there are volunteers who have to set up the nets and then take them down again every time anybody wants to play. The use of the courts is around 84 percent for pickleball right now, so dedicating one of the courts and having the nets up permanently seemed like a good idea. They are working out the logistics and how to do it while keeping the tennis players happy and not impacting basketball and other activities on the courts. They Committee is also looking at restructuring field usage Volume XLVII
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fees. That is to essentially move from the per-player, per-season model currently in use. Instead, they are discussing an hourly rate per field and how to make it equitable between kids’ leagues and adult leagues and rates for each. The concept is that if you only use a field twice a year, you pay less, and you don’t pay for having more people on the field, necessarily.
Mayor Hughes attended a Trails Committee meeting. They have a subcommittee working on the update on a new trails map, who seems to be powering ahead on it. They have done work in Google maps to draw the trails out. The meeting was then Zoom bombed. There were probably 20 to 30 robot Zoom bomb characters started showing up, crashed the meeting, all kinds of audio and screen sharing of obnoxious stuff, so the meeting had to be abandoned. He said once a meeting is abandoned, restarting it is not easy, because you can’t let everyone know the details of the new meeting. They had to abandon it and will have to pick up the second half of their agenda at the next meeting.
Mayor Hughes met with staff members from PCE to talk about a project in Portland installing 50 electric vehicle chargers at a condominium project, helping share some lessons learned to learn how to do EV installations in a way that makes economic sense for condominium and apartment buildings in San Mateo County. There are a surprising number of hurdles in getting that done. He said they have one of the largest manufacturers of the EV chargers, Enel X, is based in San Mateo County. Councilmember Derwin asked if he would like to make a presentation at the RMCP Committee about this, as it is very hard for people who live in apartment meetings. Mayor Hughes said the project he did was a little different, in which the owners own their own parking spaces. The infrastructure is a shared element, but the individual spaces are owned by the individual owners, so there were logistics to figure out. At Councilmember Derwin’s request he said if there is someone at C/CAG she would like him to talk to, he would be happy to.
Angela Hey said the next day was the C/CAG San Mateo County Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee, and they did a plan in 2021. She was appointed in May of last year. They have roads that are risky to drive on, and the only one she could see coming through Portola Valley is Portola Road. Alpine Road has a trail up the side. Ms. Hey said it was interesting that their next meeting is to review grants, and there are some large amounts of money. For example, the flashing beacons at a crosswalk would be eligible for that kind of a grant if they’re needed because people have bicycles that want to cross there, then it can come under the bicycle funding. She said she has been attending the San Mateo County Commission on Aging. They have been reaching out to towns regarding health and mental health, with a spirituality initiative.
(13) TOWN MANAGER REPORT
Town Manager Dennis had no report.
Kristi Corley wondering about any legislative updates, since a lot has been happening. She understood there was an Assembly bill that brings ADUs from 16 feet to 18 feet, which has gone through two committees and looks like it might get passed in Sacramento. She requested comments on anything they are learning with updates from Sacramento. She said they used to get reports from the Councilmembers who are attending ABAG meetings, at which there is a legislative update. She said if the Town’s lobbyist is not reporting she requests that whoever is attending the ABAG meetings could give an update on this bill. It would bring the ceiling height from 16 feet to 18 feet. Once at 18 feet on a two-story ADU, there is now a four-foot setback on the side and back of ADUs, so it is of interest to the town’s residents with the new ADU ordinance.
Mayor Hughes advised that they get updates from the Town’s lobbyist on progress of legislation through Sacramento. He said staff could probably get back to Ms. Corley with the latest update from her. He did not have an update at the time of the meeting. Ms. Corley responded that if the Town hires a legislative update, they should be giving an update on this bill.
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Greg [no last name given] asked if they are logging SB 9 lot-splitting applications and whether they can publish data on that if there are any instances of it on the website. Mayor Hughes said he thought there had been no SB 9 applications either for lot splits or buildings yet. Town Manager Dennis confirmed this.
He said he would think about notifications on that type of thing and talk to staff regarding whether it is something they can consider. Greg said that somehow the Almanac reporter is picking up lot split applications in Palo Alto, so perhaps they could replicate how they are doing that. Town Manager Dennis said what happened there was that the application was from a fairly prominent develop in town who served on their Planning Commission, so he wasn’t sure if it was reported through a mechanism of the City, but everyone knows him, which is probably how it got to the press.
WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS
(14) Town Council Digest – January 13, 2022
(15) Town Council Digest – January 20, 2022
Councilmember Derwin commented on item 3, saying she did not know how Stefan on the Sustainability Committee got the letter. The Committee discussed it and dismissed the concerns. Mayor Hughes thought it was addressed to him and sent to the Town Center, so staff probably distributed it to him as Chair. He thought such things were FCC certified and have strict rules and standards, so it is probably dealt with at the federal level.
Kristi Corley wondered regarding SB 9 if pre-applications will be reported by the Town, versus an application. She thought residents are interested in pre-application workings of SB 9, because they don’t want to be surprised if their neighbor is doing a lot split and can then put four units on a lot and can go four feet to the side and the back. She thought it was in the best interest of residents to get lists of preapplications as well as applications. She wondered how the Council would be dealing with this.
Town Attorney Silver commented that they do not expect to get pre-applications for SB 9 projects since it is a ministerial process. They generally only receive pre-applications for more comprehensive, ASCC-type of projects.
ADJOURNMENT [ 11:14 p.m.]
_____________________________ _________________________ Mayor Town Clerk