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PORTOLA VALLEY TOWN COUNCIL SPECIAL MEETING NO. 1028, March 9, 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 John Richards, Maryann Derwin, Jeff Alfs; Vice Mayor Sarah Wernikoff; and Mayor Craig Hughes
Absent: None
Others: Jeremy Dennis, Town Manager
Laura Russell, Planning & Building Director
Sharon Hanlon, Town Clerk
Attendees: Karen Vahtra
David Cardinal
ORAL COMMUNICATIONS
Karen Vahtra commented that the Wildfire Committee is the only standing committee that has a Town Councilmember who can vote, and this allows the Town Council to have unprecedent second vote, both within the committee and at the Council level. At the previous Wildfire meeting, the Town Councilmember began the first steps of orchestrating the ouster of one of their key programs for wildfire safety – evacuation. The explanation given was that the time should be spent on other matters, such as working with neighbors, but a nationwide program already exists for that, called Firewise, which the WFPD already actively supports. She asked that the Council revoke this power by amending the Charter so that the Councilmember is not a committee member, but a liaison only.
Mayor Hughes did not believe this was unprecedented and that it has occasionally been the case with committees in the past, although it is uncommon. However, for important committees, like this one, he said it has happened in the past .
CONSENT AGENDA
(1) Approval of Minutes – Action and Detailed Summary Minutes for February 23, 2022 (2) Approval of Warrant List – March 9, 2022
(3) Appointment by Mayor – Member to the Trails and Paths Committee (4) Update by Town Manager – COVID Business Assistance Grant (CBAG) Program (5) 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. 2882-2022)
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Mayor Hughes invited public comments regarding The Consent Agenda. Hearing none, he invited Councilmembers to pull any item on the Consent Agenda.
Mayor Hughes pulled item 5 from the Consent Agenda.
Councilmember Aalfs moved to approve Consent Agenda items 1 – 4. Seconded by Councilmember Richards, the motion carried unanimously, by roll call vote. (5) 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. 2882-2022)
Mayor Hughes said he pulled the item to give Town Manager Dennis an opportunity to update the Council on the status of future meetings in person. Town Manager Dennis responded that they are close to reopening the Historic Schoolhouse to hybrid meetings. Next week there will be a week’s worth of installation of hardware and the following week will be testing. Following that there will be some initial training of staff and others invited to participate. The hope is that in April staff will be able to introduce hybrid meetings into the Schoolhouse. He said the outstanding question is that of support, which now is handled by the Town Clerk at Council meetings and from Planning and Building staff at ASCC and Planning Commission meetings. There will need to be ongoing conversations with committee chairs regarding expectations related to who will manage those meetings as they see fit. The committee meetings generally operate under the meeting model, in lieu of the webinar model, so there would be fewer technical aspects associated with management of the meeting overall. He will learn more in a couple weeks about the system and will be transmitting that to committee chairs and others.
Mayor Hughes asked if there were any changes with the recent changes at the state level around COVID rules and expectations from the Governor’s Office relating to extension of the ability to operate remotely.
Town Manager Dennis said the recent actions by the Governor do not change the ability to continue remote meetings, at least through June. He has also had a conversation with the Town lobbyists, and they concur on this. Town Attorney Silver commented that as long as there is recommendation that some form of social distancing or masks be worn in a public setting, the town can continue to work remotely.
Councilmember Richards moved to approve item 5 on the Consent Agenda. Seconded by Councilmember Aalfs, the motion carried unanimously, by roll call vote.
REGULAR AGENDA
(6) Study Session – Fiscal Year 2022-23 Council Priorities Study Session 2 – Adoption of Priorities Town Manager Dennis and Assistant Town Manager Gaines presented this item. Town Manager Dennis reminded the Council of the kick-off workshop with the committees on January 26th in which they development of the FY 2022-23 budget. He said they will be asking if there is anything specific the Councilmembers would like to see incorporated into the priorities. Their assessment is that the majority of requests from committees would fall under their own budgets and may not necessarily fall under the priority elements. However, if this is not the case, they would amend what was presented. The second meeting on February 9
th was the Council Study Session. Staff presented ideas based on internal conversations and on issues that have been discussed with the public over the last fiscal year.
Town Manager Dennis presented five priorities for Council consideration and said they borrowed from some neighboring cities on their approach. He mentioned that Mr. Gaines played a significant role in Volume XLVII
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Mountain View’s Council Priority development process, and some of the things he was using there were utilized in their presentation. Town Manager Dennis noted that is a useful document to print and have available to members of the public. The goal was to capture everything that was relayed to staff at the February 9
th meeting, including changes related to nomenclature of some of the priorities and inclusion of some additional projects, and they hoped to get feedback, questions and comments from the Councilmembers.
Mayor Hughes invited questions from the Councilmembers.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff appreciated the new, user-friendly format and all of the detail. She asked, regarding the third item, “implementation of expanded home hardening and defensible space code updates in conjunction with Woodside Fire.” She said she assumed these were the code updates that are expected from Woodside Fire. Town Manager Dennis said there were two components to this. Woodside Fire Protection District has announced updates to the fire code. They anticipate these being somewhat expanded, given new information being developed by experts around the country on these issues. The other component is that the home hardening code put in place by the Town Council late last year is a significant document, in that not many cities have some anything this expansive, but they are learning from it and have been having conversations with community members about challenges of implementing the code, particularly around decking issues. The home hardening code may change depending on information received. He had a meeting with the Building Official to talk through what some of the issues may look like, and timing of how they might come forward. He said they tried to bundle all of the major code updates at one time a year, making it a fairly significant undertaking to bring it all forward, but that is their hope in 2022.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff noted that at the bottom it also mentions adoption of the fire code update, and she wanted to make sure she understood what was being listed. Town Manager Dennis said he may have simply duplicated the effort, and he will clean up the wording. In the third bullet he was wanting to point out that any home hardening updates will be done in conjunction with Wood Fire Protection District. He said he will clear that up that bullet and probably eliminate the element in parentheses, because it is duplicated later. Vice Mayor Wernikoff said she was interested in the Woodside Fire Protection District maps and wondered how that project fit into the item and if it should be added. Town Manager Dennis felt it was implicit in bullet 3 but agreed that making it more explicit is probably necessary, so he will add an explicit bullet point that the Fire District is working on those maps, and they will be reviewed by the Town Council when they are available.
With no further questions from the Commission, Mayor Hughes invited public comments.
Karen Vahtra was concerned that the $450,000 tree work in the right-of-way is not included in the list. The work was analyzed in 2020 and has not been placed in the budget. She said it is extremely important for both fire spread and evacuation.
With no further public comments, Mayor Hughes brought the item back to the Council for discussion.
Councilmember Derwin offered suggestions for a few edits and pointed out a couple typographical corrections. Under Sustainability, “Adoption of Sustainability Committee Recommendations,” her suggestion was that “…including preparing for the drought.” ought to be added because the drought is a big deal. She offered a revision of the end, to read, “Town Council continues its commitment to consider diversity, equity and inclusion when developing ordinances, policies, programs and projects.” She asked if this was agreeable. Councilmember Aalfs and Mayor Hughes expressed their approval. Town Manager Dennis asked her to email the changes to him.
Councilmember Aalfs thought it was a great document, and it will be nice to be able to make it available to the public, to state the Council’s priorities and values.
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Councilmember Richards liked the format and the changes, and said it is much easier to grasp what the Council is looking for.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff noted under “Operational and Service Delivery Enhancements, Adoption of project management tools,” that she thinks of this more as implementation of project management principles, as a discipline, more than just implementing tools. She said she is fine with project management on Excel but is more focused on using project tracking and other such principles more in the process. She was open to a better way of stating this. Mayor Hughes agreed that it is not just about the tools but about the culture and approach to how they work. Mr. Gaines clarified that this was meant to be a continuation of the prior bullet – “Implementing technological and software improvements to increase staff productivity and provide enhanced communications and greater transparency.” He said it needs to be juxtaposed a bit more, so that it is an element of the sub header of the bullet, “Explore options to better serve and utilize Town committees and their operations.” Town Manager Dennis proposed adding a bullet speaking to the principles portion of this. Vice Mayor Wernikoff agreed, stating that the principles are the bigger point.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff commented on “Explore options to better serve and utilize Town committees and their operations. She referred to prior discussions about looking through the Committee Handbook and making updates, versus the narrower sense discussed at the last meeting. Mayor Hughes thought it related to the conversations they have had periodically about the role of Council Liaisons, setting committee agendas, tracking work items, et cetera, and allowing them to come up with their own ideas as long as they are accomplishing their core work. Vice Mayor Wernikoff thought the wording on this point might be tweaked somehow to better reflect the Mayor’s description. Town Manager Dennis, Mayor Hughes and Vice Mayor Wernikoff briefly discussed wording of the bullet to make it more precise. Town Manager Dennis said he would work on this and bring it back at the next Council meeting without holding up the budget development process.
Mayor Hughes felt the priorities could potentially be approved with a couple edits, to come back as a consent agenda item. He felt they could assign one Councilmember to review the final draft before it goes on the agenda at the next meeting for final approval. Town Manager Dennis said, as a product of the Council, the document requires the full endorsement of it. He suggested that the Mayor and Vice Mayor could review it at their meeting on Monday morning and perhaps bring back a recommendation.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff said the Wildfire Preparedness Committee is interested in potentially having a speaker or two but did not submit any budget numbers for that. She wondered if they could still do that even without having a line item for it in the document. Town Manager Dennis responded that there will be an opportunity for the committee to submit that more formally later in the year.
Councilmember Derwin moved to approve the 2022-23 Council Priorities pending the minor edits, to be included in the next Consent Agenda. Seconded by Councilmember Richards, the motion passed (5-0), by roll call vote.
(7) Oral Report by Planning and Building Director – Planning and Building Department Workload Update
Planning and Building Director Russell presented an update on Planning and Building Department staffing. The Council discussed this previously in May of 2021. At that time the Council supported a series of recommendations, resulting in changes in the staffing pattern for the Department, including adding additional resources. Their full-time staff has gone from four to five. A senior planner was added, and part time contract staff has increased from five to seven, including planning, code enforcement and building official services. Director Russell’s presentation the update on the workload, the budget, and plans to cover a scheduled leave of a key staff member. Proposals for the current fiscal year as well as the next were included.
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Since adding the additional resources, the Department successfully recruited a senior planner, Director Russell said is no small feat in the current environment. She shared that she has needed to spend 100 percent of her time on the Housing Element Update. She had expected it to be around 85 percent, allowing time for a few other tasks, but that has not turned out to be the case. The Department has added additional contract planner services and have continued to see a high demand for customer service, meaning routine pre-application work, including emails, phone calls, Zoom meetings, and counter service.
Budget funds were expended for contract planner services midway through the year. The contract planners have been very effective and have trained another contract planner. They hope to continue with this, so there is a budget request coming up related to that. They also added code compliance/code enforcement services and now have an experienced code enforcement officer who has been working with the Department, helping to track cases, close more of the cases, and keep up with all of the records.
Consequently, they now have more of a code compliance program instead of a hit-and-miss approach as in the past. Resources were limited such that they could focus only on the most egregious, life safety type code complaints in the past, but are now able to focus on a much larger range. Director Russell said they have maintained a “soft touch” for code compliance, very much focused on communication, outreach and trying to get voluntary compliance. They have not had to resort to notices of violation, except in very rare cases. Building official services were also added, and they are now working with a very experienced Building Official who works a few hours a week but has made a big difference in terms of implementation of the home hardening ordinance as well as routine management of Building Division functions. He is very helpful for problem-solving and code interpretations. Overall, the changes made to the Department staffing have been very effective.
Director Russell said in the big picture they look at how their work program is evolving as many things have changed in the community in recent years. Some things they are working on now have a much higher level of complexity and end up with much more customer service needs and many more inquiries from residents. They are also working on Housing Element and Safety Element updates which are very time-consuming and complex and have high levels of participation from the community. They are working in an environment of very complex state laws. Conversations are around ADUs, SB9, and Housing Element laws. She said this current series of laws is unprecedented in her career and takes a small town like Portola Valley that used to operate from a friendly, easy point of view into being in a position of having to ensure legal compliance at all times, with the Town Attorney as the starting point for everything they do. This is a dramatic shift in philosophy, and they are trying to retain the friendly approach while being very mindful of state laws and bringing them forward to Council so that people understand them.
Director Russell shared that the Department is also processing significant development applications which require a lot of time, including Planning staff, Town Attorney and Town Manager time on larger projects. There are high levels of community engagement and communications going out. There are many inquiries and questions about the initiatives and projects that they are working on. The public records requests go up and down depending on what phase different projects are in. They assume the requests will spike again, as more projects start to come forward. They also see a continuation of applicants requesting a very high level of service. Staff feels this is linked to the pandemic, although they are not certain that’s the case. They have experienced people feeling dissatisfied with the world, with politics, with the pandemic. People are feeling the effects of all this and looking for a high level of service from them. Director Russell said they valued the opportunity to provide service to the public; however, the result is that it oftentimes outstrips the supply.
Director Russell turned to discussing quantitative measures. She presented highlights of the information in the staff report. There are elements of staff’s work that they can quantify, and they have tried to do more of that over the last year in order to understand trends. It is new for the Town and has not been done this way in the past, to her knowledge. They are trying to update the data and carry it forward to see trends and share them with the Council and the public. She said building permit applications provide the fundamental measure of quantity of permits going through the Building Division on a quarterly basis.
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divisions are. They started with fiscal year 2018-19 data to try to compare to pre-pandemic numbers.
Director Russell said last year when they talked about this, they highlighted the high number of permits that they were processing, despite pandemic conditions, estimating that the 2021 building permit total would be around 445 to 448. The final number was very close, with 442 building permits processed. This was a 22-percent increase over the pre-pandemic workload and staffing pattern.
Director Russell said the numbers for this year continue to be high, although not quite as high as last year. She shared the first six-month’s numbers for the current fiscal year. They have seen a large increase in pre-applications, because there are a lot of significant remodels which they now put through a pre-application process. This was partially to increase cost recovery per the Council’s previous direction and also to increase information provided to applicants upfront so that they can be more successful in the process. This number is going up as they try to assist people with their applications. Director Russell reported that they are on track to have roughly the same number of applications as last year.
Director Russell explained that architectural review and site visits are starred because most new houses or major projects would be both architectural review and site development, coupled together in the permit tracking system. For the first half of the year, they have 11, but many of those will also include site development permits, which means processing two things at once, so that number represents more work than it appears, and they are on track for a record year. The total number of applications is at 27 for the first half of the year, so they are on track for a high number, well above pre-pandemic numbers. She reported that work is also ongoing on the Housing Element and Safety Element. Significant projects include Stanford faculty housing, a Conditional Use Permit amendment for Alpine Hills to increase their membership. They are working with Alpine Inn to make renovations to their main building, updating it to a modern safety standard and Health Department standard.
Director Russell spoke of revenues, and said it is the first time bringing this to the Council, so that they are familiar with them now in light of the interim proposals and setting the stage going into a new budget year. The Building Division revenue is within three key categories – building permits, plan checks, and inspections. In the first category, building permits, the revenue, the fiscal year budget and the percent of the budget they are currently at was shared. For building permits the amount is at 85 percent of the year’s budget, so well above. She said they were very conservative in the budgeting last year because there were so many unknowns. She said their thought is that, with the revenue numbers and workload numbers staying high, the trends will continue into the foreseeable future. The building permit work is primarily performed by staff, as technicians take in applications and move them around.
Director Russell explained that the plan check category work is performed primarily by consultants. There is also a staff component that goes towards funding staff salaries to perform this work. This is the same for inspections. The work is performed primarily by the contract building inspector but there is also a portion of it that funds staff salaries. She said the expense numbers are not exact because of invoices lagging behind and the time it takes to process them. She noted that for the income in plan check and inspections categories there will be a proportional increase in expense to consultants as well.
Director Russell shared key categories within the Planning Division revenue. Site development permit revenues are at 70 percent of the annual budget. Architectural review revenues are currently at 66 percent. Regarding Town staff time charged to deposits, she explained the fee-plus-deposit system so that when planners are actually working on projects, this is the money that gets charged to those deposits and comes back into the Town as General Fund revenue, then goes back to fund to salaries, et cetera.
She said this particular case will include almost exclusively the Assistant Planner’s time, a small amount of one of the technician’s time and a little bit of her time working directly on projects. She felt it was an accurate number according to the budget, but there are still some things lagging behind, so it may be little higher, but even based on that conservative number, they are at 53 percent of the budget for the year in that category. Director Russell shared the total department revenue for Planning and Building for the first Volume XLVII
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half of the fiscal year budget. In Building, they have taken in almost a year’s worth of revenue in six months. In Planning, they are also at greater than 50 percent of what was expected at mid-year.
Director Russell discussed the interim approach, what they propose for the remainder of the fiscal year.
She said they are trying to make a series of adjustments to cover everything in the process, especially considering a planned leave of a key staff member. Director time is proposed to increase on the Safety Element and Housing Element. The consultant time for both initiatives, Urban Planning Partners, would increase. Council has already considered an increase in the Safety Element, and additional information on the Housing Element will be brought to Council separately. Director Russell said staff’s proposal is to bring in an “acting principal planner,” which is a highly qualified professional planner who would backfill some of the work typically done by Director Russell, to free up time for her to focus on Housing Element and Safety Element. Much of this person’s time would be reimbursable in the proposed system, so applicants would be paying for the acting principle planner’s time to supervise the planners, who are reviewing projects. Some would not be reimbursable, so the estimate is about $10,000 for the remainder of the fiscal year.
Next, they plan to increase the full time Assistant Planner, to spend more time in the Housing Element and Safety Element. Two consultant planners will do the customer service work described earlier, so that money has been spent already. The needs are high in this area, so the recommendation is a $50,000 augmentation to that budget for the fiscal year. In addition, they would like to have a consultant planner budget for other initiatives, such as a code amendment with the Housing Element to bring the Town up to state law; or small requests from committees that they haven’t had resources to do. Director Russell said there is an experienced consultant with the Department now who is qualified to take on some of these without requiring a lot of oversight.
In terms of an upcoming budget request, Director Russell said they propose that the Town hire a new, permanent development review technician, to make a total of three. The Department has a Senior Development Review Technician. There would also be two Level I or II technicians. All of these job descriptions have recently been re-written and approved by the Council. They feel this is supported by the workload analysis and the budget information. The goal would be to have them do both technical and administrative, customer service work. There are also some recordkeeping needs which were put aside during the pandemic, and they recognize that if they don’t get started, it will be a mountain to deal with later. They hope to make progress on that. At the start of the pandemic some technical and administrative duties were shifted onto the planners, and the plan is to shift those back to the technician position to free the planners to focus on higher-level work. She said she also wants the opportunity for the senior technician to work with her on some planned process improvements.
The fiscal impact of the technician, proposed to be recruited this fiscal year, but bringing the formal budget request with the fiscal year budget for next year, would give a head start on the recruitment.
Director Russell said what they are asking for is preliminary approval, with the assumption that this will be included in the budget year, so that they can find someone and get them started as early as possible in July. This was done for the Senior Planner last year, and it worked well for the Department, not having to wait until the fall. The estimate for the position is $70,000 to $80,000, plus benefits. The position could go to someone who is a professional technician wanting to switch locations, or it could be a recent college graduate or someone who would bring fresh energy and could be trained up in Planning and Building, as well as Engineering.
The summary of interim measures proposed for the current fiscal year was shared, totalling $80,000.
Director Russell pointed out that there will be salary savings from the Senior Planner of approximately $40,000 this fiscal year, but on the Safety Element and Housing Element they need to be careful not to double count the salary savings from the Senior Planner. She said when they come back to Council, she will provide a summary of all the different expenditures and initiatives and categories to get a fuller picture Volume XLVII
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of it when talking about the Housing Element. She added that revenue analysis indicates that there are available funds at this time for these interim measures.
Director Russell said staff is seeking direction on the interim plan for this fiscal year request. If it is supported, it would be brought back as a formal budget amendment but would go forward with implementation immediately. The formal budget request would come to Council in a package of upcoming budget requests. They would also like Council consideration of the recruitment for the new technician so that they can start next fiscal year. They imagine continuing these discussions at a future Council study session or bringing them back to Council directly, depending on conditions. They want to make sure they are always reviewing the Department activity and staffing, because conditions are changing very rapidly and additional needs coming from the Housing Element Update process are anticipated.
Town Manager Dennis expressed appreciation for Director Russell’s excellent presentation and the work coming from the Planning and Building Department. He said it is part of a larger trend they have been undertaking for a few years, in which department heads are much more involved in development of their own budgets than in previous years. There will be a similar presentation from the Public Works Director in a future meeting. He emphasized Director Russel’s point that there will be a fairly large budget amendment package coming in early April to reflect a number of items the Council has requested changes to or that staff has pushed to make changes to.
Mayor Hughes invited questions of Planning and Building Director Russell or Town Manager Dennis from the Council.
Mayor Hughes asked if the amount is enough, considering the work that has been done and the shuffling going on. Looking at her analysis of revenue which reflects approximately twice as much work as expected in the budget, and an increase in the number of staff by around 50 percent, he said changing too much too quickly can be a problem with new people settling, but he wondered if one additional person was going to be enough to cover everything they need. His thought was in terms of the next budget year, starting in July. The second half of that year will be operating under the new Housing Element where they will theoretically be setting planning rules to encourage roughly two-and-a-half times the pace of housing development they are currently seeing. He understood the conclusion of her comments to signify recognition of this and a plan to add staff and see how it goes, adding more as needed along the way.
Director Russell responded in agreement that it is an ongoing conversation between the Department and the Council which they will be monitoring continuously. Right now, they need a technician to start as soon as possible in July. She will continue to analyze where things are and work with the Town Manager on the overall budget. More resources will be needed, but it will be a matter of figuring out which resources, in what form and how much will generate cost recovery. She said that is a challenging part of the analysis for her, and she spends a lot of time thinking about what will be reimbursable and what will be a General Fund expense. The items presented are what she considers to be the immediate needs of the Department. They will monitor, report back and assess ongoing needs.
Town Manager added that Planning and Building is interesting department because of the necessary moving parts. There is short term work and long-term work, and both require different kinds of staffing at different times. He said what Director Russell has developed is a fairly robust system that has a foundational basis with permanent staff and bringing in consultants as necessary and available. Currently finding quality people is a challenge. Some solutions can be consultant-based. The cultural aspects of what that means is always under consideration as well. He said one of the benefits they have had in the community is long-term staff that have stayed with the town and acquired an institutional knowledge that develops, which is hard to train. Bringing in a consultant planner to do certain tasks is not the way to go, but with other tasks, they are very well-suited. He said flexibility and ability to be nimble is an advantage that Director Russell made apparent in her presentation.
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Mayor Hughes said the data behind the presentation is very helpful. He asked about a potential issue with new staff, especially when re-opening – where they will sit. Director Russell said they are fine for now. There are workspaces in her department that are still nicer than where most planners and technicians sit in San Mateo County. For now, they have room and will cross that bridge when they come to it. Town Manager added that Mr. Young has been working on potentially needing to add more staff and plans for the Town Hall called for some cubicles in a space near his office, and it is wired for that purpose.
He said the beauty of consultants and flexible work schedules is moving to a shared workspace environment and they will probably see more of that.
Mayor Hughes invited further questions from the Council. Hearing none, he invited comments from the public.
Karen Vahtra spoke in regard to wildfire, stating that the Town decided to slow down progress on wildfire preparedness. She stated that the ASCC can work on design guidelines immediately requiring little or no staff support time or use of a consultant planner. She said the design guidelines were to be completed in 2020 or early 2021 and have been delayed again until next fiscal year. She asked that it not be delayed again.
David Cardinal complimented Director Russell’s presentation. He said the more they can do to make the developers and applicants self-fund, the better. He thought there was an unwillingness to believe that what people ask for from the Town is not free. He said with the requests to do this or that for them, people need to understand that these are people who work for the town, who are paid by the residents, and those tasks aren’t just coming for free. He said they have a boutique government, which is great, but thought it might be helpful if they want these services, they should be willing to pay for it.
Mayor Hughes invited further public comments. Hearing none, he brought the item back to the Council for discussion.
Councilmember Richards said he is always impressed with Director Russell’s ability to parse out complicated moving targets with so many different parts and come up with a reasonable estimate of what is needed. He thought the proposal made sense and advocated moving ahead with it.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff was also appreciative of the detailed background and echoed Mayor Hughes’ questions, stating everyone wants to support the staff. Staff have been “drinking from a fire hose” lately, and she wanted them to have the resources they need. She said she trusts their judgment on how to go about it. Her advice was to err on the side of making sure and thinking about a broad vision of what the Department will need looking ahead, because she feels things will just get more difficult versus less difficult. She was very supportive of what was presented.
Councilmember Aalfs said, having gone through a Housing Element eight years ago and doing it again now, there has been exponential growth of mandates, regulation and legalese needed to get something like this done. He said a few months ago they were looking at Director Russell’s plan for all of the consultants she was working with, and he called it a “Magic Act,” the number of capabilities being brought in and used as needed. The work has not only gotten complicated and high in volume, but it also changes every few months. Most of the work Director Russell is doing now will go away when Housing Element is done, but it has become a very high-level management task, along with all of the details. He has been impressed over recent years with what Director Russell and staff have done. He felt the presentation and proposal looked great as long as they have what they need and think it is enough for the time being.
Councilmember Derwin said she had nothing more to add, except “yes,” and it was an incredible report, as usual. She didn’t know how the Planning Department does what they do, which in no way resembles the Planning Department from 2005 or 2006, when she came on board, without many more people. She voiced approval for everything Director Russell requested.
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Mayor Hughes echoed all the previous comments and said since Director Russell has been onboard, the report and process of how to manage the Planning Department and its evolution and the steps it has taken are obvious. He said he was confident of Director Russell’s grasp of what the Department needs and where it is going. He said the statistical analysis presented is exactly the platform needed as they go into the new Housing Element cycle, to know whether or not they are doing what they need to be doing in keeping up with things and staying ahead of potential problems. He was very supportive of the proposal.
Town Manager Dennis thanked the Council for their leadership, advice, thought, support. He said as members of staff it is not easy to come forward and ask for help and resources. He said staff is appreciative of the environment created by Council where conversations are fruitful and supportive.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff moved to accept the accept the report and preliminarily approve additional budget resources for recruitment of a Development Review Technician. Seconded by Councilmember Aalfs, the motion passed (5-0), by roll call vote.
Planning and Building Director Russell expressed appreciation for the comments. (8) COUNCIL LIAISON COMMITTEE AND REGIONAL AGENCIES REPORTS Councilmember Derwin reported on meetings she attended since the last meeting, starting with the Race and Equity Committee meeting the previous night, which included initial discussion about the Housing Element Committee. The Race and Equity Committee is very interested in the process. Andrew Pierce posed the question of where they would like to see the housing, which sparked a robust discussion. The Committee also has their own Housing Subcommittee. Judy Murphy is on that one and expressed that she had talked to someone who had recently moved to Portola Valley. Their suggestion was that it would have been interesting to have not only an ethnic breakdown, but an age breakdown within the ethnic breakdown as a useful metric. The individual also said Town Manager Dennis had given her slides from the staff diversity training, and she was appreciative. Regarding the town seal project, they are very committed. Kim and Lucy have been working on it and talking about listening skills, dialogue and the kind of model they want to use. The next step is to go to the Town staff. They asked which groups in PV they should approach, such as book clubs, the Sequoias, Garden Club, Library committees, et cetera. One attendee at the meeting is pursuing Pioneer Days and has had a hard time getting into conversation with the School District about it. Councilmember Derwin commented that the profile of life during that time does not really take into account anyone but the white people. The conversation is to be continued.
Another attendee was also very engaged in the meeting and wanted to know if when they are in-person they could meet in the conference room. It was pointed out that when they do get to meet in person again it will likely be hybrid, and likely to be set up in the Schoolhouse.
Councilmember Derwin continued reporting on the Race and Equity Committee, stating that they are working on a year-round calendar of events and want to emphasize racial justice and not gender issues.
They discussed what is on the calendar thus far and how it could be integrated into the Town and whether Kari Chinn could help. They also talked about the mission of the committee. Many people gave their reasons for getting involved. [Mr. Clark] said he was on the corner and was interested in the fallen young black men – the race part of race and equity. Patt Baenen also came to the Committee from the corner and would like to see more diversity in Portola Valley, cultural and economic. She is very interested in being inclusive and wants Portola Valley to be known as a safe area in which to come and be welcomed. Judy Murphy spoke of her background when she was young, working for Fair Housing Act and how she had her pivotal moment with the George Floyd murder. She would like to see the Town more diverse and said it would make the town a more robust community. Andrew Pierce, with a career as an attorney in civil rights employment, having also worked on the Human Relations Commission in Palo Alto and Santa Clara County said his family is two-thirds black. Cole Kawaja would like to incorporate the schools, being a student at the Priory. He also would like Portola Valley to be more inclusive and said he is offering the younger point of view. Kim Marinucci came to the Committee through the corner. She Volume XLVII
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thought going to the corner was silly but once she started, she had a complete change of mind. After the George Floyd murder, she woke up and decided that it was her job to work on this sort of racial justice.
She has an organizational development background and is interested in dialogue and how to talk about these things. She is still trying to figure it out. Attendee, Adnan , born in Mauritius, has lived in Pakistan, France and Vermont. He is an immigrant to the U.S., raising multi-racial children. His interest is in words and how they have power and how through them people can ask themselves, “What is belonging?” He is interested in the concept of belonging and the opportunity to make people feel that they belong.
Councilmember Derwin said for the third time she took part in the one-day homeless count. This happens every two years. She was deployed to Portola Valley, reporting at 5 a.m. at the Library. She was paired with Brian Greenburg, who works at Life Moves and is a psychologist who has worked with people with addiction issues as well as homelessness. Two other people in their car. One was a Chinese medical researcher who doesn’t have a driver’s license in this country. The other was a social worker from the County. They went through all the hills, above Portola Valley and Woodside. They went all around the town and looked in church parking lots. They went to the west part of Menlo Park by the shopping center, parking lots, churches and did not find any homeless people this time.
Councilmember Derwin said she attended several other meetings during the week before last. She mentioned Commute.org because it was the first time a Portola Valley resident has attended. She said they made a big deal about that. It was also the first time Menlo Park was attending. There was a presentation by Josh Becker about SB 917, which is seamless bill that is the bill enabling people to ride Cal Train or BART or the bus system, all with the same Clipper card. Councilmember Derwin said now that Menlo Park and Portola Valley have joined, everyone in the county is on this Board, except for Woodside, There was an agenda item about teacher and staff housing and transportation. Many cities are currently working with the school districts on teacher and staff housing. Most of the housing is located close to the schools. In the Jefferson Union High School District, the housing project is close to one school but not the other two, so one of the Board members – Mike O’Neill – was interested in whether Commute.org could help provide some vans for about 100 people going to five sites. This was discussed and supported, but it was uncertain whether that sort of short run would be funded. Their work plans for the year were discussed. The shuttle program report was shared. Their office has returned to the office in hybrid mode, but they then had to go back home. They are currently hybrid with 50 percent in the office, 50 percent at home, but all are together on Thursdays. The next meeting may be in-person. There was a closed session about the compensation for the Executive Director.
Councilmember Derwin attended a C/CAG meeting, and an ASCC meeting, which didn’t not have a lot on the agenda. There was a Resource Management Climate Protection meeting that was packed. They are trying to get a draft residential “laundry-to-landscape” program going, which Councilmember Derwin thought would be great in Portola Valley.
Councilmember Richards was at the Race and Equity meeting, which Councilmember Derwin covered.
He was very impressed with the comment about “belonging,” which he sees as a significant way to look at the issues that many people deal with. He also attended the Emergency Preparedness Committee meeting. There were not a lot of new agenda items. There was some discussion about putting the evacuation study into the Emergency Preparedness Committee. They were going to talk about it, and it will probably be coming to the Council soon. He said the most significant topic was demonstration of the continued misunderstanding about the role of the Liaison in committees, which is something they need to pay attention to.
Councilmember Aalfs attended the Housing Element meeting with Vice Mayor Wernikoff. He assumed she had an update on the 4.5-hour meeting from the 22nd. He attended the 6.5-hour meeting from the 28 th
. Highlights included the second half of the discussion regarding the housing inventory, which was basically a discussion about rezoning and up-zoning. He said there was a robust public reaction ranging from curiosity and confusion to consternation and even hostility. He felt it was, on the whole, a good Volume XLVII
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discussion. They needed to hear peoples’ voices, and he did not blame people for being upset and concerned. There were many comments, and in the end the Committee wanted to step back and look at other options so they talked about what else they might be able to do, and what alternatives exist. He thought the thing people, understandably, reacted most strongly to was up-zoning single-family residential properties. He felt the Committee pulled back and was asking staff to explore other options and develop a few alternatives to that, to mitigate or eliminate it. The rezoning must be done soon to get through CEQA analysis in time for submission to the state. They will be talking about the process on the 23rd. Obviously, the public comment was strong and, in some cases, strident. He thought the Committee handled this tough topic pretty well on the whole, although they were uncomfortable with it. He hoped they managed to move forward and made sure to exhaust all of their options for building the site inventory in a way that doesn’t get them too far offtrack in terms of the overall process.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff added that the summary of it was how to assure that they are exhausting all of the options. There was a baseline option that was reviewed and discussed to get to the 150 units. She agreed that the question was how to exhaust the other options. She said she had an interest in figuring out ways of having more dispersion versus just in the three areas that were on the map. There was strong and consistent support for maintaining the existing commercial businesses, both to have the local businesses and have local jobs. She thought another aspect of the meeting that was good is that she felt they made progress in terms of building awareness and educating more people about the complexities of this very difficult situation and the fact that they absolutely have to meet this, and they have to find the right way to do it for their community.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff attended a PVSD update. They wanted to make sure people are aware that they are offering tours of the new construction on the 23rd. The one for Ormondale is at 1:30, and the one for Corte Madera is at 3:00 on the same day. They indicated that the Ormondale project is on a timeline for opening in September, and the Corte Madera one in November. They discussed staffing needs, which seems to be a common theme in many disciplines. Their staffing needs are most acute in paraeducators and substitute teachers. They also indicated that they had been working with the Town evacuation subcommittee group and it sounded like there was a good meeting recently between PVSD, Priory and Windmill with the Department of Emergency Management, so good collaboration going on there.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff attended the Wildfire Preparedness Committee meeting, in which they had a good update from the evacuation subcommittee, updating the group about the three scenarios. She commented that the timeline will probably be June for completion of that. She offered a reminder for anyone with input, that there is a specific email address set up on the website for that, which can be found on the WPC page. The subcommittee members are managing that input.
Vice Mayor Wernikoff attended Safety Element in which Town Manager Dennis gave a status update on how the Safety Element is coming together and what the process will be going forward. The third item was goals and priorities for 2022, which fell into the buckets of vegetation management, home hardening, evacuation and finance/insurance. The fourth item was an update to the charter. She said that is not on the agenda for this meeting, so she assumed it will be on the next one, because they do have updates to their charter that passed, refocusing on mitigation, insurance and financing. Risk mitigation is the priority expressed in the charter. There was discussion about subcommittee restructuring, the potential of Evacuation either moving to EPC or to a different framework while the evacuation plan is finished, but more discussion is required.
Mayor Hughes had two BPTS meetings which failed to get a quorum for the second consecutive meeting.
He was not able to attend Parks and Recommendation, but there was some follow-up after that.
Apparently, there have been some major issues with Alpine Strikers and parking in the Zots parking lot for using Rissotti Field. He has been getting emails from various other folks on this. There seems to be a fairly substantial problem with field users being able to use the parking at Zotts to be able to use the fields Volume XLVII
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which will need some follow-up. He said BPTSs has been looking at it for a while and Parks and Rec is working on it now as well.
Town Manager Dennis provided information on this topic, stating that the success of Alpine and Zotts was great for the community and also is contributing to parking challenges at Zotts, particularly at times when users of the field wish to come down. There has been a lot of conversation between Town, field users and Alpine Inn to try to come up with systems that work, including Alpine Inn spending some money to have folks to direct traffic. The Strikers had started to do that. They expect further conversations at the staff and committee levels. There is no easy solution, because anything done with parking will get pushed out into the streets, one way or another, even if a few spaces. He said he has found all parties to be agreeable to continued conversations which is important with something that can become contentious very quickly. He will have a conversation with the Alpine Strikers on Friday to learn more about what has happened. His last conversation with them about a month ago did not indicate that there were any new problems, so this was news to staff as well.
Mayor Hughes invited public comments.
David Cardinal felt the businesses residents frequent are an important part of the community and in the decades he has lived in the town, they have lost their drugstore, their post office, any number of other businesses, so in terms of the Housing Element he knows there is a tough situation, but he really hoped they do everything possible to keep the town a place to call a town, not just a bedroom community, and retain as many businesses as they can.
(9) TOWN MANAGER REPORT
Town Manager Dennis said the most important item he wanted to share was that they had planned an upcoming special meeting of the Council before the March 24th meeting – a community update on wildfire issues. A lot of planning and effort has gone into the meeting, but he said they are unfortunately going to have to postpone it, because both representatives of the Woodside Fire Protection District are unable to participate on that date. They will be working with them to find an appropriate date in the very near future.
Town Manager Dennis apologized that this has happened, as they were looking forward to hearing from the community.
Town Manager Dennis reported that there was a burglary over the weekend at the Sequoias in one of the unoccupied apartments. Someone broke in and stole some tools. There was also an incident that occurred in Ladera related to a fairly brazen purse-snatching in the parking lot. He said the Sheriff’s Office will be gathering more information to put out, but he thought it was posted on the Forum.
He said the Town organized, on behalf of the Department of Emergency Management at the County meeting, with both Priory, Portola Valley School District and Windmill School to talk about evacuation planning efforts. It was a productive meeting, as mentioned by Vice Mayor Wernikoff. He appreciated the attention by partners in the community to provide information to DEM and help them get ready for potential emergencies. Particularly, the conversation is around issues of making sure parents know what the plan is. In an emergency if they are evacuating the community during a time when the schools are open, parents will want to go pick up their kids. He said each entity has a little different approach but making sure that information is out in the community is important. The Department of Emergency Management can help in terms of providing busses and vehicles, but they are trying to make it a little more robust than it is now.
Town Manager Dennis attended a committee meeting of the Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space Board on the Hawthornes project. There was nothing new to report. They have a couple committees that are looking at it, and it was really just a status update from staff to that committee. He spoke at the meeting and expressed his thanks for the continued staff-to-staff interactions. They have been great about letting Volume XLVII
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staff know what is happening. And iterated, some of the high-level points they would have concerns about particularly around parking issues and connectivity issues on the trails. He said he takes advantage, when he can, to repeat a message that all are familiar with. He had a nice conversation with representatives of the Housing and Community Development Department at the State, around primarily a new entity that they have around post disaster recovery. It is a new group who is thinking how they can interact with cities that have similar issues. He was hopeful that they could come to a future public meeting and present some of their work.
He had a good meeting with Senator Becker’s staff to talk about ongoing issues with recovering vehicle license fee funds. The Town Council and staff have provided letters to a number of state elected officials around the issue. Unfortunately, what they thought was a solution to the issue appears to have been rewritten in the budget language going through both committees right now. Senator Becker’s office followed up to see what they can do to help mitigate this. He said what it looks like the State is suggesting is the VLF monies get backfilled with existing ERAF monies, which does not help, so it would be a real impact to all the cities in San Mateo County, including Portola Valley.
WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS
(10) Town Council Digest – February 24, 2022
(11) Town Council Digest – March 3, 2022
ADJOURN TO CLOSED SESSION [8:42 p.m.]
(12) Public Employee Performance Evaluation Government Code Section §54957(b)(1) Title – Town Manager
ADJOURNMENT [ 9:05 p.m.]
_____________________________ _________________________ Mayor Town Clerk