thanks good night good evening and welcome to the April 7th regular meeting
of the horrendous City Council we will begin by calling the roll okay note for
the record that all council members are present and then we will do the pledge
of allegiance if you could please stand I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation
under God with liberty and justice for all. Our next item is going to be to
adopt the agenda and before we do I would like to as I have been for a
little bit request that we move the council member and city manager reports
up in the agenda I'd like to suggest that we put them after public forum and
before consent with that proposed change. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor.
I am with that we have an agenda the first item on the agenda is items for the good of the city and we have d1
Certificates of recognition presented to outgoing city of Arinda commissioners and committees members
We do have one outgoing committee member tonight, and that is Sarah spare on with Parks and Rec Commission
Sarah if you can come up we've got a certificate for you
We also have certificates that will be given directly to a few folks who are not here tonight
that's Laura Riley from the Parks and Recreation Commission, Jeffrey Lyon
Historic Landmarks Committee, James Keefe from the Finance Advisory Committee,
Darrell So from the Traffic Safety Advisory Committee and Brenda Davis from
the Planning Commission. Thank you to all of you who are listening tonight or
please pass along their thanks for their service. Mayor, yes I mean to scream at
you Sarah. We're having camera difficulty that we just started when we started the
meeting. So we're trying to fix it. I just want to make that announcement. Oh, it looks
like it's working now. Okay. We're good. We're good. No problem. Anything I need to
re-announce that we've already done or can we just move forward? I'm sorry. The technician
just told me that we're still having camera difficulty, but the audio is working. I just
wanted to make that announcement for people at home if they're wondering if we're aware
of it. We are and we're working on it. Perfect. But we can proceed. We can proceed. We're
having audio consumer. Thank you. The next item D2 is just to announce that we have given
a proclamation or a certificate of recognition to the social connection in connection with
Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month here this month of April. That's a national awareness
month but the social connection is based out of Lafayette and they do some really great
programming for just social practice, after school skills, day skills, and so we just
wanted to express our appreciation for all that they do. Third is item D3. That's the
California Parks and Rec State Level Award of Excellence presentation to Arenda Parks
and Rec and Recycle Smart for the Camp Arenda Sustainability Week in the New Innovation
Award of Excellence category. I believe we have Todd Trimble here to tell us a little
more about that. Good evening mayor council members for the record Todd Trimble parks and
recreation director. We were all very excited to hear about this award award and I'm going to pass
the presentation on to one of our local recreators right from the city of San Ramon Adam Chow who
was also the president elect for the state CPRS board. He's going to help with the presentation
or actually do it. Good evening mayor and council members my name is Adam Chow as Todd mentioned I
come from the city of Saramone where I'm a park and rec professional there but I also have the
distinct honor to serve on the board of directors for the California Park and Recreation Society.
We as the California Park and Recreation Society also known as CPRS which you'll hear the acronym
in a number of different times is our professional organization for for park and rec professionals.
We provide the opportunities for recreation professionals to learn, grow, connect,
and be able to develop our skills to make sure that we can provide the best opportunities to
our communities all throughout California. I've had the distinct privilege to work with Todd for
probably 10 plus years now, so we go way back and you guys have a fantastic team as well that I've
actually worked with Sheena and Jen for a long time as well. The CPRS annual awards program that
that we have in the honor
that we're gonna be showing tonight
celebrates outstanding examples
of quality facility, park design, program accomplishments,
effective communications, community leadership
and professional successes
that take place daily in our profession.
Throughout the five award categories,
we highlight people, places, programs, spaces
and stories that make communities like Arinda special.
And Arinda was one of 12 innovative awardees
for the Camp Arinda Sustainability Week.
which demonstrated a high level of innovation and excellence
while it's celebrated through this award.
With hands-on projects for curious kids
to explore composting, growing their own herbs,
and discovering where our food and waste really comes from,
this program stood out.
This innovative camp reimagined
what Parks and Recreation programming can be,
blending outdoor adventure, environmental education,
and community connection into one unforgettable week.
Campers left proud to call themselves eco-heroes,
taking home new skills, fresh ideas,
a passion for making a difference by embracing sustainability and collaboration with a Recycle
Smart. Uh, Arinda Parks and Recreation strengthen this role as a community leader, helping inspire
the next generation to care for their environment, their community, and their future. And so
congratulations to the City of Arinda and Recycle Smart for winning the 2025 Innovation Award of
Excellence from CPRS and we're happy to be able to present that to the City of Arinda and Recycle
smart it's evening. I just wanted to quickly say that I appreciate the city
of horrendous leadership and wanting to bring these types of recycling and
composting programs to your education program. I hope that we've made an
impact on these kids lives and that they carry these recycling and composting
lessons throughout their lives.
And we could not have done it without our amazing educators
and teachers, Marianne Woodard and Alice Burns,
who really take these lessons and bring them
to life in a fun and active way so that we
can engage with these kids.
So thank you so much.
I want to just reiterate, too, that I think you all
know how our summer program works.
We have 10 weeks of summer camp, a ton of contract camps.
Jen Ammerman here coordinates,
and then Sheena and her staff oversee
the Camp Orenda and Camp Orenda Jr.
And they're all divided up into themes each week.
So we had the sustainability week.
And this was an idea actually that Ashley and Sheena
came up with probably over two years ago now.
And we wanted to reiterate that we were
the first park and rec department in the region
to do this camp, even though Recycle Smart and Ashley
are under great pressure to move it up,
getting it from all the other cities
that they represent.
So again, Sheena Wellman and Jen Ammerman
and Spencer Beatty, who's not able to be here tonight,
really made all that work.
Thank you.
I was gonna say, I'm gonna see if there's Council questions
and then I'm also gonna open it for public comment
for all three of the items for the good of the city.
So please Councilmember Riley.
No question, just a comment.
Let me quickly see if there's public comment
and then we'll chime in and I apologize.
I rushed some of the earlier things.
Does anybody else from the public want to speak
on any of the items for the good of the city?
With that, we'll bring it back up and Councilmember Riley.
I just wanna congratulate Recycle Smart and Parks and Rec.
And I know that Ashley is incredibly creative
and I have obviously Sheena is too.
Ashley, will you tell us of all the different cities
you're gonna go to next with your program?
We'll need you to stand up to the mic.
We've been expanding to the town of Moraga,
the city of Walnut Creek and the town of Danville, so.
That's great.
And only ones left out.
So far, but Lafayette will be added next year,
so all of our city.
They're very jealous.
Yeah.
you. Thank you. Are there any other comments on any of the items? I just had a question as to how
many students were participating and what age were they? So registration is currently open
right now. We have 10. We allow up to 30 depending on our staffing levels for the week. And it's for
ages 5 to 11. That's great. Well what an innovative and wonderful program. Thank you all for bringing
opportunity. So I think, uh,
thank you for bringing it
to Linda. It's great. There
any other comments or
questions? Didn't sort of. I
would just be repeating the
congratulations and gratitude
that we are can't summer camps
are sort of one of horrendous
shining stars, and this takes
it to a whole new level. So
thank you for the
collaboration. Vice Mayor
Jake, and I just want to say
representatives on Recycle Smart and I continue to be amazed at everything I've
learned about Recycle Smart but just really impressed and and we're very
thrilled to be the leader Ashley and something in with Recycle Smart so it's
really wonderful to have such a good partnership. I agree with all of those
comments thank you all and congratulations for that recognition woman
is passed but apologies we didn't do a formal photo public forum is the next
item on the agenda I have two speaker cards and if anybody else wants to speak
you can speak later the public forum provides an opportunity for members of
the public to speak on any item within the jurisdiction of the city council
that is not on the agenda additionally a speaker has the option of addressing
council on an item that is listed on the agenda. The speaker will not be present when that agenda
item is taken up. We ask people to limit their comments to three minutes and the first speaker
card I have is Dan Torres. Good evening Mayor, council members, staff and fellow neighbors.
My name is Dan Torres. I am a San Francisco native but I recently bought a house about
six years ago here in the lovely town of Arinda and I love it. It's absolutely amazing. So with
that, proud union member. I want to put get that out of the way and I usually speak at these things
on behalf of my local, which is Sprinkler Fitter's local 483, but I am here on behalf of myself as a
resident of Arinda. I recently bought an EV and didn't realize that they're, you know, and this,
I'm not saying I support this guy, but the test of superchargers, there's no superchargers
between Oakland and Walnut Creek.
It's like a big void.
So I'm just, I'm here to speak on behalf of, I mean, we have something here at the library,
which is a, it's a little charger, which is great, it's fantastic.
But for those busy professionals like myself, it's a little bit challenging to have to go
somewhere else to be able to get a supercharger.
So with that being said, just planting the seed, maybe we can figure out a place that
we can get a supercharger here in the lovely city of Arinda.
Because if you see them, there's Teslas all around, which I have one.
But yeah, I'm just throwing it out there.
So thank you for your time.
Good to see you.
Have a great day.
Thank you.
I would also mention to the city manager, I've gotten that exact same comment from somebody
within the last two weeks.
So we consider that two public forum comments.
Next speaker card, does anyone have any questions or anything before I move on?
Next speaker card is BL Moore.
Good evening, mayor, vice mayor and members of the city council and city manager.
I'm BL Moore and I'm just introducing myself.
Some of you I've already met with but just wanted to introduce myself as the point of
this. So we're going to do a
I just wanted to say thank you
Bial and I spoke about six
times today. Uh because this
building in particular, this
room was not powered. As of
three or four hours ago, and we
were not sure we were going to
working on our end and working with PG&E at the same time. B.L. was super responsive to us
and sending out the crew who we had to call off at the last minute because we figured out what
the issue was. But I just want to say thank you to B.L. for her help today and making sure we can
get this building operational. It was happy to help and was so glad that we were able to get
everything figured out so you guys could have your meeting tonight. Hear, hear. Thank you.
you a little bit about it.
Thank you so much. Um those
are all the speaker cards I
have for public forum. Is
there anybody else who would
like to speak on public forum?
Seeing none. Um we will then
move to council member and
city manager reports. Do any
council members have reports
they'd like to share. We had a
downtown development meeting.
issues relating to downtown Arinda, what vacancies we have in various buildings, and we talked
about parking on the, particularly on the theater square side. It was a discussion meeting.
It really wasn't a determination of any sort. We talked about ways to move forward. We understand
there will be a study of the parking situation coming up in the future but
we were very happy to have a thorough presentation by our staff which really
went through all of the different buildings in town and what we knew was
happening at them at this time so I thought it was very helpful and I don't
know if the mayor has anything to add. Yeah I think just in the spirit of kind
of increasing a little more transparency about what goes on at these subcommittee
meetings. There were two big topics one is council member Hoxie said was to
really go through active, you know, vacant spaces, news, new tenants coming in and
to kind of get an update and so I would invite any of you who would like to know
that same information to maybe meet with the city manager or the planning
director to get maybe a speed version of that. It was very interesting. The other
thing that we talked about at an introductory level is whether the council
like to consider waiving the parking requirement that when a tenant comes in
to the downtown there are formulas for how many parking spots they need to
contract for for that restaurant or service business or store and that
can add a cost and the city manager had seen other models in other cities you
know you right now you can provide the parking or pay an in lieu fee and we've
never had the fee paid. So we had a good discussion of that at an introductory
level. I believe there was some chatter in social media that we were introducing
parking meters. If you get those questions, that was not what we talked
about. There was some projection that the discussion about whether requiring an
in-loofy for parking was the best way to promote economic development and I think
there was some there was some comment and chatter that resulted about parking
more generally so I've had a question or two about whether we're doing parking
meters and that was not actually discussed at that meeting anything else
to add about the downtown subcommittee meeting and if not I'll ask if there
weren't any other meetings I to the extent that there is information about
specific sites that we can share since we have members of the public here I'd
love to bring an update. I think the most exciting news is the source. So which is going to be a wine
bar and tapas place is going to be opening in theater square. They've got their signage up in
the window. We're very excited and they're going to the building department right now. So we'll be
looking forward to welcoming them when they're ready to open. But we're excited to have such a
popular restaurateur who lives here in Arinda open in Arinda. So we're very excited about that.
So, um, he has restaurants in
San Francisco and Walnut Creek
as well, so we're happy to have
him. That was probably the
headline piece of the news. We
don't have any really update on
Rite Aid at this point. Um,
that's on the market. The
station sites on the market or
plan will be coming on the
market, and we're doing a lot
of property under engagement.
That was sort of the message
that we were discussing at the
meeting. And then the other
and looking at pieces of that code that end up maybe creating hurdles for
businesses and so we're looking at ways in which we can bring back those for
consideration for the council. Parking standards is one of the things that we
discussed but there were other things as well so we're going to be back to the
revitalization committee to discuss more about the parking standards and more
about the zoning changes that we would propose to be making to make it easier
for people to open in Arinta. I hate to ask but is there any there's no no update we can share
about the former fairs location right? There is no update we've been in communication had sit down
meetings with property owners of Country Club Plaza and the fairs built in. I was asked again
about it this last week which I think for all of us we get asked about once a month about it.
Thank you. I would agree. And thank you. Were there any other subcommittee meetings, please?
Yeah, I just wanted to share and I have shared it already with staff and they knew it. But the
Contra Costa Transportation Authority last week, the subcommittee approved and moved forward the
package for the La Mirinda smart signals. So the entire package that realizes the grant money that
that we received from Congressman DeSomne and OBEG.
The schedule is our board meeting is April 15th.
So next week, the full board will approve
putting it out for bid.
And the schedule is that it should be underway
by this summer and completed by the end of the year.
So I'm looking at Siva in case he knows something,
I'm misquoting, but also the corollary,
And what I think is really nice
part is, is that ours was the
last package to move to
construction.
There was also a package in
Danville, one in Concord and
one for the full county.
So over the next few years, the
entire county system should be
much more connected and able to
connect with each other.
So I don't know, Siva, do you
want to see if he has anything
good news.
Yeah, it is very exciting news for us, actually.
It's been going for almost two years now, and there are two pieces to this project,
actually.
There is the La Mirinda component, which includes 57 of our signals from LA FETO, Indira and
Moraga.
And there is also a county component, which is almost 300 something signals.
They're doing countywide.
And for La Marinda, there's about 18 or 20 of those are getting updated.
So we were very thankful for CCTA to be very collaborative with us because we have the
La Marinda component.
They allowed us to modify our scope for the county wide signals and make the best use
of that money so we are getting more advanced systems put in place.
So we are all very excited and looking forward to the project.
Thank you.
I actually have a request, and that is that when the time is ripe as we get the implementation
further along. If there's something we can do to help get the word out to the
public because it's such a good news thing and it's so subtle that the lights
are now smart and coordinated but it's gonna make a really meaningful day-to-day
difference. And so whether it's putting in the horrendous way things that we can
announce to help share that good news it's it's going to be noticeable if
people know to notice it. So thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Any other
announcements? I was just gonna ask can we clap for that because that's really exciting anytime you
want council member. Darlene thank you for your work on the CCTA. We're giving you full credit.
Anything else council member reports? Yeah. I have been going to a couple committee meetings
at Recycle Smart personnel and legislation and on the legislation committee we went through all the
upcoming type of proposals that deal with mostly like putting more emphasis on the manufacturer
to carry the burden in recycling and you know end of life with the product. I learned a lot
about the vaping products. They are very complicated and they get dumped at
schools and the schools, they're part hazardous material and so they're
trying to change the rules so it's clear that you can take them apart and you
know one part goes into hazardous. Yeah exactly, it's ridiculous, it's crazy.
Anyway, fascinating to learn about vaping from a recycling perspective.
That's very interesting, actually.
It's a niche, but very interesting.
We also had a mayor's meeting that we do once a month where all the Contra Costa mayors
get together.
And the only thing that I think you'll all see is there's some e-bike legislation that's
percolating along at the state.
I know people are very interested and when it looks like we know what is going to you know is as things start to get
More defined we will keep you posted
And with that I will turn it over to the city manager for further updates. Thank you honorable mayor members of the council
I'll just start with next week. We have an our first regional legislative advocacy meeting between the
other jurisdictions who joined with the coalition, so
That will be Wednesday morning the mayor is representing city of Arrinda as part of that discussion and we'll be meeting in Lafayette
to kick off our discussion later this month, we have
The League of California cities in Sacramento where we could be doing some advocacy work on different
Items that are currently in front of legislature
And then just coming up this weekend. We have the touch-a-truck event happening at Wilder on April 11th and
food trucks start again this Thursday in Arinda. So join us on Thursday nights in
Arinda. We're gonna be branding special activities and events happening
throughout the summer on Thursday nights. And we have Arinda Action Day as well
coming up at the end of the month on the 25th. So just some gentle reminders for
the community. Please sign up and participate in some of these wonderful
community events. Thank you very much. I will ask if there's any public comment
before we move on. Our next item is consent calendar. These are items that we generally
vote on all in one motion with no discussion or presentation. And I will ask if there are any
items that are going to be pulled from the consent calendar tonight. I think we need to pull F4.
No surprise there. Yeah. With that, I will move that we approve items F1 through F3. Wondering
we had a second. I'm sorry if
one through three and f five
and f six. Uh if nothing else
is to be pulled. Do we have a
second on that? I second. All
in favor. Hi. And with that on
item f four. I'll ask the city
manager if somebody maybe could
begin with a presentation of
that item will have Siva join
us or city engineer who can
give you an update us to the
All right. Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council members. I don't have a full-fledged presentation
for you tonight, but this is one of the attachments that's in the staff report. I figured it would
be good to have that in front of us, but before I talk about that attachment, I just want
to take a moment to briefly do some introductory stuff and some background information on this.
So this item came to the traffic safety committee as a request to be considered back in 2023.
And since then it has gone through a few iterations where we did some investigation, had follow-up
public outreach meetings, took feedback, and based on that did further traffic studies,
two different versions of it.
All the data we collected and the information we gathered
gave us a general idea that there
is a problem that exists.
The cut-through is an issue.
And I believe in the last meeting
when I presented this information,
we kind of looked a little bit more closely on the numbers
and how that impacts things over there.
But there was also this concern about the timing,
the school timing of the high school that
has changed, which is affecting the performance
of the sign itself.
So there's some, during the whole analysis process,
some new information came about
that we also took into consideration.
So we took a step back and did like
a overall circulation study.
So that's why you're seeing all these
various color lines on the map.
We did multiple counts at various intersection locations,
tried to get a sense of how traffic is moving along here
and what it is that we can do,
if any, to improve the situation.
So in the last study session that we had back in February 17,
all that information was presented to the council.
And we presented it in two parts, so to speak.
I think there was the focus on the signs at the IV drive.
We saw the no left hand sign.
And then there was a component where
we brought your attention about some other safety issues
along Coral Drive that was brought to our attention,
Plus some that we observed based on data that was collected over the time.
So from the feedback we got, the understanding was there was pretty straightforward support
for all the improvements that were proposed along Coral Drive, which involved installing
like a four-way stop sign at one of the intersections, adding new striping and some traffic delineation
along coral drive and also some improvements in front of Delray
Elementary School. Those items just for the ease of implementation we separated
them out and that was brought to the City Council during the March 17th
council meeting which was approved and the work is actually in progress right
now so we are in discussions with a contractor to try to get a cost figured
out for it and as soon as we are able to move forward that's going to get
implemented right away irrespective of what's happening with the science. So we
were able to do that separately. Now as far as the science, the general takeaway
for staff from the last feedback we received was that we felt that there is
an interest to look at possibly a pilot program instead of outright removing
those signs or leaving them in place. So the idea of this item that's in front of
you tonight is basically exploring that and we also took some other feedback we
received during that meeting and tried to incorporate that
into this layout.
And that's what's in front of you right now in this map.
It's kind of hard to see, I think, still,
even though we tried our best to color code everything.
But the big red line over there is the IV drive.
And the top left corner of the map
is where the current no left turn sign exists.
I'll go through what this proposed improvements are.
And then I will maybe give some description
of why we are taking this approach.
So at the top left corner, the proposal
is to remove that sign.
And as you move east from that along the red line,
at the first intersection, we are
proposing to add a new no right turn sign on our debt.
And as you continue through that,
the next intersection that's going
to have a new implementation is all the way down
at the bottom end there, bottom corner
near Eastwood at Moraga Way.
We are also proposing a new no left turn on Moraga Way
at that spot.
And this is actually a result of discussions and feedback
we received from the last meeting.
We felt like that's actually a very good feedback
because there is things we have observed in the field that
allows for left-hand movement there.
So we figured this will be beneficial.
The other two changes that's being proposed along the Moraga
way on the left side of the map, those are existing signs.
The only proposal is to change their time
to fit better with the timing that will impact,
like Mira Monte High School.
So right now, they are at 7 to 8, no U-turn.
We are suggesting that they be changed to 730 to 830.
So the idea is, between all these changes,
actually, let me backtrack this again.
There is two more things that's not shown in this map, which
is one at the Coral Drive and Moragawa.
And at the south end of Ivy Drive and Moragawa,
there are two stoplights.
that are currently not tweaked or not coordinated
or anything.
They act individually.
They have a timing program to perform a certain way
during peak hours and during non-peak hours.
So one of the things we will be implementing as part of this
is to change the timing on those signals.
So to prioritize traffic on Moraga Way
and reduce the amount of green time folks on Coral Drive
and Ivy Drive will receive those signals.
The idea is collectively all these changes
will incentivize people who are trying to use Ivy Drive
as a cutthroat.
And the thought being, if they are able to keep the timing
either pretty much match what's on Moraga way,
and we feel like it might even be improved
based on all these changes, it will naturally
You know, make them choose Moraga way instead
of trying to get through Ivy Drive to save 30 seconds.
In addition to this, we will also
work with PD to do some collaborative effort
on enforcement and all that outside of engineering stuff.
But that's basically the gist of what's being proposed here
tonight for you to look at.
And we are proposing this as a pilot program.
And the thought being, this will be run for,
We're asking that this be approved for like a one year term, but the primary data collection
period is going to be between August when school starts through the end of the year,
December 31st.
That's our goal.
The plan we have in place is to have like a consultant on board who will be able to go
twice or thrice in that time duration to go take counts on different streets strategically
so that we can kind of assess what's happening, how traffic is moving while this pilot program
us in place. Our thought is once we get all the data collection kind of gathered, we should
be able to get them all analyzed and bring something back to you likely in February of
next year. And based on what we find, we will likely show, be able to show evidence that
what we are implementing is actually functioning or that it's actually encouraging traffic
to create more cut through. Whatever it may be, it will give us an opportunity to revisit
it at that time. That's the plan. The one-year duration is only being asked because it is
a regulatory sign that we are changing. So anytime we take down or implement a sign,
it requires us to issue a traffic order. So this will allow us a little bit of flexibility
in when we can come back to you, provide the results that we obtain and make decisions
based on that. I believe that's all the main things I wanted
to highlight and I'm sure I missed something but I'm happy to answer any
question and hopefully I'll address it if I missed out anything. Thanks we might
ask you to stick around both for council member questions as well as after public
comment I'm sure there will be plenty of questions so I'll begin by asking if
council members have questions for staff. I have a couple have you looked
into any additional stop signs on IV Drive as a way of slowing down traffic
on Ivy Drive. I think that there are not that many actually between that where
the no left turn sign currently is an OIS intermediate school. We did look at
all the existing signage along that roadway but we did not look at a stop
sign particularly from a traffic calming standpoint. It's generally not
looked at as a traffic calming measure. It's more of a traffic safety measure at
intersection. Along IV Drive, there are three stop signs right now. One at, I believe it's
a disk console drive and another one at Coral and IV Drive and then there is one more. I
forgot which drive that is. There's one at OAS. Oh, at the OAS entry point. Thank you. Those are
all three are actually what we call an always stop, so it stops both directional traffic.
The rest of them are just local cul-de-sacs and local residential streets tying into it,
so nothing really stood out for us, but again, we weren't necessarily looking at stop sign
as a traffic calming measure, but as we were going through this process, we did receive
a request along Coral Drive for that stop sign request, so that was studied, and it
did qualify for a stop sign as an optional warrant,
so we moved forward with the installation.
I was wondering about the first corner of Ivy and Ardith,
whether that would be a place that might
benefit having a stop sign.
As far as the issue in front of us,
I do not believe that will play a significant role,
because we are dealing with cut-through traffic across,
because Ardeth will be the main lead road.
But as an intersection safety measure,
that is something we should be able to look
at if that's of interest.
And then another question I had was,
if we take away the no left turn sign,
what would it cost if we wanted to put a traffic
signal at that first intersection?
Traffic signals go through their own process of warrants
and all that.
But if it does get qualified, right now signals
are going anywhere from $800,000 to $1 million.
And there is discussions about that price
being going higher with the current atmosphere.
That's a lot.
And then I was wondering if there
were any other sorts of calming measures
you should suggest for IV drive that
might slow traffic on IV drive.
There are some more things we can do actually because this is a school route and presence of OAS actually outright gives us an option to, for example, reduce the posted speed limit.
I believe we can bring it down to 15 miles per hour without further justification just because of the school criteria so we can definitely look into that further too.
There are speed bumps already.
I believe there's two locations along I-V drive
that already has speed bumps in between those stop signs.
Beyond that, typically traffic calming measures,
we kind of look at it on a case-by-case basis,
like what kind of need is there.
But there are many varieties of measures
we can consider if we are looking into it from that aspect.
But as far as vehicular safety, it's
a little different than pedestrian safety.
it depends what we are looking at. Well, and I think pedestrian and bike safety are big issues
there as well. I'm very concerned about the bike riders who have to make the left turn from
Rawaga Way onto Ivy Drive because that is not a protected left turn. And there's no crosswalk
there, I don't believe. There is a left turn lane for cars to make that left turn. So a bike rider
would presumably have to get in that left turn lane, use a hand signal and turn left in front
of the oncoming traffic down Moraga Way, which for a middle school student seems like a lot to ask
for them to do it safely every time. I'm wondering about what safety measures we could put in place
at that intersection, regardless of these other measures, to protect bike riders.
So to answer your point, yes, that is correct.
We do have Class 2 bike lanes along Moraga way.
So any bicyclists who are using that when they come
to an intersection and they need to make a turn,
they will merge with regular traffic,
move into the turn lane, and behave like a vehicle
would to make the turn.
As far as additional measures we can do at that intersection,
one thing that's been kind of successful for us
the last few years is putting a rapid flashing beacon crosswalk. We have one
on Brookside in front of the nursery and then the recent implementation was at
Valley View Drive. Both have been functioning pretty well. It does involve
some level of funding required need for it but definitely something we can look
look at and consider it. I would appreciate us looking into that. I don't know how my
other council members feel, but it does seem like a particularly risky place for particularly
middle school students who are trying to get to school in the morning on their bicycles.
I might just suggest, because we're sort of in the middle of this matter, but we talked
about this. It came up in the workshop. It's come up a few times. Perhaps you could make
a matter initiated as we're finishing this up so that we can talk about that as a standalone
item. It's very interesting.
If it needs to be a standing item, I'm happy to do that. I thought we could sort of talk
about it all and say.
It's definitely part of the, it's not off the agenda, but I think because it's not in
what is currently being brought up, it would be something that would be interesting to
ask maybe for some focus on.
I was going to say maybe we can leave that for discussion so we can hear back from the
city manager about.
I have a question.
I'm sure others do too.
I don't want to...
Okay.
So, I thank you, Greg questions.
I also asked similar ones for sort of the coral.
We got a petition and a comment from a lot of residents on Tuesday who were concerned
about installing a four-way stop sign at Ardeth and Coral, and to that end, there were things
that came up.
They pointed out that there were things that came up in the study session, including, you
know, my understanding is that we can't put in speed bumps because that is not being approved
by the fire department, because they're
concerned about the impact on evacuation on coral, right?
Or Ivy?
Right.
Right now, MOFD stands is that if it
is within the very high fire hazard zone,
they are not approving a speed cushion.
The improvements that are being proposed right now,
if I may go into the detail a little bit,
that segment of coral doesn't have any striping on it
as it stands today.
It's just an open road with parking allowed on both sides.
It's wide enough to have parking and two lanes of traffic,
but, of course, the grades and the curvature of the roadway
coming towards Moraga, they accentuate the speeds
of vehicles and everything.
So what we are proposing right now is to add a center line
stripe and also define the edge line, the white edge line
striping, with lanes confined only 10 feet width.
So that visually will provide a narrower corridor
for the driver when they are approaching the Moragawa
intersection and also create a little bit of more
delineated area for pedestrians who
might be walking along that.
Right now, there is no real visual separation even
between the vehicle and pedestrians.
So this will be felt like it'll be a good starting point.
We don't see this as a one-all and all solution, definitely.
And there is plans to bring the sidewalk back
into the frontline and that'll be presented as a project
for consideration in the CIP update that's coming up
to council in the next few weeks.
So the implementations that are going on in place right now
is only till the sidewalk gets figured out
and of course that's so much higher larger budget project
so we'll be working on it.
Yes, and just to reiterate everything that you just talked
about the striping, the four-way stop, we did that
within our last two meetings.
So for people hearing this,
we're just reviewing recent approved items on Coral.
And now this is the rest of the things
that were talked about at the workshop.
Those items were accelerated
because they were popular and ready to go.
That is correct.
For the record, they were approved
on the March 17 council meetings.
So staff has full authorization to move forward.
And like I mentioned,
We are actively in discussions with the contractor, so this could happen in within a matter of
a few weeks.
Okay.
Thank you.
That was the implementation was what I wanted to know is what I mean.
So we are looking at that being in place even before this pilot project begins.
Yes, it's getting completely done independently of this.
What are their questions?
Thank you, Seva.
I have a couple of questions.
My first one is, if we undertake this pilot project, what are we going to be doing in
terms of the traffic counts and monitoring and the consultant work follow-up that we
had for our workshop?
I'm highly interested in what definitive data are we going to get if we actually try this.
Right now the plan is to have a consultant on board to do, we are thinking two to up
to three times counts during that period from August through December 31st, they'll primarily
be taking counts along Moraga Way and along Ivy Drive just to see similar to what was
done previously to identify how much of the traffic going through Ivy is still cut through
traffic and is has the number gone up or less or is there any improvement in
their behavior and there is two ways we generally take counts one is using
camera which basically picks up their license plate at one end partial
license plate I should say and the same happens at the other end of a street and
then that allows us to tally the plates and see how many of those vehicles
actually used IV drive as a cut-through thing and there is also other
traditional way of counting where just counts the number of vehicles and the
speeds they are traveling so our hope is and our police department also has a
trailer so we are hoping to be able to deploy that to when an opportunity
permits because that can also pick up some vehicle data and speed data so
gathering all this information and then analyzing we feel like that data will
will give us a much better picture of what is going on.
We have the current situation in place.
We collect the data over two different instances.
So comparing the new data against the existing one
will give us some clarity in what's happening.
And we are at least confident that we can come back
and show you whether this new implementation
is functioning as intended or not.
So we'll get at least two more sets of data?
Definitely two more.
We will need at least two sets of data.
We are thinking to maybe three, depending on time availability.
Okay.
The other thing I'm very interested in is, especially given our resources and what we
talked about at the workshop, I'm very interested in what can we commit to in the way of enforcement?
Because we're trying to change people's behavior and I'm sorry.
I really think that until next door is flooded with information that says do this and you're
going to be getting a ticket that our hopes of changing people's behavior is reduced.
So I would love to, you know, have some assurance that even with our limited resources we're
going to make a significant effort at enforcement.
Yeah, we've had discussions with our police department like I previously mentioned, but
I have the chief here tonight. So sorry to put you in the spot chief, but if you want
to.
Good evening. So what would you like specific as far as enforcement? So we have been since
our February meeting with a sole focus of our traffic officer work in that area specifically
in the morning as of today we have over 30 traffic initiated stops due to speeding traffic
stop violations no turning during the specific time we've only issued out 18 citations out
of that 30 so more of an education discretion of the officer when they're dealing with that
So we have made a larger impact with our one officer, the trailer is being upgraded
and fixed, so that'll be out soon in addition to what we're trying to do.
So we did take that initial February meeting and literally in that meeting,
while that discussion was happening, I started making changes that evening.
So that morning it was implemented right away.
I think it's going to be not only important to keep up what you're already doing, which
is fantastic and sounds like it's a huge improvement over kind of, you know, where we might have
been, but especially that no right turn on artists.
I really, you know, have a hard time believing, knowing exactly what that intersection looks
like.
I have a really hard time believing that, you know, people are going to obey that and,
know that cut-through mechanism we also heard how problematic that is. So I think
that would be a huge attempt to, you know, change behavior. For sure. I think just
our presence, we're real popular on Nextdoor right now. Everybody's got a lot
of interesting comments. All those grandmothers that you're arresting, Chief. Yeah,
they're at the top of the list of where we're going. But all in sincerity so for
me as trying to get some sort of feedback is like you know from the
officers but when I hear the community raising up in arms and being upset about
why are they stopping grandmas and why are they stopping the moms okay so that
means you guys are seeing that we are doing our job and we are responding to
to this need that the city has presented to us.
And so we're out there.
So I think we're slowly getting towards that way
and the education and bringing these things up
and everything Siva and the team are working with
that we're working in conjunction with.
Thank you.
Other questions?
Yeah, please.
A follow-up question for Siva.
Is there gonna be any way in the traffic study
to discern who is using IV drive as a cut-through
versus who is dropping off at OIS
and then going to Miramani with a second child.
Or remind me if the timing of the schools
doesn't make that happen.
I'm sorry, I don't remember exactly.
That's a good question.
As far as timing goes, OIS starts at 8.45
and Minamani starts at 8.30 a.m.
Okay, but you could drop off a kid at 8.25 at OIS
are a little early and then go to Miramani, right?
Right, right.
We did try to capture that in the last data collection,
the second round of last data collection.
So what we did was we had a camera set up
at the north end of IV drive, one at south end of IV drive,
and one at the entrance of OAS.
Again, the data collected is just for privacy reasons.
It's a partial license plate.
So the way we were able to separate it out
is just the timing of it.
So if a car vehicle came at the north end
and it was also picked up at the south end of I-V drive
within a few minutes, then it's a straight cut through.
But if there was a lag in between a five minutes
or eight minutes, then the assumption
was that they likely went into OIS.
And we tried to connect that with the other camera data.
There was some trouble, to be honest,
exactly figuring out what's going on.
But the takeaway for us was that if there is a gap,
that means there's likely there was a drop off in between.
OK.
So the study will look at the timing.
And if there's a gap?
Right, right.
That's the idea here.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
Two quick ones.
Is only the no left turn on IV sign the pilot portion
and all other changes are proposed to be permanent?
or is the whole set of changes meant to be a pilot?
The entire set of changes being proposed tonight
is considered the pilot program.
Great.
So the data we get will then be able to look
at the totality of the neighborhood patterns.
Right.
We are looking at existing versus this being
the proposed condition, so that there is a clear separation
in how we collect the new data, and how we analyze this,
and how we can compare it to the existing situation.
Got it.
Sorry for asking this, but I went back and studied
the data after our last workshop. And the LPR data and the sort of mobile, you know,
the other way of collecting data were wildly different if you actually read the results.
And I'm wondering if one is much more reliable than the other and you were just using two sources,
will you only use the more reliable of the two or will you continue to use that dual collection?
Based on our prior data collection experience,
the general way of collecting data is the count-based data.
That's what we use for general traffic studies.
But in this case, the license plate reader data
seem to be more meaningful and accurate.
So we will be using that approach.
I'm glad to hear it.
Thank you.
And then last question,
have you actually asked about speed months on ARTIS
or are you just assuming that the moratorium
that is more generally applied will apply?
Yeah, we have not had the discussion
with the M.O.F.D., I do need to clarify that.
But we will check on it and if that is actually
just outside of the very high severe fire hazard zone,
then we can definitely approach M.O.F.D.
See if they'll be interested in working with us
on implementing a speed cushion.
Thank you.
Before we go to public comment,
are there any more questions for staff?
Yeah, please.
Are we going to have the stop sign at Coral and Ardeth
and the signal timing changes of the existing signals,
are those all gonna have been implemented
before we start the pilot
and remove the IV drive left turn side?
Yeah, those all are completely independent.
We do not, I mean, those can be done administratively.
There is no requirement for the city
to issue a traffic order for it,
so that's where we are approaching it separately.
Because of the regulatory sign reason,
this is getting applied.
So if this, for example, gets approved tonight,
then we will do our best to implement the whole thing
at one stretch.
But that being said, we are not planning to hold off
any of those implements to time with this one.
Because these signs will be active only during school time.
So even if we implement today, they
are not considered active because they are applicable only
during school days.
One question.
When would you, sounds like you could change
the signal timing now, right?
You don't need to wait for anything.
So are you waiting and timing that for a later time
or what are you thinking about?
Well, we wanna be a little bit cautious
in doing that at this point because the sign is active,
the let no lift turn sign is active
and with the study and everything going on,
we didn't wanna jump in and do some change by itself
because the signal timing was always looked at
as a collective implementation.
There's nothing stopping us
from implementing it even tomorrow,
but we will have to just, you know,
the idea was to just do it all together if possible, yeah.
If that helps.
Okay.
Any other questions?
With that, we will open it to public comment.
I've got five speaker cards,
and I would note that we had four written comments
that are in the public correspondence.
the first speaker card I have is Eileen Shire.
Good evening.
I will make this really short because I
know that you have most of the comments
from the neighborhood in the packet already.
The last public meeting we had in February,
I left it feeling really encouraged
because I thought, for one thing,
people were really paying attention.
It seemed like everybody understood
that it's an intolerable safety hazard situation
with the traffic, especially the cut-through traffic
in IV Drive.
Bottom line, a lot of these problems
apparently need to be mitigated with a number
of incremental solutions.
I think we understand that.
The biggest question we have is, we're kind of bewildered.
Why take away the no left turn sign?
It seems to me that doing the other mitigations first
would be reasonable.
It would make sense.
We already know what happens when you take away that sign,
because that's why we have the sign from 20 years ago.
It just opens the floodgates.
Lots of traffic just pours down Ivy.
I don't think we need a trial to try to figure out
that that is a problem.
So I will just leave it there.
The other question is, why a whole year?
I mean, if it turns out that the traffic really
is problematic after that sign is gone,
we would know that within a few months.
And it is truly hazardous for children
to walk to school in our neighborhood.
I'm glad you mentioned something about getting better
enforcement, because we already know from other trials
that a lot of people just plan to ignore the signage.
So enforcement's really important.
Thank you. Next public comment is Nicole Carter-McGill. Good evening. Thank you
for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Nicole Carter-McGill and I live
on Carisbrook Drive, a street just off of Coral Drive. I have a sixth-grader at
OAS and a third-grader at Delray. For the past seven years I have walked my
daughters to school along Coral Drive every single day. As you consider
After removing the no-left turn onto Ivy Drive, I urge you to remember why this restriction
was put in place, to protect pedestrians.
Before removing any existing safety measures, we must ensure that equal or stronger protections
are fully in place.
While the four-way stop at Coral and Ardeth and the striping on Coral is a step in the
right direction, it's not enough on its own.
Completing the Coral sidewalk is absolutely essential.
Every single day, school children walk along Coral Drive on their way to Del Ray, OIS,
and Miramati.
For the past seven years, I have walked this route myself, and I have seen the danger firsthand.
High school drivers speed down the curvy hill, while elementary and middle school children
walk unprotected along the roadside.
As you know, just recently, there was an accident involving a teenage driver right in the exact
area where these children walk.
The driver traveled down coral from Ardith, became distracted, struck a mailbox, and the
car flipped over.
A large cement mail structure was knocked down and destroyed.
If this had happened 20 minutes earlier, OAS students would have been walking, and someone
could have been killed.
We were inches and minutes away from a tragedy.
It gives me goosebumps when I think about this.
It's not a hypothetical risk.
These are real children walking this route every day exposed to real danger.
As a community, we have a responsibility to make sure they are safe, not just hope that
they will be.
Removing the no left turn before these safety improvements are completed would increase
that risk at the worst possible time.
I urge you to prioritize finishing the sidewalk and ensuring all necessary safety measures
are in place before making any changes.
I also want to express my support for the no-left turn from Eastwood onto Maraga Way.
Reducing cut-through traffic will make a meaningful difference for our neighborhood's safety as
long as it is properly enforced.
Please put the safety of our children first.
Thank you for your time and your commitment to our community.
Our next public speaker is Emily Polcari.
Good evening.
I live in the Ivy Drive neighborhood and have a student at Miramani and one at OIS.
of them walk on coral every day to school and I walk in the neighborhood every day myself.
The no left turn sign is a pedestrian safety measure so as you consider whether to remove it
there should be an analysis of the pedestrian traffic in the neighborhood and I I'm glad that
we got the stop sign approved and the striping approved. I'm really happy to hear that the
sidewalk is going to be proposed soon. Those things need to be completed before you start
allowing the high school drivers to go through the neighborhood at the speeds that we've seen
them travel. We've seen two accidents on Ardeth in the last two years and now one on Coral that
certainly would have killed an OIS student if it had happened 20 minutes earlier. The sidewalk is
the street. I'm not sure if it's
the street is absolutely
essential, but I'm also
concerned. So that's the street
that my kids walk on. But why
is there no consideration for
the other streets and the
pedestrians and the rest of the
neighborhood when you're talking
about moving a removing a
pedestrian safety measure. Um it
seems that the simplest thing to
do from a safety perspective is
I hope that there has been some progress towards that.
I know at the study session the superintendent said that she didn't want to change the start
time because OIS already gets out so late, but it's my understanding that the committee
examining the school start times is discussing reducing the time of the day at OIS, so that
might not be a concern next year.
And then we could update the time on that no left turn sign, and avoid having to analyze
all of these other intersections and try to predict where the high school drivers are
going to go.
I understand they might save 30 seconds by using IV, but from what we see, they are not
operating logically when they're deciding to cut through the neighborhood.
looking for streets that are empty where they can go as fast as they can so that they feel
like they're cutting ahead of people on Moraga Way even though they might not really be cutting
ahead even now. My other question is with the pilot program. You're just about out of time so
I'm going to ask you to wrap up. Oh okay I see 23 seconds here. I don't know if that's inaccurate.
But the my other question is with a pilot program what's the measure of success? Is it
we're going to move on to the
next public forum speaker is
Kerry Moss. Thank you. Good
evening. I'm Kerry Moss. I'm
in a render resident. I'm a
parent of an O s student and
also a parent of a Wagner
Ranch student. I am speaking
discouraged cut through traffic. While I'm not a resident of Ivy Drive, I'm up there three days
a week dropping my daughter off for jazz band, which begins at 730 a.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays,
and Thursdays. The current no left turn sign discourages my access to OIS and the access
of OIS staff and other parents who have zero period or jazz band, which starts well before the
normal 8 45 a.m school start time um for me personally being forced to drive up to coral
drive instead of making the left at at ivy um you know adds time of course it adds stress as well
especially because there's not a protected left hand turn lane at coral there is a stoplight
there as i think you're all aware but when i have to stop and slow to make that left hand turn i
often have to wait for the light to change and then I'm forced to turn on a yellow, which is
pretty scary as people are barreling down Meragway trying to get to part into the freeway. I've been
nearly rear-ended several times. I've been honked at. My husband does the driving some mornings and
very recently, unfortunately for him, he was not the recipient of the discretion that our
police chief described. He was ticketed, first moving violation over 30 years. I'd be remiss if
if I didn't mention that.
And my daughter was late to class
because she had to get out of the car
at the bottom of Ivy Drive
and walk the rest of the way to Ivy Drive
where my husband was ticketed by a rent a PD.
I would love to find a solution
that allows legitimate traffic to come to the school
at whatever hour our children and our staff
need to be there.
The current sign does not achieve that end.
And I'm also quite concerned hearing the description tonight
from the city of how the cut-proof traffic
was actually calculated.
I myself would have been counted as a cut-through driver
on any of those days where the count occurred,
because when I'm dropping my daughter at 7.30,
if I choose to ignore the left-hand turn line,
which I don't, but if I did,
dropping a child at 7.30 a.m.,
there's no traffic on Ivy Drive.
There's no traffic at the school.
It's quite quick to drop her.
Sometimes I drop her at the stop sign
and she runs off to class.
Sometimes I pull in, but I pull back out
and I typically would go up to the end of Ivy Drive
and then go run errands in Moraga, go to the bank,
go to the gym, do something along those lines.
So I'm really concerned that we're not truly calculating
the cut-through traffic and we're negatively impacting staff
and parents who legitimately need to get to OIS
at different hours than the strict start time.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Our next speaker is Roderick Phillips
who had put public forum,
but because you said pedestrian safety,
I'll ask if you don't mind speaking it
for this item instead.
Yeah, sorry, I'm not very good at this.
All right, well, I'm gonna echo what Nicole
and Emily have said.
I mean, I get it.
I know that the kids have to get to school
and everything, and I have no issue with that.
My only issue is with the speeding,
and one of my concerns from the proposal actually is,
and I can ask him directly,
I mean, my concern is I live on coral and it seems to me is that the kids are now going
to be able to turn left, sorry, right on coral from ivy and then just speed up along coral
and that's not going to stop them at all.
And this is in a situation where they're cutting through from Ardith onto coral and zooming
down the hill at incredible speeds.
Now they're just going to go along ivy and they're going to also come up coral.
And when they get to the top of the hill, maybe there's a stop sign, but as soon as
they get through that, they're going to be speeding to go down to Moraga Way again.
So I think the most important thing that we need to consider is that the sidewalk for
the kids.
I just think that's going to be, if there's going to be even more traffic, and we won't
know that until you've done your analysis, but if there's even more traffic going down
Coral Drive at that time of day, there is going to be a serious accident involving the
children at some point sooner rather than later if you continue to let the
kids drive at speeds along Coral Drive and down to Moraga Way and then the
other thing just a comment for chief is I applaud you that they're enforcing
this that they did that initial enforcement one area where I think there
could be another another easy enforcement is actually right where Nicole
There's on Carisbrook and Carl, if you position to police car there, I think you would, and again,
I'm not saying ticket people, but just as a warning that they're coming down and they are
speeding. And as soon as they see that green light on Moraga Way, they speed up. They don't slow down,
they speed up. And much like Nicole, I walked my kids to school, I told you this a month ago,
on that road as well. And it's dangerous. I mean, it's dangerous. There is also cars parked on the
road and especially there's a kind of a corner and you cannot as they come they
kind of come down and they go around the corner and straight down and there's
often cars parked on that corner so the pedestrians are almost forced to walk
around the car the parked cars and that puts him wider out into the street so
it's it's it's a disaster waiting to happen and it's going to happen so you
You know, I'm hoping that, you know, if we can, as soon as we can implement the sidewalk,
that will be a huge help irrespective of, you know, how the cars are going.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I have one more card for F4 without a name on it.
I'm assuming this is this person who's been very patiently waiting.
So thank you.
Hi, I'm Linda Spintana, and I'm a resident of Ardis Drive at the, just off of the Ivy
Drive intersection.
I'm a professor, I work at home many days.
I know what time it is by the sound on Ardith Drive.
At 7.58, the cars start coming.
Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom.
And it gets to the point where it has taken me
more than 10 minutes to get out of my driveway.
Ardith Drive has a little hill.
As you turn on from Ivy, there's a little hill.
We are at that hill.
It is so dangerous.
There are kids walking down.
Nobody is going 25.
They are not looking.
They're driving down the middle of the street.
And there are days when I decide,
you know what, I'm not gonna leave until nine o'clock
if I have that luxury.
Often I don't because I work in the schools a lot.
But I appreciate the attention given to Ardith Drive
because it is a speedway.
and I know that in the past,
Arendelle Police has been at various places
along Artist Drive and has, you know,
ticketed or at least shown their presence,
which has made people slow down.
But I wanted just to express my appreciation
for the entire study and for the attention
given to a no right turn on Artist Drive.
We won't have people going to school,
you know, running down artist drive at 40 miles an hour
trying to get to Coral or Eastwood
or go around Ivy to get to the entrance to Miramani.
And I'm Ron Smetana and I just wanted to thank
city staff for listening.
I've attended the online meetings
where they've asked for input about it
and it really does make a difference.
I cannot back out of my driveway at 8 a.m.
It's so dangerous and you're not aware of it
and it's not posted, but apparently there's a 40 mile an hour minimum speed on Ardath.
The cars are flying.
It is dangerous, and I'm sure partially because of the backup on Moraga Way, but people are
doing everything they can to avoid the backup, but that endangers the neighborhoods they're
driving through.
So thank you, city staff, for listening.
Thank you.
And I believe we noted that as two different public speakers.
thank you both. That's all the speaker cards I've got. Is there anybody else who would like
to speak on this item before we close the public comment portion? And with that, we will bring it
back up for council discussion and deliberation. Would anyone like to lead us off? Council member
Hoxie? You knew I would have a lot to say. You know, we all know there's been a lot of discussion.
We know some of the reasons have been because of the school start times. One of the speakers
was asking about changing the school start times. That is a having served on the school board for
eight years. That is a long and arduous process that requires buy-in from the union is unlikely
to happen anytime very quickly. So I wouldn't think that that's going to be a solution to what
seems to me to be a very immediate problem. And I'm glad that we're taking steps like the
four-way stop at Coral the situation on Coral I wanted to quickly comment on
that accident was terrible my concern is a sidewalk would not necessarily have
protected the children because that accident went over and into a mailbox
if there was a sidewalk theoretically it would have gone over that as well but
that being said I would like us to think about what we could do immediately to
make a safe walking corridor and I had suggested to the city manager earlier
today may be some sort of balustrades or something to separate an area for
students to walk until we could get to a point where we could actually have the
CIP input in sidewalks but I also am concerned that might create a false
sense of security because a car could just bus right through those as well so
I would certainly rely on our traffic experts because I am not a traffic
expert on what the safest thing to do is and I'm pleased we're going to start
with the striping. I want to continue with the sidewalk and I'd like to
consider whether there are any other measures we could take to create at
least one side of the street as a safer walking environment in in a shorter
term so that it doesn't take us a couple of years to make that happen.
I've been concerned and opposed to removing the no left side turn sign. I
have great respect and concern for the residents on IV drive having seen many
times, all of the difficulties they have living on Ivy Drive.
This all came up because the school start time
changed at Marimani, right?
And so the sign used to make a whole lot more sense,
from 7 AM to 8 AM, than it currently makes.
Because now we know students are cutting through,
and they're turning after 8.
And I also had students in Jaspan,
I know how hard it is early in the morning when
you're trying to get someone to school,
and you want to just make what seems like the obvious turn,
and you can't and you get a ticket, it's very frustrating.
But what we have to think about most is student safety
and that's why I brought up this issue about the bikes
and I'll bring it up again a little later.
I feel like we have to figure out and think more
about the holistic walking, biking approaches
within the city and particularly in areas
right around our schools.
And that's why I asked about the calming measures
we could take on Ivy Drive.
personally would be in favor of slowing down Ivy Drive to a slower speed limit
because it is near the school and to see if that helped and if we enforced it you
know if we dropped that speed limit to 15 miles an hour and the kids were
getting tickets maybe it would slow people down I'd love to see more
enforcement of speed on Ardith that is a big problem I know it is hopefully the
no right turn would help on Ardith but then they'll just want to speed more on
So I feel like all of these things have to work together and we have to figure out, you know, how everybody can get to school in a timely fashion, how they can walk safely, how homeowners can get out of their driveways.
They're all important issues and that's the reason we've had so many conversations is because it requires a balance and we're trying to come up with that balance.
Um, and so I'll let my other council members speak, but, um, there, there are a lot of
different things to weigh in the discussion and the balance.
I have so much I could say about this.
This is a terrible, terrible problem and I am deeply, deeply committed to everything
we can do to make things safer in this total neighborhood.
The start time at Miramani is state mandated.
We can't do anything about that.
I very much, and I've mentioned to our city manager, I don't care how hard it is.
I do believe that the school district needs to engage on this topic and see what they
can do, whether it's the start time, whether it's the extracurricular activities, whatever
it is.
I had kids that went to school there, too, but I think they do need to be a more active
part of trying to find the best solution, ultimately.
In the short term, I don't think I would even consider some of the things that we've talked
about if I hadn't been so horrified at how much cut-through traffic is already happening.
I mean, quite frankly, 90 percent of the people are already not following the sign.
So in reality, as much as I would love the sign to be super effective, the reality is
it's not being that effective because so many people are just blatantly ignoring it.
I'm absolutely a fan of doing everything to make every possibility of traffic calming
and misery throughout every possible route.
I realize that also affects the people that live in the neighborhood and that has to be
balanced.
I'm not trying to make their life any harder, but I do agree with Council Member Hoxie.
If you have to stop three more times as you're trying to race through some of these areas,
I don't know that the residents would be as upset given that we're trying really hard
to totally discourage this behavior.
And I know it's really hard and I do agree, and I'm hoping that we can set the signal
timing so that it really will eventually become seriously obvious that if you do cut through
like that, that you're not really gaining anything if we're going to stop you at one
of those other side streets for a lot longer than you want to be stopped, which isn't the
case right now.
I think the only, I've been totally supportive of the sidewalks, even more sidewalks, if
we can do it, I don't see any reason why, you know, we do have the resources to push
hard in that area, for the stop sign, the striping, everything we can do.
But the other thing that I want us to do, and I'm prepared to make matters initiated
about it I was very encouraged that it's time to talk to the regional people
the city manager is tired of hearing me say this but I want to pursue us asking
our state legislators to consider using camera technology for enforcement in
this neighborhood I know what the pushback is going to be at a state level
people are going to have all kinds of because right now camera enforcement for
is only allowed for speeding in certain cities and I know that there would be
pushback but I am telling you the caveat to it is that it should only be allowed
regarding school safety and if I can find a legislator in the state that
would say that they're not willing to introduce the ability to use camera
technology for speeding and turning enforcement for school safety I would
would love to take them on running for office because that is something that if our two
legislators aren't willing to do that, I know the technology exists.
And quite frankly, we could, we could, the biggest dent we could make in actually solving
this problem would be if we could use camera enforcement.
And I just think we should try.
Let's go ahead.
Let's, let's be the pilot city that tries to push that forward.
If our legislators in this state can introduce 2,500 bills a year to see if they can make
something happen, this is important.
And we are not the only small community that has this issue.
I have a feeling that I would be extremely surprised if our neighbors in Moraga and Lafayette
don't have a situation where they could benefit from it as well.
So I think we should pursue that.
And if we need to make that a separate matters initiated, I'm willing to try that.
But I also think the pilot needs to be, if we're going to try this, I think it needs
to be shorter.
I only want to see it, in effect, you know, at least until we, you know, have the data
supporting one way or the other, I'd like it to just be this, you know, fall period,
you know, start of school to end of the year and push getting the data analysis enough
that we can, you know, make earlier decisions than waiting all the way until next May to
decide if we're going to do it.
So, I mean, I am only willing to try it under all of these other sort of caveats of us trying
to do it, and I probably wouldn't be at all if it wasn't clear that already the cut-through
traffic is just ridiculous.
So I wish we could find a better fit for the timing of the no left turn because I do think
it's really important.
I'm hoping that as we try to work through all these issues together, we can find some
combination of ways to slow people down, enforcement, traffic signal timing, everything we can think
of because I do think it is a very, very serious issue.
that it lives in Orinda that tells me they haven't had a scary encounter with
a teenage driver is not telling the truth. Okay, it doesn't matter how
wonderful and adorable your high school child is at some point they are not an
experienced driver and it is very very worrisome. So I just, you know, I'm, I
would never consider any of these things simply over the convenience factor of
people trying to get to OIS as much as I understand being a stressed out mom, a
stressed out mom who has gotten a traffic ticket, not in Orinda, over being
late, but also realizing that by pushing people onto turning on coral,
we're also creating other problems there. So it's a hugely challenging problem and
We're going to need to try every possible solution.
But I really do think that we should push to the max
to try for camera enforcement.
Why not?
We can be on the national news for school safety.
Madam Mayor, can I?
Quick intermission.
Just to say that we didn't get a second workshop on this.
This is a complicated issue.
We are not judges who get to speak once and then vote.
So I want people to feel like you can speak multiple times
and this can be a little interactive.
Because we need to be able to talk to each other.
And with the Brown Act, we never get
to talk to each other to make complex decisions.
So please know that we're going to talk as many times
as we need to talk to get to a right decision tonight.
So please.
I had another question for Siva, and that is,
is there any way to create a protected left turn
at Morrogo Way and Coral?
We'll have to explore that.
We have not looked into that before.
Now, the primary concern would be the width of roadway
over there and restrictions, access restrictions.
But if there is enough width, we should
be able to implement something similar to what
we have at the North Ivey Drive.
Because I think part of the OIS population
getting to school in the morning, as someone said,
there isn't very much traffic.
So it's very appealing because it looks like, well,
why shouldn't I just make this little turn?
But if there was a protected left at Coral,
it would also make that a much easier turn to make,
which would make it easier if we were then saying,
you can't turn left at Ivy, but go down to Coral,
but you have a protected left that's
not going to back up the street.
It's just something I was thinking about.
If I may follow up my answer, I do want to point out
there is actually a walkway between Coral and the Camino
El Camino Moraga, which is Del Rey, on the east side of Moraga, so there is pedestrian
traffic along there too.
I don't want to speak for my predecessors, but my guess would be that that's limited
how much room we have on the roadway to add on a left on pocket there.
Can I jump in on that?
We are trying to disincentivize drivers from using Ardeth and Coral, right?
So right, but so if we were having a protect, oh, you're talking about, I okay, I understood
what you're talking about.
Okay.
You know, someone, or can I jump in now on a few of the issues.
So, you know, with regard to school start times, I think the concern that I have heard
has been from our superintendent because the school day currently is a certain length.
Now, if that changes, I think that we would absolutely jump on trying to explore, you
know, changing the school start times because that's what's caused all of this, really.
But what I've heard, and I'm not necessarily saying I agree with this, but what I've heard
the concern being expressed is not that the teachers are opposing this, but that the kids,
if we change the start times, the kids would just be there too late. And they're younger,
right? Still in middle school. And so they would be there with the extracurriculars. It would just
all run too late. But if that changes, I would urge, I think we got some public comment on that,
to keep us in the loop around that so we can continue to act on that and continue the discussions
do happen with the school district but ultimately that's not something that we can do we can
request it I do think that one of the concerns in removing the sign and someone asked why
remove the sign one of the issues was to make sure that we were trying to disincentivize
also kids going to marijuana and using coral as a cut through
and using art as a cut through.
So I do think I feel a real sense of urgency
that the signal timing and the striping on coral
and everything that we've approved on coral already
needs to be in place.
I think that should be in place ASAP,
as soon as we can get that done.
And that's why I was asking about that timeline
to make sure all of that was in place well before.
I understand that over summer we're less impacted
by all that, but kids still walk, right?
And that's a pedestrian safety stuff.
And I think it should happen, not at the same time,
but as soon as we can get it done to that.
And one of the questions I had after this discussion is,
there's a real concern for these sidewalks.
How quickly, what is a realistic implementation timeline
if a budget for a sidewalk were approved?
And I'm not saying, what is sort of the soonest
we would see that happen or just a realistic timeline?
If budget is not a concern,
the next primary concern would be design constraints.
So there are driveways and
some hardscapes along the stretch that we are dealing with.
But we do have an example just on the eastern portion
of Coral Drive that's between Ardith and Ivy.
There is an existing sidewalk, so this
will reflect pretty much the same manner.
There will be multiple shorter retaining walls
that's hanging along.
Between design to construction, I
would want to say year and a half to two years,
even sooner if you expedite it. So just to make a quick comment currently we were proposing to
bring back the CIP as part of the update for the July update. If the council wanted us to bring
that back sooner as a CIP we could get maybe a two-month head start on that. Okay um I certainly
would favor that. I think we all would but and we can continue discussion. I had other things but
Tonight we're not really supposed to be deciding on the sidewalk and all that.
We're supposed to be working on this pilot program and that sidewalk doesn't
come up here so and I certainly support the sidewalk and I support doing it
faster than slower. If the if the real issue is safety and if cutting through
makes it less safe, then I'm not sure I understand why we take away a no
left turn sign. Why not enforce it? Why not be more punitive? You know, teach
them by pulling them over parents or teachers or students who make an
illegal left turn that you're not supposed to do that and near their
consequences. Instead, we just count them. Anyway, I'm not sure I like this being
a pilot with all the components. I feel like it should be broken up, it should
be pieced apart, and I would approve all but the left turn. But I feel like I have
to dissect it. It doesn't work for me as a whole, as a pilot. All the suggestions,
all the recommendations for all these different ways of minimizing danger make a lot of sense
and we should do them and I feel like some of them should be even stricter or it should
be at a higher level and I totally think these stop signs are minimal and we should have
more, and the one where we're putting a right hand, no right hand turn on artists, I'm not
sure anyone reads a no right hand turn unless they have to stop. I mean, I really think
it's silly. Who's going to bother? So, I mean, I don't, I mean, I'm just adults or children.
If you don't slow down to read it, or if someone's not there ticketing you or telling you you
should have and let me give you a warning. Anyway I'm in favor of more
stop signs and like just really looking at that street, that IV or whatever and
asking if we could put them anywhere else and I'm really leaning towards
thinking we need the 15 mile an hour and I you know I that might not sit well
with residents but in terms of your own lifestyle and whatnot but it may really
really really help deter kids driving down that street. Really, really, who wants to
go 15 miles an hour drives you crazy to go that slow. So I'm good to that which is I
was also thinking so here's the thing for residents I mean I would want to hear more
from residents about I think if separate and apart from what's before us and recommended
in this. If there's consideration of an additional stop sign I would want that to sort of go
through TSAC and hear from residents because a stop sign is permanent. It's there all the
time. It's there all summer. It's there on the weekends. But am I correct in that we
can have a separate speed limit during school hours? Like can you have a speed, if can you
have a speed limit on Ardith and Coral and Ivy or some of these streets that is lower
during during school hours or does it have to be consistent throughout the day
so the the criteria that I mentioned to try and reduce the current speed limit
which is already at 25 is something very recent that we are able to do I do not
have a specific answer for your question to be honest because usually the
restricted speed limit during school hours are on the roadways that are higher
are speeds than 25 miles per hour. Our school entry is already in a residential neighborhood
at 25 miles per hour so that's likely why we are looking at it but we can definitely explore that
and if it's possible we can reduce that between the drop-off and pickup times.
Well I guess the question there is we keep hearing from residents that folks are speeding on
in coral as well, right?
And that there's a pedestrian, there's kids,
there's a safety concern for kids.
So enforcement, besides enforcement,
what can we do to get them to slow down
on those streets, right?
Or discourage, I don't, I mean,
is there anything else besides all of that we're doing,
right?
What we passed at our last meetings and what's before us,
what else, is there anything else?
From an engineering standpoint,
The only physical way to slow down traffic
is speed cushion, speed bumps, right?
Like your vehicle has to slow down enough to navigate that.
Beyond that, the general measures
that put into place, like delineators, chickens,
and stuff, they are more in place
to visually constrain the driveway,
make the driver more alert that they
are in the neighborhood area, not in a faster roadway,
and naturally make them drive slower.
Nothing physically is required to slow down, including stop sign, like I mentioned, it's
not typically considered towards a traffic calming measure.
That's more of an intersection, you know, traffic safety measure than anything.
The approach when staff looked at all this, we did look into all these variables and it
was obvious there were so many things that could be done and we were trying to find a
quickly implementable way that might make a difference
between the existing condition versus what we can improve.
And like I mentioned during my presentation,
we don't believe this is going to likely solve,
like stop entirely the cutthroat traffic,
that's almost impossible.
Even with the sign in place,
as you all represented the data,
that was enough to show that people
are illegally cutting through there.
So like we always say, it's a three legged stool,
education, engineering, and enforcement, right?
So we are trying to approach it from the engineering side
and we heard from the chief on the enforcement side.
Hopefully, these measures will educate people and motivate
them not to do it.
But that is no definitive guarantee
that people will stop cut through over here.
I do want to make that clear.
I just want to note, if I could just briefly,
none of these areas fall on the very high fire severity zone.
So these could be eligible for speed cushions with M-O-F-D.
So I'm glad you said that because I'd
love to just make a few comments.
First of all, I haven't heard anybody mention tonight where this all started, which is the
fact that that sign, first of all, you will recall from our workshop that no engineering
study has ever recommended that no left turn on IV sign.
That was not recommended ever.
That was something the neighbors came up with as a pilot program.
It stayed as a pilot program for about three years and then it was made permanent.
That is not an engineering solution.
It was an accommodation when the school start times were indirect, when the school start
times were such that that was the right solution at the time.
The school start times have now changed.
And so I, you know, heard from teachers and parents and I was an OIS parent for the first
couple years I was on council.
And I would be turning left on that IV illegally.
And there was Moraga Way was wide open.
You didn't need to take the shortcut before 8 o'clock because Moraga Way doesn't have
traffic before 8 o'clock.
I also currently have high schoolers.
So I've got an in-house focus group and I talk to them.
And it's absolutely true that as long as Moraga Way is so choked up that you can be waiting
at a light for multiple light cycles because cars aren't clearing from cycle to cycle.
You're solving for the shortcut problem and it's bad and it's real and Ardith is a speedway,
but the first order of business and I really want to focus on the changing the light cycles.
What we heard in the workshop was that the timing on the side streets, so coral and others,
they've got sensors.
And when one or two cars are waiting to get onto Moraga Way, it changes the light and
clears the side streets.
Once we change the light timing to focus on clearing Moraga Way between light cycles and
slowing down the loading on from the side streets, the best solution is actually to
get Moraga Way working as efficiently as we can get it to work and maybe that's going
to affect some of the Glorieta and Coral and people coming out of their neighborhoods.
But that, to me, feels like job one is to kill the shortcut, and that means to make
it harder.
If you go Artyth or Ivy, if you don't get off coral to get to Miramati, now we need
to publicize it.
There needs to be word of mouth.
There needs to be enforcement of speeding.
But I think without focusing on killing this neighborhood, let's focus on fixing Moraga
Way.
I do think the speed bumps on Artyth, the reason I asked about that is I started sitting
in on TSEC meetings when I was the liaison when this issue would come up, because it's
so difficult. And the couple things that when the speed bump matters would come up, it was
because it was on Dalewood, which is an important evacuation route. They've been trying to get
speed bumps for years. And so that was the primary context for that conversation. Art
Ardeth is an interior road, so it's not an evacuation route, right? If you think of it like
a loop or like a letter D and it's inside that letter D, I would bet if we fought hard,
we could get speed bumps on Ardeth. And we haven't asked, but that to me would be if we get one
exception, start there. Because I do think that speed bumps will help with what is the most
tempting shortcut among these routes.
Let's do the stoplight timing tomorrow,
literally tomorrow, for the things that we can do.
And then I think when we get the smart signals in
this calendar year, we can play with it.
We can turn the dials.
We can really do what we can try to do
to balance the neighborhood loading and Moraga way clearing.
But that will help even beyond the things
that we can do immediately.
Number three, I really like Council Member Hoxie's
suggestion about getting a focused solution
for getting kids on bikes into the OIS neighborhood.
If we think it's bad pushing parents up to coral,
it's also bad pushing kids on bikes up to coral.
They're in that Moraga Way traffic right now.
So that's not what's on the table,
but I hope she brings it back as a matter initiated.
I also, at the workshop, had asked if we could,
that on coral, the changes you're making
to change the striping and have the curb be wider.
I asked if we could get some of those temporary,
they're like bollards, right?
They're like little removable barriers,
would be something else I would love for you
to bring up with TSAC to see if we can get that
and see if that does create more of a visual barrier
than just the stripe to help all the kids walking to Delray.
You have the slower speed.
I had the same question you did.
But when you say that normally what they do
is they go from something else down to 25
and what we've got is 25, that may not be the right thing.
But that's an intriguing thing, is
if you can do it just during school hours like the school,
you know, slow in the school zone kind of thing,
I agree it's weird to do it on ARTIF.
It is not technically a school zone.
But I'd love to have a little more follow-up
when the results from this pilot come back.
Some of the things that came up tonight
would be worth further exploring, see how we're doing.
Stop, one of the things I learned on TSAC
is that stop signs really aren't a traffic calming measure.
This is not how it works.
So I don't think that's, it is tempting
and it comes up a lot.
But every time neighbors suggest stop signs to calm traffic,
they get told that you actually have to have engineering data
to support a stop sign.
And camera enforcement, we can talk about later.
I'm not there yet.
I will tell you, I think there's some really serious concerns
with starting there.
So we can talk about that later, but just didn't
want the silence to seem like there
was consensus on that issue.
I strongly support this pilot for three years.
I've been watching this crawl its way through the process.
And what people seem to say is, as long as that sign is up,
we can't get data on what really happens.
But I think what we've all heard is
you can't just take away the sign without creating
other solutions and protections.
I really thought this was thoughtful and well considered,
and I would support it.
It sounds like it might be the only one,
but I actually thought this was the right thing to do next.
I am supportive of it as well.
I just want to keep asking all the questions
we're all asking.
And I thought a lot of what you just brought up
and what everyone's brought up tonight is excellent
and relevant questions.
And I wanna thank the members of the public who are here
who have also raised some real concerns.
One other thing I just wanted to add that I was reminded of with your comments Mayor is
the how do we with the study figure out who's dropping off at OIS and who's not. I mean because
Because I'm not convinced that we're going to learn that necessarily, because I'm thinking
back to my days, right, dropping off.
And I had both experiences.
I lived right off of Arteth for, I think, six years on Beaconsfield, for those of you
who lived there, and walked my kids to Delray and OIS.
Or sometimes they walked alone as they got a little older, and then also moved just very
close by and ended up driving. And there was, you know, a year I had drop-offs at all three
kids' schools with three kids. And, you know, spent a lot of time exactly on these roads
we're talking about. So, and would drop off at, oh, drop off the middle schooler before
high schoolers. So, is there a way we can, we can figure that out? And on the cameras,
I'm also not quite there yet, but I'm really interested in what you're saying, because
I'm not understanding them.
No, no, no.
I just want to hear more.
I think it's actually, I'm hearing two potential matters
initiated, but anyway, that I'd want to learn more about.
So yeah, I mean, how do we figure out who's a cut through
and who's an OIS drop off?
That is a good question.
We struggled with that same issue.
There is no real way for us to tell.
The closest we could get was the timing-based suggestion
we went with, knowing well aware, like the public comment we heard, that there are folks
who are going to be dropping kids at OAS and going to Maraga way, or we have even observed
people pull up to the side of IV drive to drop off the middle schoolers and pick up
so that there is no easy way to tell, and we are also aware that folks actually drive
towards Maraga to, you know, a great breakfast or take Maraga Road to go to Lafayette area.
So, but without actually knowing who goes to
Miramont High School and what license plate they have,
there won't be a direct way for us to come to that conclusion.
So we made, we didn't really separate that information out.
We felt like it's through traffic.
So we felt like the best approach might be to just
consider that that's a very small percentage
of the larger data pool and just go with that.
have a couple things. One is I agree with Vice Mayor Gee that a whole year seems like too long
for a pilot. If we're going to do a pilot at all, I really think doing it in the fall and reviewing
the data as soon as it's available to make that as short a period of time is important so that we
actually have real data that we're acting on and not just leaving it up indefinitely. I'm very
I'm very concerned about two things.
One that I think we need a stop sign at Ardeth and Ivy Drive.
I agree with whoever said, do you stop for a right turn
if there's no stop sign there?
I think if we want to put a no right turn sign in,
we should really consider putting a stop sign there.
And I'm also very interested in slowing down the speed
on Ivy and Ardeth and wondering about how quickly we could look
into new speed limits, reducing that speed limit,
at least during school hours and those flashing signs
that say your speed is 30 miles an hour.
This is a 15 mile an hour zone around the schools
to try to, even the ones that blink blue
and make you think they're taking a picture of you,
that would all be great to slow traffic down on those roads
before we think about removing the no left turn sign
because we know people are cutting through,
More people cut through after eight when the sign
is lifted than before.
But I can only imagine without the sign,
more people will cut through.
There's just no way that it's going
to be less and less or somehow going
to change people's idea of what is quicker.
And for the students at Marimani,
it's going to take a lot of convincing, I suspect,
for them to change what they think
makes sense in their minds.
I'm totally in favor of all of the coral drive improvements
we can do.
And I agree, the sooner, the better.
That's where I'm at.
I'd like to look at the protected left under coral
and whether that's something that we could figure out
how to do.
So there was a left turn light there,
but there could be a protected left turn lane and signal.
I think that might help as well.
I might just jump in for a clarifying question.
What I thought the staff report said about the year-long pilot
It was not that we're gonna spend a year collecting data,
it's that the data would be collected
at opportunities in the fall and then the,
let's call it December through end of the school year period
was to analyze, bring it back, make decisions,
consider next steps, and it was an up to one school year
so that you had the room you needed,
but it was not necessarily talk about it in May.
Could you please clarify?
That is absolutely correct.
I was going to make the clarification myself.
The timing is strictly because it's a regulatory science
that we are dealing with.
So we felt like we might be extremely constrained
if we ask only for the time between now and December 31st.
And we have to take down these signs January 1st.
But we felt like we will not have enough time
to process the data that we have collected
and come up with some solutions.
One year is being proposed as what
felt is a reasonable timeline to allow us to collect the data and if there is some interruptions
in being able to collect the necessary data between now and December, then that extra
time will allow us to do one more run if we need to. That was the intent behind it, that
was...
And on that, I'm glad you brought that up because the staff report said that the data
would come back to the council. The goal was for that to happen in February.
That's correct.
December data and that had to be processed. Okay. So, if that's how it's coming back to
us by February and at that point we would get to weigh in again. Okay. I don't know
if that changes anyone's mind, but that figured into me because first when I saw it, I did
think a year seems like a whole school year seems like a lot, but the explanation made
sense that it would it was really the fall through December that we were going
to look at as soon as we could. Can I jump in on that? I heard that we would be
counting twice and I don't know why we need from August to December to count
twice. I would think you could count one day in September and one day in October
and expedite this and not make it such a year,
but we come back to the council in December
or something like that.
I don't know, I feel like we could expedite it.
I can share the thought process behind that decision
more than anything else.
I mean, I do want to explain that we are also kind of trying
to understand what's the best approach to take care.
And part of the solution that we are proposing
kind of relies on behavioral change.
It's not necessarily just we take the sign out and put a new sign in and everybody is
going to immediately follow. We don't believe that. We feel like it's going to be a change
that happens over time along with enforcement and the recognition that they are finding themselves
waiting much longer to go to school for a better destination than staying in Moragawa. So
Recognizing that pattern and then down the line even knowing that if they continue to do it
So in order to observe all that we will need a little bit of time
We just wanted to make sure whatever data we are picking picking up is actually
Providing enough information for us to infer something from it
I feel like if we remove the no left turn sign before we've taken other measures like the stop sign or
The speed limit on ivy. We just know there's going to be
more traffic. There's no way there's going to be less. So...
Madam Mayor, if I may clarify, I do recognize I heard that a few times. So
although the report is in front of you tonight, the intent was to have this
conversation continue from the previous discussions. We didn't want to take a
long pause, but the implementation of this item
that's in front of you tonight will not happen prior to August.
So the sign changes that are being proposed
is not going to happen tomorrow. Whatever we have right now,
we are not asking that those be recently taken down there is a date we put in us.
I appreciate that I'm just suggesting that I'd like to see more done to protect the
residents of Ivy Drive before we remove the no left turn sign.
Will the low left turn sign be done before other measures are taken?
Currently the things that are in movement right now are the improvements we are proposing on
on Coral Drive, the stop sign and the striping changes,
which as I mentioned,
we are targeting within the next few weeks.
Hopefully we can get a contract on board
and get that implemented.
So between now and August,
whatever else that has already been approved,
I can assure that that will be in place.
But we did discuss a few other things
that will need more time for us to explore and study
and whatever follow up we need to do.
So the things that have been approved,
I can tell there is sufficient time between now and August
to be able to implement those.
I think, and someone chime in if I'm wrong on this,
but I think you're hearing consensus
that we really want everything
that we've approved so far at least,
at least that needs to be implemented
before the pilot begins.
I think that's something we all feel strongly about.
So one more time, can you please affirm
whether that is the case, city manager.
I mean, I think what Siva is saying is his pretty hope,
the sidewalk is an absolute, not,
that's not gonna happen, obviously,
but this stop sign and the other striping improvements
or things that could be done before the start of this.
And all the other things
in the proposed program in tonight's staff report
would be done before or concurrently
with the removal of the no left.
All the other turn restriction movements?
Yes. Yes.
And the stoplight timing?
stoplight timing.
The stoplight timing is gonna happen
along with whatever improvements going on right now.
So that'll be ahead of this.
That's not part of this request, right?
Like the request tonight is more to do with the signage.
That's wonderful.
One of the things when I was on planning commission
that was a frustrating behavior
is what we would call designing from the bench
where you'd get seven commissioners
and somebody's got their house plan
that they've spent all this money and time on
and seven commissioners have their own opinions
about, well, what if you put the window over here?
And I like, what if this trim?
And we would remind ourselves that our job is not
to be architects or designers.
And so one of the things is I've got a list of all these really
constructive, good ideas of things
that we should continue to delegate to the TSAC.
And I keep looking at Councilmember Hoxley,
because she's our TSAC liaison, asking for speed bumps
and the speed limit issue and that new stop sign idea.
Lots of new ideas came up designing from the bench tonight.
And so I would hope that we could take an action
on what is proposed on tonight's agenda.
And also see if the city manager
and our TSAC representatives are hearing
these additional suggestions to continue to discuss,
especially in light of all the data we're going to get.
Is that a feasible way of ifricating?
Yeah, that's, I mean, it's feasible for us
to continue to work with TSAC
on other school safety improvements,
because that's, I think, what we're talking about here.
We wanna make sure that there's bike and ped improvements,
and we've got an upcoming update
to our bike and ped planning, right?
We're working on that.
So, parallelly, we are also working on,
we are in the process of getting a consultant onboard
update our bike trails walkways master plan so a component of that also
involves studying the safe route to school plan for all our schools that's
right that's great will be more improvements recommended based on that
which will also be implemented and these are great feedback we can actually feed
into that too. Based on that I'm going to attempt to make a motion to approve F4
as proposed knowing that the TSAC will take all of the additional ideas and
feedback into consideration as we measure and even if it's successful that
you can always do do more and ask if there is a second to that motion. I'll
second that. All in favor? Aye. Aye. That's all I hear. Does anybody well first of all
all against please say nay. Nay. Is there any counter proposal or just the motion
fails? I would suggest that the three other signs that changed the no left
turn hours on South Weight White Hall and Eastwood the change on Eastwood the
no left turn on to Moraga Way from Eastwood I think is an excellent change
to make because I do think people are cutting through and trying to make that turn so those
three items I'm in favor of and I would really like to look at the no right turn on Ardeth
but I just feel like without a stop sign there it's not going to have a lot of effect but
maybe Siva feels differently. I'd consider that one. I'm reluctant to remove the no left
to be able to do that. We don't
have to have a left turn sign on
ivy until we have some other
measures in place to slow the
traffic on art if and on ivy.
Can you clarify which measures
given that everything in the
staff report will happen? What
additional measures?
I think the one that I think is
important is the stop sign at
the slowing the speed limit down on Ivy and Artith.
And there was also concern about this being a full school year pilot program, as opposed
to a shorter pilot program, and so I guess I'm wondering if I'm asking my colleagues
who voted no whether you would be amenable to a shorter pilot program, because I do agree
that a pilot program, I didn't really view it as something for the full calendar academic year.
I know there's costs and a lot of work involved with removing a sign. And the example of trying
to allow for education and culture change before we measure kind of makes, does make sense to me.
At the same time, I can understand for residents why a year feels a long time. So I don't know if
there's some what I guess I'm also looking at staff in terms what's a
workable compromise and I want to hear from everyone if that's if that figures
in. Well it definitely figures in my thinking I'm also extraordinarily
disappointed about the option of pursuing camera enforcement. I said I
want to hear more I'm not saying no. No I'm interested in following. I just think
we need a full staff report frankly I don't think it's a bad idea Vice Mayor I
I just think we need a full staff report and I want to hear more. It's not something I'm up to speed on right now
Okay, that makes me yeah, I'm neutral on it. I'm just not
agreeable you
We enforcement would be no wait usually, but it's not a sack
Recommended this two fulls of school years ago and we have been debating
Going against the TSX recommendation for two full school years
But a program with a five-month behavioral change period to measure and then an
Action period is not okay, and we're hung up because of automated
Camera reading enforcement. I just feel like we've gotten to a really weird place. No, I don't think that's that's it
I think the I think the
concern is is that everyone recognizes what a complicated problem it is and there's not one magic fix to
any of it, and so if you push here, it's going to pop out here, and there's no easy
way to do it.
So I think what we're concerned about is just that, again, if you try to do everything at
once, that's also going to be hard to tell what helped or didn't help, right?
It is a horrible problem.
It just really is and again, some of these things are just not particularly meaningful
if there's no ability to enforce, right?
I think the no right turn on artists is something I'd love to see tomorrow, but nobody's going
to be.
If nobody's enforcing it, it's not going to matter because we already have the data that
says extraordinary amounts of people are already disobeying the sign that says no left turn
onto Ivy. And it's the same with speed limits. Find me a street in Arendelle where people
aren't routinely driving faster than the speed limit. We can lower the speed limit, but again,
if there's no enforcement, you haven't achieved anything, right?
I am more prone to tighten the window. I don't know that that's going to really give us a
full picture of sort of cultural change. I had mentioned yesterday to the city manager
that I think this also would require a real splash in terms of trying to communicate with
the community about what's going on. I think that would also be important.
I think we would need the schools to be pushing it out in their weekly communications. That's
That's our best way to communicate with parents who are driving.
So far we have a no.
So nothing will change unless somebody who voted no has something that they would like
to see.
We heard a little bit from Councilmember Hoxie.
We've got more to do on tonight's agenda.
Before I close this matter with a no action, does anybody want to suggest something?
Or make a motion of something that they would pass and otherwise I believe we will simply
move on with our nose? I'm seeing nobody tilting into the microphone. We will close this matter.
Hold on. I think I was going to try to summarize the feedback that I think there's consensus on,
which is that even though there's not consensus on tonight's decision about the no left turn
on IV for a pilot program. There does seem to be consensus, if somebody wants to discuss it,
about restricting some of the other movements that are being proposed on tonight's agenda. So
perhaps there's somebody that wants to make a motion that is absent the IV drive, but maybe
some of the other movement restrictions. It also seems that there's consensus amongst the council
for us to continue to pursue speed cushions, particularly on ARTIF, as traffic calming
solutions and looking at other traffic calming solutions, identifying or investigating whether
or not there's any additional stop signs warranted along the Ivy Drive corridor, particularly
around ARTIF, to ensure that people are adhering to any sort of restrictions on turn movements
during that period of time, but knowing that a stop sign is a stop sign and it will not
change after school hours, it will still require a stop. And I've heard consensus on that there
are modifications to our CIP. Maybe I'll talk to Scott and Siva instead of waiting for the
July CIP, we could propose to bring that CIP back to you sooner to get a couple of months
head start on trying to move forward with the sidewalk improvements along Coral Drive.
And then looking at other, you know, we'll get back together at staff level and determine
and if there's any other solutions that are possible
to improve bike and ped safety
around the coral Maraga Way intersection.
So I think there is some consensus that I've heard
amongst council members tonight.
If I got any of that wrong, let me know,
but I don't believe there's consensus on one aspect
of what is on tonight's agenda,
and that's the left turn restriction on Ivy being removed.
We thought that's what, to be honest,
We thought that's what the council wanted us to come back and propose so that we could
at least analyze data and compare the two. But if that's not, if we heard you wrong,
we apologize. We thought that was what you wanted and then we could come back to you
with a full, more comprehensive sort of study session again to be able to analyze the impacts
of what we've done with the changes, the holistic set of changes that we were proposing. So
My apologies because I think that was my takeaway that we should proceed with the pilot so that
we can give you better information later on.
But if you only want to do a portion of it, we can look at a portion of it, and then we
can look at additional speed and traffic calming measures in addition to the turn movement
restrictions that we've looked at tonight.
May I ask, was changing the stoplight timing?
I just didn't hear, was that in the list that you recapped?
In terms of the intersection improvement, I did mention that at the end about that coral
the Morago Way intersection, if there's any other sort of enhancements we can make, whether
that is-
No, it was-
It was dedicated to-
Changing the stoplight timing, not the-
Oh, stoplight timing's already happening.
That was happening as part of the previous actions that the council took.
Great.
Yes, please.
But we are hearing a consensus tonight to get started on changing the timing of the stoplights
sooner than later.
That was not clear in the beginning of this today.
it. Well, I think we had already heard consensus to do that at the last meeting. And so we're
pursuing that just as an action that we need to during the school year, we'll give that,
get that going. We are working on it in conjunction with the other improvements on coral the stop
signs and with the striping changes. Okay. I'll get right on it tomorrow.
Did we also hear consensus on the right, no right turn on artists? Or do we not have a consensus
because some of us want that to be a stop sign too.
Because I would say, I want the no right hand turn sign,
but I also want the stop sign.
But if I have to vote twice, first tonight
for the right hand, no right hand, you got me, yeah.
I understand what you're saying.
I think all we've heard thus far is one motion
that included removing the no left turn on IV movement.
And I'm saying, I think you could add to your consensus list
that there's a consensus to make no right-hand turn on Ardo tonight. I just
want to say I'm not on board with that. I'm I'm unhappy that the no left turn
was part it was part of a set of changes to fix that neighborhood and I would
like to have a chance to at least vote on it holistically or piecemeal. So if
you want to bring a motion that's great. I don't think there's unanimity on that
point. I see. Okay. I mean, I think the no right on artists and the no left off of eastwood
are two things that I would be happy to consider approving tonight if other council members were
interested. And also in changing the times. That's fine too. Those are all fine steps from my
perspective. So I don't know if you'd like me to bring that motion. I'm happy to and see if
if someone seconds it. So I'll move that we make all of the changes recommended
except that no left turn on IV. Is there a second? All right I'll second it. All
right all in favor? Aye. All against? I'm a nay. And Council Member Riley I didn't
hear were you an aye or nay? Aye. You're an aye. All right so that motion passes with
four ayes and a nay. Okay. City Clerk was that sufficient for the record? Great. Are
We are we done and ready to move on to the next I think you are done and we will continue to work at the staff level
On other changes that we would help to encourage traffic calming in the area. Terrific. Thank you very much. Thank you all for such a
Well rounded discussion. It was incredibly complicated as an issue and I just felt like if we all just spoke once and took a vote that was
Didn't do it the the service it needed. So thank you all
And with that we will turn to our first policy item tonight, which is H1 and it looks like
Mickey Cronin is here to present the staff report, and thank you.
Good evening, Mayor and Council members, Mickey Cronin, Senior Management Analyst, and I am
the staff liaison to the Supplemental Sales Tax Oversight Commission, also known as the
SSTOC.
the City Council discussed a funding request from Fire Safe Moraga Arinda, FSMO FISMO,
and referred the request to the SSTOC, which in turn created an ad hoc subcommittee.
The assistant city manager, Doug Alessio and I, met with the subcommittee seven times,
and they brought the information to the full SSTOC on two occasions.
Tonight, the SSTOC is asking the City Council to consider a one-year service contract with FISMO to administer the City's existing fire fuels reduction incentive program, assist FISMO with their neighborhood-based fuel reduction grant program, and expand community outreach and education in Orinda for wildfire.
This service contract with FISMO is intended to strengthen coordination of wildfire mitigation programs, increase neighborhood participation and improve overall effectiveness of the city's wildfire efforts.
With that, I'd like to introduce Brad Barber from the SSTOC and a member of the ad hoc subcommittee and then Mark evidence president of FISMO.
would like to ask Madam Mayor
and members of the City Council,
the subcommittee may appear to
have taken its time in getting
back to you on the issue of
funding for FISMO's request.
We did meet frequently.
It took a while to get through
it, but the commission now
proposal. I'd like to take just a moment to give you a little bit of context on our
thinking in the, in view of the hour. I don't want to go into great detail on that subject,
but I would be available for questions. As you all know, the measure are passed in 2020
a result of a campaign that largely was built around the need to do something for wildfire
protection prevention.
And it passed, the commission was staffed with people who were, in addition, I think,
to being all infrastructure nerds, they were interested in doing more to reduce the threat
and the city of Irinda. The bulk of the money, however, has been spent appropriately and
spent well on infrastructure, not on wildfire prevention. Among the programs that were suggested
and recommended by the commission and adopted by the council was the city's fire fuel reduction
incentive awards program in November of 2022. It originally provided for individual property
owners to apply for reimbursement or for up to $599. The reason for that was to try to
avoid having to issue a 1099. It was a program that was slow to take off, that was somewhat
disappointing to the Commission and I think to all of us, but it did increase. The staff
worked hard to make it more successful and it became more successful. The Commission
recommended increasing that award to a thousand dollars and although that's a
relatively modest increase it resulted in a substantial increase in the number
of property owners who have applied for it and received it. To date there have
been 279 incentive awards made totaling $191,000 but that has
resulted in costs or a reduction in wild for fuel of nearly $900,000 or $875,000. So one
way to look at this is it's given the city, given the taxpayers and contributed to the
people a ratio of $4.50 for every dollar the city has expended.
terrific and it's growing and the public seems more aware of it than ever, so we
we feel strongly that we want it to continue and to grow further. At the same
time another program developed by an independent nonprofit outside entity,
FISMO has a slightly different approach aimed at the same objective with which the Commission
enthusiastically supports. And the council asked for our input or the Commission's recommendation
on FISMO's request for funds, in looking at this,
it struck many people on the commission,
as well as some members of the public,
that it might actually be advantageous and complementary
and additive if the outside entity would take
on the responsibility for both programs,
because they have a network for informing the public
and they have other things that are harder
for the city as a public entity to do.
So we looked at the possibilities
of granting funds to FISMO but going beyond that
and asking them to take over responsibility
for administering of the taxpayer-funded,
both would be taxpayer funded,
but of the city's incentive awards program,
we wanted to make certain that in doing so,
we could maintain the growth
in the individual incentive awards program,
and that we wouldn't unintentionally,
and we don't mean to be accusing anyone
of intentionally wanting to do less
with incentive awards, but we feel it's important
that we do both.
We feel that in light of the success,
in increasing numbers of property owners seeking funds
under the incentive awards program,
that raising the amount that can be reimbursed
by an additional $500 would pay further dividends.
And I can go into the reasons why we believe
that to be the case, but I think the record shows
just that going up $400 has resulted
in substantial increases.
So that meant that we needed to develop points
of an agreement with FISMO that would assure
the success both of the FISMO neighborhood
the city's current city's new
the Incentive Awards Program and Incentives for the Neighborhood Awards
Program. So it seems to be win-win. It seems to be something that will together
be greater than the sum of the parts and that's what we hope to do and that's
the basis of our recommendation. Thank you all. Did you say that Mark Evans
was going to co-present, or are you presenting on behalf of the combined group?
I think Brad was presenting on behalf of SSTOC as terms of the recommendation, and I think Mark
can speak to what has been discussed in terms of FISMO's administration of what we are sort of
dubbing as more of a service contract, right? Instead of it being a grant allocation of a
certain amount of money, we would be looking at this as FISMO acting in service to the city
and providing these programs and we would then reimburse them for the costs associated with
their administration but also reimburse the FISMO for their grants to the homeowners.
Perfect, thank you.
Hello City Council, Mark Evans. First I'd like to thank the SSTOC, all the members,
they put an extraordinary amount of effort representing the City of Arinda and we're
We're very proud that they're recommending to you to consider us.
I'd also like to thank the city staff, Doug, Mickey, specifically helping us collaborate
and get to the point where we're at.
You see the presentation.
What I want to tell you a little bit is the last time you saw me back in August.
So back in August, we probably told you that we had a grant for $100,000.
We're doing projects across the area.
And then the work stopped because the federal government released some personnel and basically
we had spent money of over $30,000 of our own budget to reimburse.
And we did not get reimbursed until the end of February this year.
So we had to put projects on hold, but we got the money and we started up and we already
got another project done.
So by end of February, we got money and here end of March, we're wrapping it up tomorrow
and we spent over $20,000, 10,000 is from the grant and a little more than 10,000 is
going to come from the neighborhood, one of our firewise neighborhoods in South Miranda.
That project is going on.
We're basically very actively bringing up some people who applied last year.
We're very confident we'll be able to spend the rest of that money by the end of the year,
probably helping another five or six neighborhoods.
And real quick, of the four projects we finished, three were in Orinda, one was in Maraca.
The second thing we had, and you may have heard about this early at the end of last
year, we made a proposal to the Contra Costa County Community Impact Fund, district four,
and we were awarded $40,000 for vulnerable residents.
These are individual residents that have run down homes.
They bathed out, they're physically or mentally unable to take care of their properties.
Well we got that money, we created our program, and we have selected three residents.
Just so happened, all of them are Narinda, and we have another two or three candidates.
So we believe we're going to have the ability to do about 10 projects.
The difference is the program we have for incentive, which is a very good program, these
people can't even do that even work.
They don't know what the scope is, they don't do.
So we go in there, we help them scope it out,
we collaborate with the fire department,
we hire the contractor, and we help them.
And so, and probably to back up,
we have a great Moraga Renda Firewise Network resource
to help us point to those people.
And so we've been getting a number of calls and comments.
So we've done outreach and everything,
but to kind of brag a little bit,
You guys all joined last year, a lot of you did.
We're now over 5,400 residents in Baraga,
Brenda, and Firewise neighborhood,
and there's a good chance
we're gonna break another 1,000 this year.
So the network of people engaged through Firewise,
bringing us leads, helping us identify.
And then the last one we got is just in March,
we were awarded a $100,000 grant from PG&E
at the direction of M.O.F.D.
PG&E came to MOFD and said,
hey, we want to do something in your area.
You guys have very high risk, you know, community type stuff.
This is not residential, but across power lines,
emergency response and stuff.
So we've been working collaboratively
with Moraga, Arinda Fire District and PG&E
near the substations, near the areas.
And we've been awarded it, but we're still working the scope.
We're working with the MOFD to identify
where the highest scope is.
I don't think very much it's going to be on residential properties or is going to be some emergency evacuation, but there's going to be
Grass cutting potentially some prescribed burning different things like that that make our
Community safer so in combination of all those things because I'm telling you we're moving forward and we're really excited if we're a
Get some this it's not a grant
It's a service contract to work with you and hopefully we can demonstrate our ability to help
the City of Arinda make progress. Thank you. Thank you. If that's all is that all
for the staff presentation? Okay hang on Judd Hammond's gonna. There was one more
item included in that proposal item number three. Mark was talking a lot
about the firewise neighborhoods and it's important to understand that the
entire Firewise Network is strictly volunteers and they would benefit
greatly from having a small cadre of professional staff to provide them with
some support and the idea of that item three is for the city to provide the
funds for a small number of professional people to support the Firewise
networks in this general outreach for all the various trainings, educations, awareness,
as well as supporting FireWise.
I'm sure we're going to have questions for all of the speakers, but if that's, Mickey,
is that all for the present day?
Before we go to questions, I'll ask what council member questions we have.
I was just wondering if the city manager could sort of review exactly what she's asking,
what we're being asked to approve tonight.
so we have it. So I can do that. And Doug can also come up and assist me. But basically,
what we're asking for is the ability to engage with FISMO as a service contractor to the city,
to be able to implement the city's current incentive program, as well as support and fund
the neighborhood program that currently FISMO is offering. There is, as part of that proposal,
and then the third component of it is the community education piece, which we have designed
to be more specific to the types of activities and then the professional support that they
would provide to those types of activities. So that's the proposal. The proposal embeds
in it, you know, administrative overhead in each of those grant requests for the members
of the community who wish to work with FISMO. We would then reimburse them and include a
percent administration fee and that is so that we can one guarantee that the staff time that
they're spending is being spent on the horrendous work as opposed to generally to perhaps to the
Tana Moraga who is at this point not participating financially and supporting FISMO. But we wanted to
structure this in a way that really talked about delivering services to the community.
FISMO is well served to do that and given the network of people that they have to reach
out in the community and do the things that I think we have tried to do over the last
several years and try and do it more effectively than what we've been able to manage internally
at the city.
Is that fair Doug?
Do you have anything else you'd like to add?
That is a very good description.
A couple other items are this would come back to city council ultimately after we got together
a FISMO and developed a contract.
So the contract would come back for council approval.
again the third piece of the the program item number three is since I've attended
SST OC meetings since my arrival there's been a lot of talk about grassroots
outreach and communication and by nature that's really hard for a government to
do and so we have this potential nonprofit partner that is well situated
to do it and so the idea there is to maybe take some things that we've been
doing for community outreach the wildfire fair instead of having staff
time invested in that we we have them perform it the dollar amount allocated
there is more than the total listing the idea there is that as the year goes on
and opportunities present themselves we could then do a change order and come up
with a dollar amount associated with any future outreach effort that sort of made sense.
So the amounts are obviously not to exceed amounts, so it would be actually paid for
services provided.
And so it could potentially be less depending on how many grants that they administered
in both and how much outreach that we had them do. And also in section three is some
administrative costs, the costs for some financial oversight, independent review, potentially
look at the administrative costs. We pegged it at 12 percent because that's an amount
that the federal grant was paying and that's a common federal overhead rate unless you
have a study to support a different rate and so part of our thought was we
could put a little effort into determining is 12% the correct
administrative burden. And then the last piece and the commissioner had mentioned
this is we want to incentivize the continued growth of our individual
program and so we're thinking as long as some thresholds were hit like more
awards were made in the year than the previous year that we could award that
performance with a small you know cash bonus. So that's sort of the idea of that
third component of the contract. And so the total amount is still the four
hundred thousand? Four hundred and fifty actually. Not to exceed. I had a
question about the measure our money had been paying for a staff level
community outreach person when that role went away. It seems like a number of the
things in this are replacing that role and then some are totally new and
different. Can you help us think about this allocation relative to replacing
that staff role versus being additional? Sure. Public employees are notoriously not
cheap. And so for us, it's an efficiency thing, right? If we can get a nonprofit that does a lot of
their work with volunteers, they're more likely to take any resources we give them and be able to
do more with it than we could. So that was the general underlying premise of that area.
I had one other question about as I was going through this, I saw all these things that were
like big bureaucracy, right?
Three cost bids and audits and all these checks and balances,
which I understand when you're dealing with a nonprofit,
you need the ability to have controls,
but it also looked like you were just putting anchors
all over this brand new program
with kind of classic public bureaucracy stuff.
Can you just help us understand
why you chose the checks and balances you chose
and whether you think they might burden the program?
So I believe the part you're speaking of about the three bids and and whatnot was part of the program actually
FISMO's perspective. That's what they currently do when they're doing one of these projects. So all we did was capture their current practice.
On paper.
But from a current events perspective. I think that, you know, when
you have a government nonprofit partnership.
It's very good that there's some transparency
and some fiscal oversight to make sure
that the funds are being spent in the way
that the community expects.
And those things are pretty standard fair
when you're dealing with public funds.
So other questions?
Please.
A related question on that is, and I
the benefit of attending the SSTSC when they were discussing this. So maybe Mr. Evans or
you Doug could speak to this. My understanding is that FISMO has figured out how to do those
three bids really efficiently, actually. They have all three come in at one time. Is that
sort of how they do these group collaborative projects is actually, I think, really kind
of exciting and interesting. So if if you're interested in that, maybe Mr Fizmo can speak
directly. I don't want to put words in the mouth, but I am Rob Schroeder. I'm the executive
director of FireSafe Moraga Rinda. Yes, just to clarify what you were touching on. We currently
do contractor walkthroughs when we have a project. And so we get all of we were currently
out of the area. Um, and we
all get together and we walk
the property together. So
everybody's bidding on the
exact same items on the
project. And, um, it's come in
typically within a week and I
take it to the board for
approval. Simple as that.
the city. So it's a little.
which weren't defined. When we sort of worked through this, we realized hey
would be really I think complementary to have them administer both programs. At
that point it too and too seemed like a good place to be for a total of four
which is what their original ask. The additional piece is really to supplant
to do outreach. Which was not something that was in their original proposal. So I think yes, it's for more money, but the city will get more value out of it than the original proposal.
Was there thought put into keeping it at 400 and getting all the things you're talking about, getting all, achieving all three goals, but keeping it at 400?
I think our focus was more on how much fire fuel we could remove and I think
with the momentum of our individual program and sort of where FISMO believes
their program can hit it felt hard to fund either one of those for less than
two. I think that our program scanning momentum and if you approve the increase
you know we're going to be with if they do just as well as we did last year
that will bring us up to you know one hundred and seventy five thousand
dollars and we're hoping they'll actually beat last year. So the
alternative would have been either not getting some outreach support that I
think is important for the community in our organization or reducing the
potential fire fuel reduction. So we can certainly this is we're here for input
If you'd like to work with the dollar amounts and limit it to the original 400, that's certainly
something that you can direct us to do.
We're looking for your direction and input.
Thank you.
If I could just add onto that, I mean, certainly we could cap the individual program to a lesser
amount.
And I hope we would be wildly successful and we would come back to the council and say,
we have so much success on the individual program, we need more money allocated towards
So I mean, to us, the the caps are arbitrary because again, they're not going to get the money until there's an actual project that needs to be reimbursed for their expenses.
So we're going to hold all those funds in our accounts until and when they're used.
So it's really it's a it's more of a measurement to see how successful certain programs can be.
So we could certainly set the number lower and then come back to you guys with an amendment to the service contract to extend the amount
for each program, if they're wildly successful.
I'd like to speak a little more to that for the view from SSTOC.
Absolutely agree with everything that Doug had to say.
And I understand the concern about where Citi's money is going to go.
SSTOC, as a group,
recognizes that we need to do much more than we are already doing
in order to reduce wildfire fuels in our city.
We've already had two fires in Southern California this year.
We had horrible fires last year.
We've been really lucky so far,
but we don't want to stretch this luck indefinitely.
We need to do a lot more to reduce wildfire fuels
and measure our funds are significantly meant
to be expended in that area.
We think that FISMO has tremendous potential.
at the same time of course,
we want to see that potential demonstrated.
So our hope is not to come back to you for less,
but to come back to you for more, significantly more.
But we'd like to see Fismo demonstrate their potential,
so that everybody in the city can see
and everybody will be wildly enthusiastic
about giving them even more money.
for the questions?
My question is, was there any discussion given to what I would like to see is, you know,
reporting of what got accomplished.
I don't know what FISMO is doing now to that end, but I want everybody to be able to take
incredible credit for what gets accomplished, so I think that's something that we really
our community and I would love to see what you've talked about in that regard.
Yeah, of course, I do do an official post project assessment that I share with the board.
On top of that, we do a lot of social media posts, we do updates to our website.
So what we're doing is publicly out there, it might be in a more summarized form when
and it's on a social media.
But we're committed to being completely transparent and open.
And we don't have any secrets in our organization.
So it's also a collaborative effort.
So if there's things that you want to see in here,
we will share that with you.
And I do believe if you read the proposal,
the idea is that they'll do a quarterly report
to the SSTOC, which highlights everything
they have accomplished in that period.
So there's report back requirements also.
Other questions, yes.
I understand the neighborhood grants are matching.
Are the individual grants matching, France?
Yes, they are.
So the homeowner has to provide $1,500 worth.
So it would have to be a $3,000 project.
Homeowners putting in $1,500, and FISMO, where the city is
putting in the other $1,500.
That's correct.
It could also be less than $3,000.
Yeah, I understand.
I'm glad because if you look up just the cost of removing a large pine tree or eucalyptus tree
is going to be more than $3,000 in all likelihood. And so having reasonable amounts makes more sense
to me than smaller amounts that don't come close to representing the cost. And another question
about sort of how you decide what your priorities are for which projects you do first or where the
the most need is, do you look at the most highest severity
fire zones and trying to do projects in those areas first?
Is there any method to that?
If I could speak to your previous comment.
Because we work in groups of larger groups of homeowners,
we bring the costs of vegetation removal way down.
So we're not getting bids for $3,000 tree removal,
unless it's probably gigantic.
we're in the middle of finishing up one right now
where there were five trees removed
and the homeowner actually wanted more trees removed
and we got the cost down to about $1,000 a tree.
So there's considerable savings that you can get
when working in this way.
With regards to our criteria,
we do have a set of criteria taking into account
all the kinds of things that you mentioned,
fire severity zones, vulnerable residents,
amount of vegetation, proximity to an evacuation route, all these things.
And we take our projects to MOFD and we get their input because they know where the highest
dangers are.
And we certainly, like I said, take all that into account.
How are you assured that Orinda money is being spent in Orinda?
I was waiting for that question.
Seemed important.
Well, one of the number one things is that the grant money that we receive from the government
or federal government or from the county, we have a timeline to spend that.
So we're going to prioritize spending that money first, probably.
And because we're working across two towns and Bollinger and Canyon, there's some incentive
to also spend that money in in in one of in Moranga for example. But you know I do live
in Aranda and we all live in Aranda and we do want to see projects happen here too. So it's
there's going to have to be some equity across the board but we're very aware of that issue and
Mark can you hear anything I have said? If I could just say one of the ways that we control
that is we don't pay reimbursements for projects that are happening outside of Orinda.
Exactly.
I guess one of my concerns is that the other communities aren't contributing,
so that overhead will go to work that's being done in other communities,
and the grants you get will be going to the work you need to do in other communities,
and Orinda's funding our community as opposed to those grants also funding Orinda's community.
So we have our, the way we've structured our billing accounting, I bill depending on the project,
and so if I'm in my office working, I'm going to be billing on an ARINDA job with an ARINDA
accounting number. It's not, and the other projects get funded through our private fundraising,
so there's no mixing of money there. I understand, but you see what I'm saying.
that I'm hearing from you.
You're saying your private
fundraising would otherwise be
going to Miranda and Moraga, but
now it will only be going to
Moraga, is what I'm hearing.
Well, we also will be getting,
we will also be getting
applications for our grant, our
grants that we have developed.
And so, again, that would be an
accounting issue where any time
spent on that grant would be
noted in the accounting that it
came from that grant fund, not
take a stab at this. Yeah. You will have other grant funds that you're using to fund projects.
Those won't only be funding Maraga or non-Arinda projects. You would be using your
other grant fundings to fund projects in Arinda as well in an equitable way.
I think that's the question. Yes. So our grants are defined. So we have the vulnerable resident,
the Cal Fire and the PG&E or across the fire district.
ARINDA SSTOC recommendation is only ARINDA residents.
Now each grant within those funding things
has some overhead.
Mostly you gotta go look at it,
even find out is this a viable project,
you gotta spend some time to figure all that out,
do some record keeping, that sort of thing.
Really what we're trying to figure out
and be efficient is how much does it cost?
this is why we do a great job is because we competitively bid larger jobs so it's
more cost-effective for the contractor and we're bidding it. I'm telling you
almost every resident has some friend and says hey come and look at my tree
and they say okay that's good and they do it we have them come in and we're
getting 30 to 40 percent lower bids because we're taking the time and then
there's an additional savings because we got multiple people doing the work at
the same time, so they just move one to the other. It might even come out to be 50% less
expensive if you did five individual homes. But going back to the, we're very clear, we
understand I'm a Rinda resident. We're going to be very aligned and our scope of our grants
or our funding are very clear of what they are. We prioritize by wildfire risk. So like
Like I mentioned, we had four grant projects in the Cal Fire one, three are in Orinda,
one's in Moraga.
The one in Moraga, very high risk, Bollinger, very overgrown.
So we just not, you know, make people happy.
We're working by risk and we'll be very transparent about that.
We want you guys to see and we want the people who apply for it understand, hey, you're not
going to come in and be our landscaper.
You're going to come in and help us get hazardous vegetation out of our entire community.
Okay, that's a little bit of a sales job.
And just one other point is, with the quarterly reporting they're doing, we can require quarterly
reporting on all their activities, and if it becomes apparent that somehow all of the
other work is, other funds are being used outside of the city, like any service contract
contract we have, we can cancel it. So if we feel like we're not getting value or being
taken advantage of, there's ways to address that in the contract.
This is not a grant. It's a reimbursement contract.
Correct. It's a contract for services.
Taking the point.
Yes.
Thank you.
Can I press a little harder on this just a little bit? Let's say you had two project
applications both in high severity zones both in ARINDA and how do you
decide if that's going to be funded by grant money or ARINDA reimbursement
both high severity both projects you know just how what goes through your
mind how do you pick if it's going to be funded by the grant outside money or
funded by ARINDA well there's two applications so right the two different
project two different applications one one application comes through the city
that would be a sit that would come from city okay but wouldn't you be directing
them wouldn't you be helping them decide whether or not they should apply this
way or that way applying through the grant or applying through the city like
it's a neighborhood a five neighbors have agreed to do something I mean
councilmember Eilie you're saying like so you encounter a group that you you
You hear through a Firewise community that you have two groups in a Rinda in need, right?
Or you have a group in a Rinda in need, where do you sway them?
What's the overall balance, balancing?
Is that sort of what you're asking?
I'm going to give you a minute to think about your answer because we need to extend our
meeting time.
So you process that.
How much time should we do, 20 or 30 minutes, just so we've got enough time to take as much
as we can?
No, she'll extend to 10-15.
10-15, great.
We good?
All right I make a motion we extend to 1015 second all in favor aye aye Q. Okay
please so we haven't been faced with that until now okay and until you say
yes we won't be faced with it but when you say yes this other grant that we
have to 50-50 match from Cal Fire that's a great grant just like this one's going
be in funding. Not all grants do that. The same program in 2026 is going to be a one-third,
two-third match. That means the federal government will give the resident one-third the money
and the resident has to do two-thirds. I'm going to predict the Arindar residents are going to say,
I'll go for the 50-50 grant before I apply for the one-third. So it really depends upon the grant.
I can't control all those. But at the end of the day, we hope we get overwhelmed and there's so
months, they're like, yeah, use that grant, too. But probably I'm going to say if it's
a random resident, because a good 50-50 grant, and they know they'll get reimbursed quickly,
they'll say, yeah, I'm going to apply for the City of Miranda grant, see if I can get
through that one first. That's what I would think is going to happen.
Okay, thank you. So then I have a question. I mean, this is
Such a great pitch. Why did M.O.F.D. say no? Or the town of Moraga.
You're going to have to ask M.O.F.D. I mean, I talked to the board of directors and I talked,
I even had a subgroup with them, but they're just uncomfortable giving away any of their
tax dollars for anything that's not associated with the fire district. So.
their whole, I mean, their name is fire. Their whole job is fire prevention and suppression,
and they are uncomfortable using tax dollars for this goal.
Don't answer.
So, hopefully, what they'll see is this track record of a program that's successful
in a model that maybe that they would be interested in utilizing themselves in the future.
That would be my hope. I'm just gonna I'm gonna keep digging here. That was what I was thinking
about Moraga that Moraga because they don't have a measurer yet that they might see this and
and want to you know it's it seems like a model program. I guess I'm just surprised that
we my inclination knee-jerk is to say that we should say yes and it is conditional on a match
from MOFD dollar for dollar because I can't think of why our tax tax dollars are somehow
less precious than theirs for this particular cause and that a dollar for dollar match would
be great for everything and everyone. Is there a reason we should not make that the motion tonight?
I mean I I wouldn't suggest that you do that. I think there are things and then I'm not
Clearly, I'm not defending MOFD's position because their position is theirs and their
separate board. But they do provide home hardening. I think the way they're approaching it is currently
is looking at providing physical things to residents. And they provide the gutter guards.
They provide other materials to home harden the home. So they do have grants that they provide.
they do it in the provided materials to residents. So I think that's the approach they're currently
taking. But I think to Doug's point, if there's a construct that gets arranged that shows that
FISMO can execute on some of these activities, they might look towards FISMO to help with the
home hardening grant program or some other, which is also a really key piece of all of this, right,
is to make the home more secure. They also, and correct me if I'm wrong, maybe the vice mayor
recalls but I remember getting they they incorporated the inspectors that were initially pilot and
state funded into their regular budget right and that is personally I want to see more inspectors
because enforcement works onto a prior point so just no I'm just curious but just in terms of like
what programs have arisen within the city and arisen within M.O.F.D. M.O.F.D. is doing the
in the gutter guards, they're doing the vents,
and they have incorporated the inspectors
into their regular budget, which is a big sizable way.
And they also do the fire ambassador program.
And yeah, it's.
I thought fire ambassadors were volunteer.
That's paid by M-O-F-D?
No, they're volunteers, but I think they get some training
or they get some guidance or whatever from M-O-F-D.
And they have paid staff that oversee that program.
Okay.
Just to follow, I mean, I know we should do a public comment.
I just wanted to hear your response to that question
because I expect that you expected that question.
And I just wanted to.
I was coached.
But one thing you do need to see is
they built a lot of firebreaks, community firebreaks.
And so they go out and get funding for that.
And those are millions of dollars.
And this example of this PG&E, they call PG&E.
And they say, well, we'll give that to the nonprofit
because you guys can be more effective
than we run it ourselves, but it's a community thing.
So I do think MOFD is trying to look at the big picture,
but I don't know, you're gonna have to talk to them,
but the residential stuff, that's our heart and soul.
We're fire safe, we're fire wise.
We're working directly with the community.
you know you guys are better at that we don't want to give you our dollars to do
that because we're hoping you can figure out how to get it yourself but anyway
but but I do think they are spending money for the greater good of the
community with funding that they're able to attract that we would not be able to
get we still haven't a public comment but I want everyone to get other
questions are there any others just one quick one and that's the chipper program
will remain with the city of Orinda, or is that something someone else is...
The Chipper program will remain with the city of Orinda, and we are in discussions with
M.O.F.D. to assist. They have a Chipper program, which isn't as robust as the city's program,
and so we're working... and it causes confusion when there are two separate Chipper programs
in the community, and what you'll find is people sign up for both. And then when they
get one, then they try and cancel the other, and it creates some scheduling issues, and
Nikki is well aware of this because she spends a considerable amount of time dealing with
it.
We've made a proposal to MOFD to help and assist with their Chipper program using our
software tools so that we can coordinate better on the Chipper program.
Great.
Thanks.
Sorry to get us off topic a little bit, but I just wanted to clarify.
Any other questions?
For public comment, we did get a number of written comments that are in the written correspondence.
We have a speaker card from Jeff Blum.
And please, if I'm mispronouncing your name,
I do it every time.
In the interest of time, I'm just
here to support what they're doing.
I'm a firewise leader.
I've seen the way the existing incentive program works.
Communication is what does it.
People forget.
I mean, you tell them right now about that program.
And three months down the road, they need to cut down a tree,
and they forget about that program.
So again, I'm in support of this.
I'll save you some time if you have any questions.
But yeah, I'm in support of it, thank you.
Thank you for waiting hours to do that by the way.
Were there anybody else from the public
who would like to comment on this matter?
Seeing none, I'll bring it up for discussion
and deliberation and ask if anybody would like to lead off.
Maybe someone from our two by two?
Yeah, I definitely wanna thank all the SSTOC,
our staff, the FISMO people.
I think this is a great opportunity for us to try something that is, you know, I hope
going to be highly successful, but I think it's well within the boundaries of what makes
sense.
I think it, you know, I think it's a great idea.
It's a great idea for us to try.
I appreciate the SSTOC, you know, has a unanimous view of that, and I'm willing to go forward
because I don't feel like it's any great risk to us because it's something that
if it's not working out we can always change that. So I'm totally supportive of
going ahead tonight. Anyone else? I'll chime in when I went to the SSTSA I had
to keep my opinions to myself which was my role so I I can get to say what they
are now. I think this is really fabulous because I think that FISMO is community
They are in the community, they're connected to the community's residents.
And so it has the community connections and the ability to sort of coalesce folks and
collaborate and do this stuff efficiently with economies of scale in a way that we've
frankly been wanting to do and trying to encourage but haven't quite, you know, got off the ground.
And so I think that they can, there's an efficiency
and an interconnectedness with the community
that is really sort of this boots on the ground approach
that we have been talking about for five years,
but I think this is, so this is exciting to me
because I feel like we're realizing it.
In terms of the funding,
I am comfortable going forward
with the current amount recommended.
I don't know that we'll get through it all actually,
but I think it's a great goal to hit.
I would be shocked if we end up, I mean,
again, I think it's a great goal to hit.
I'm not discouraging anyone,
but we originally allocated a certain amount
to an incentive program and I think I've spent half that.
So if we allocate 200,000 this year
to the individual incentive program,
I'm comfortable doing that.
I don't know that we'll get there,
but I think it's a great goal.
So I'm comfortable with the certain the same the pro program presented. I do think that you know we are some of these tasks are tasks that staff was doing so there is some savings involved and I think that you brought that out earlier Mayor.
I'll say I'm more comfortable because it's a reimbursement contract and not a grant and that we have checks and balances in place to make sure the money is actually being spent on the programs. We need
here in Arinda with Arinda dollars so that makes me more comfortable and I
agree it seems ambitious we've given away $191,000 I guess since the program
was created that we'll actually manage to do $200,000 in a year but I agree
with you if we were successful with it it would be great for the community to
take down all that vegetation because that's really $400,000 worth of removal
and if they're as efficient as they say they are it's really more because trees
at my house were very expensive. So I am willing to move forward with the
concept of checks and balances and watching what's happening and making
sure that we're comfortable. Things are happening the way we hope they are so I
also support this and I think all of you have put so much in time into this.
You've got great volunteers on FISMO, great staff, and a great executive director.
I'm fully confident we need to clone him, and that this is going to be very successful
very soon.
Thank you.
So I'm going to just throw out some caveats.
I came into the meeting tonight not knowing how I would decide.
I am in favor.
But my two biggest reservations are since the program was at $500 and something dollars,
really worry that the power to tax is a tremendous power.
And to use that for private homeowner grants for something that looks like landscaping
is really scary.
It is a very high burden, but we have grilled you and grilled you, and that's the SSTOC
as well as FISMO, about things like prioritizing and make sure it's well spent.
and you've really earned our trust.
But I remain deeply concerned when we say,
let's give away more, let's give away more.
Cause that Measure R money is,
you know, it's going to get harder
to raise sales taxes, folks.
I'm just going to put it out there.
Don't forget raising sales tax
is everybody is competing for that dollar.
And so we need to treat Measure R like it's precious.
But this was really a compelling presentation
and the work and thought you put into it
was just beyond impressive, the whole team.
And so I just am in favor
because you were so thoughtful about every detail.
But the other thing I'm really skeptical about,
as I mentioned, is the match by MOFD.
I'm inclined to say, let's do this exactly once
and ask you to take the year to find some matching grants
because this would be ever so much more powerful
if M.O.F.D., who is well funded,
who also is using taxpayer dollars,
where this is their entire mandate.
And when I think about, you know,
if a big fire is coming from some other jurisdiction, right,
and there's ember casting and high wind,
having home and neighborhood hardening
is the best thing we can do to slow the spread,
to have safe evacuations.
I mean, this does so many things that we need to do
to make the whole city safe.
It's not about one home catching fire.
It's about slowing the spread
and getting people out safely.
I can't fathom why MOFD is not matching us dollar for dollar.
And so I'm begging you all to spend the year
trying to double this program with partnerships.
But I don't wanna jerk your chain and delay this.
This is really, really a smart program and I do support it.
So thanks for humming me in this speech,
but this is hard, so thank you.
with that do we have a motion I'll move that we approve the resolution well
there's no resolution this is really just this is more direction and said do
you support it if you support it we will be back with a contract with FISMO to
execute on the direction from the council all in favor to support the
contract to proceed I we have anything else do we have anything else on the
to go back to the agenda
because I think we just hit
our meeting in time.
You know, I'm.
Can we extend? Oh, matters
initiated. Thank you. Just
extend to 10 20. It's 10 a
movie. We extend to 10 20 so
we can do matters initiated.
Thank you.
Second all in favor.
All right. All right. I'll
suggest a matters initiated to
look at that left turn and the
bike safety from Morago way on
sign there. I agree that we need to consider it can I ask a clarifying
question about that which is are we going to be getting a bike and
pedestrian safety plan coming back to the council sometime soon and is this
something that should be part of that as opposed to a separate agenda item. I don't
have an opinion either way. So my understanding is that we're in the
You can see that we're actually
in the near term planning to
bring back a proposed plan.
That plan will take probably
some time to develop with
community input in at least a
year and a half or.
Yeah, we're looking at a year
to year and a half.
Based on priority, this can be
looked at as a separate
project, but if time's not a
In that case second that second that that we that so that it's to look at
improving pedestrian pedestrian and bike safety at that location. No it is
specifically to create a way for bikes to get across Moraga way Moraga way to
to the IV north turn, specifically to solve for the lack
of a way to cross Moraga Way at that location.
And it's just at IV, right?
Or is it at coral?
No, there's a light at coral.
Right, so we're talking about IV.
I was just worried about IV because there's no stoplight
there.
Where the left turn sign can.
Right.
No left turn sign.
I mean, I've also been worried about the left turn at coral
where there's no turnout and protected left turn,
But that's a separate issue.
This was just about like OAS kids being able to ride
their e-bikes up Moraga Way,
making a safe left turn onto Ivy Drive.
All I'm saying is can we talk about bike and pedestrian,
not just bikes?
Yes, a crosswalk.
I believe the matter initiative is about a crosswalk
at Moraga Way and Ivy North as its own separate priority.
So.
And that's where the sign is, right?
Correct.
I mean, North is being the one
closing the Miralani. The one that is,
where the sign is.
Where the sign is?
Where the sign is.
Does that make sense?
Does that make sense?
Does that make sense?
Is that enough for a matter of.
I think.
Just for clarity, would you like us to look into a project
or do you want us to come back with a report?
We have to come back with a discussion about it.
Yeah, yeah.
Correct, because the matter initiated,
it just gets it onto an agenda.
Yeah, so we'll have a discussion with the council
about options for safe crossing for bike and pets.
And I guess from my perspective,
if there are other places on Moraga Way that are unsafe
that you know of, fine, we should discuss those.
But that specific place was where I was worried about.
We could also maybe dust off the local safety plan, right?
And we have a recently adopted local safety plan
that maybe looks at areas that could be invested in
for improvements and safety improvements, but.
They did, and we do have a list of projects
which actually recently got funded
and we are in the process of implementing them.
I don't believe this particular intersection
is part of any of that project.
All right, we're gonna get too far into discussion here.
All right, so let's just talk about,
so it sounds like, and I'm playing the role of Osa Wolfsy,
so I'm not here, so.
I think I heard it,
I think I heard a matter initiated in a second.
We can bring back an item specifically around what options there are for the IV intersection
at Moraga Way, and then as part of that, we'll just give you an update on the, you know,
the other improvements that are identified in the local safe roadway safety plan.
Right.
And then I have another Madison.
All in favor.
Aye.
Aye.
Any nay?
Okay.
I think that's a great question.
Very quickly and others matters
initiated, which is to consider at our next meeting
whether or not we want to move the June 2 meeting,
which is election night, and I also understand
we may be down to four otherwise.
So for the next four council meetings,
we'll have four members of the council at the meetings.
And so I think the request is maybe on for June 2nd,
since it is an election night, if there's
I think that's the best way to do it.
Yeah, that's the best way to do it.
I don't think it's the best way to do it.
That's the best way to do it.
That's the best way to do it.
And I think it's just one of the best alternative nights for that
meeting.
I just think looking at alternatives is so hard.
Because the public plans on the first and third Tuesday.
We typically do it on.
November.
No, whenever there's an election, but that's usually when it's.
Typically do our election versus.
I don't know. We do it.
Have we do it for other elections?
I think it's usually the November election.
request is that again not to get into the discussion of the item but whether or not
you want to discuss the item. I just want to discuss it at our next meeting but in order
to move it because it's June 2nd it would have to be soon. Oh I see what you mean to
even to have the discussion at the meeting we get it on the agenda, but but but but right
got it. Do we have a second? I'll second. All in favor? Aye. All right with that we
We are slightly over time.
I hope nobody minds.
Meeting is adjourned.
That was exhausting.
I just think it's so hard.
It may be hard.
It may be not possible.
I just thought
I'm going to