Walnut Creek City Council - Walnut Creek Meetings

Transcript

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Good evening everyone I'm Cindy Silva I have the honor this year of serving as the mayor of the

city of Walnut Creek and I'm calling this meeting to order the regular meeting on November 7th,

2023 of the Walnut Creek City Council. We would consider any requests from a council member at

this time to participate in a meeting remotely due to emergency circumstances. Do we have any

members of the council that wishes to do that? We do not. Then I would ask you all

to rise and please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Would the clerk please take the roll call. Councilmember Darling? Here. Councilmember

Francois. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Haskew. Here. Mayor Silva. Here. And Councilmember Wilk

is absent on a scheduled vacation. First item on our agenda this evening is the

oath of office for our Measure O Citizens Oversight Committee members. If

they, if the four, the Jonathan Bartlett, are they gonna do the, are you gonna have

them come up all at once and do it? All right, Jonathan Bartlett,

Susan Hildreth, Brian Mulligan, and Molly K. Klopp.

Will please join us at the front of the room?

Facing that, we understand.

All right.

So if you can please raise your right hand and repeat after me.

I state your name.

I, Susan Hildreth.

Do solemnly swear.

That I will support and defend.

The Constitution of the United States.

in the Constitution of the State of California, against all enemies, foreign and domestic,

that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and

the Constitution of the State of California, that I take this obligation freely without

any mental reservation, or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge

the duties upon which I'm about to enter.

So, congratulations and thank you and we would be really pleased if each of you would introduce

yourself and say a few words. Hello, Brian. Brian Mulligan, we've lived in

Walnut Creek for 30 years or so. I'm a husband and a parent of four. I love

this community. I love serving this community. I can't wait to work with my

new colleagues and get a gift. Is there a gift every meeting? I haven't signed the

Thank you for considering me and for giving me the opportunity to serve our community.

I appreciate it.

Hi, I'm Molly Fauclop.

I am a retired healthcare executive and currently board chair of Trinity Center of Walnut Creek.

Measure O is such an important revenue source for our community.

We need to tend it wisely, and I'm excited about the opportunity to be part of the team

that helps oversee how that process unfolds.

So thank you very much for the opportunity.

Good evening, I'm Susan Hildreth and I've lived in Walnut Creek for about six or seven

years.

I'm a resident of Rossmoor and so happy to be here and also a member of the library,

County Library Commission.

I'm a former librarian for many years.

So one of the reasons why I supported Measure O and I did was because the city used very

resound fiscal policy over the years and I felt it was a valid way to address the need

we had.

So I hope I can help in making sure that fiscal analysis and the fiscal clarity is aligned

with how we want to spend that money and I'm happy to do that.

Thank you very much.

Hi, I'm Jonathan Bartlett.

I've been in Wanna Creek a little over 20 years.

I had a business here about that long and been a business adventurer also about that

long.

I appreciate the opportunity to represent the community,

to provide some oversight, maybe some guidance

in discharging the duties of spending all this money

over the next number of years.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Brian.

Over here.

Thank you again.

And for those of you who don't know

what the Measure O oversight committee will be doing,

Measure O was a half cent sales tax measure

that was approved by local voters.

year ago, just about today, on election night, and as part of that proposal to the voters,

we promised to appoint a five-member oversight committee that would review each year how

we have expended the funds and then report back to us, the council, and the community

to ensure that we're transparent in how we spend the funds and that we are spending the

funds as we promised. So thank you to the five of you.

Jess Myers who is also a member of is appointed will be sworn in at a

subsequent date but thank you to the five of you for taking on this very

important responsibility. Next item on the agenda is a

presentation of the Chief's Advisory Board.

Good evening Madam Mayor, members of the City Council, Jamie Knox, Chief of Police

and it's my pleasure to introduce I'm going to say most of

of our Chief's Advisory Board is here tonight.

It's taken us about four years,

but we had every intention of getting before your council

and presenting some of the good work

that they've been doing.

And I don't want to steal any of their thunder,

so I don't even want to talk about the history

because I think that's gonna be covered

in their presentation.

And I would like to introduce our spokesperson tonight,

Curtis Reese.

Thank you.

A spokesperson is a bit strong.

I think what I am is first up to bat.

So my name is Curtis Reese.

I've been a resident of Walnut Creek since 2002,

married with two kids, kids, one is 20,

away at college playing football,

and a senior at Los Lomas High School.

Next slide please.

Oh, so I have to do it myself, huh?

Okay.

Chiefs Advisory Board members are listed here.

I don't want to butcher any names,

but okay, but they'll introduce themselves when they speak.

So I'm gonna spend a few moments talking

about the history of the advisory board.

In 2019, it actually started off on a negative note.

In 2019, in June, a young man by the name of Miles Hall

was killed by the Walnut Creek Police Department

during a mental health emergency.

Subsequently, the community gathered to support the family,

and we spend a lot of time speaking from this very spot,

working together to try to do three things.

Raise awareness.

We wanted to question and challenge the events of the day,

and we wanted to do what we could to make sure

that what happened to the young man

wouldn't happen to anyone else.

After speaking here several times,

asking questions such as, I understand that the shooting

will be ruled justified, but wasn't necessary.

And saying statements such as, if I were a police officer

and I went out on a call, such as the one they went out on

for miles, and I was woefully unprepared to deal

with that situation, and it resulted in the death

of a young man, I would be beside myself.

So what can we do to prevent that from happening again?

After one of those statements, I had a meeting with Chief Chapman at the time, in the hallway,

and we were cordial with each other, and ultimately he asked if I would meet with him in his chambers

or in his office.

I did so, and we talked about several things, but what we discovered from that conversation

was that the access that we had was beneficial.

At that point, I realized there's a difference, there's a dynamic.

Perception versus perspective.

Perspective is what you see from your position in life.

Perception is how you see it.

I can't do anything to change the way you perceive things.

That's in your head.

That's you.

But what I can do is give you the gift of my perspective.

And you can give me the gift of your perspective.

And the chief and I, after speaking a few times, realized that we wanted, we were doing

that for each other, and we wanted to expand that to the city.

So what we did was we interviewed close to a hundred people, there were some long nights

here in this building, and after some spirited conversations and some intellectual battles,

We settled on 15 people, and we started the chief's board, chief's advisory board.

And the first meeting was February 2020.

We came to this building and met face to face.

A month later, we wanted to do the same thing, but what happened in March of 2020?

So thus began a roller coaster.

We had this elaborate plan to flesh out this group, come up with mission statements and

all this other stuff and make sure that it was beneficial, but instead we were

trying to do that remotely after a few meetings where we tried to do that. I

don't know if you guys know what happened in May of 2020, but that's

when the George Floyd death happened. And as horrible as that was, the benefit

that I had, the blessing that I had was the ability to give my perspective to

to the Chief of Police of Walnut Creek about what I thought happened that day, and I was

able to hear from his perspective what happened. And then we continued on and on, and it was

very beneficial. We grew, and we were able to do that with the community. So we worked

through that. He retired. We had multiple interim chiefs, but then 2021 we had another

Another blessing, Chief Jamie Knox.

I think I embarrass him when I tell him that the open-mindedness and the access I believe

is unprecedented.

He's been a relative joy to work with because he allows me to say my peace and I allow him

to say his and regardless of how much we disagree we walk away with a cordial relationship and

And he does that for everybody on the board,

and I believe he does that for the entire community.

After he was hired, we got a new crop of board members

that you see here today.

And together, we started fleshing out this group,

and we came up with this mission statement.

I'll read the mission statement.

Our mission is to represent the diverse community of Walnut

Creek in facilitating a positive, trusting,

and effective relationship with the Walnut Creek Police

Department.

We will endeavor to provide honest and open feedback

to support the Walnut Creek police

in continuously meeting the highest standards

of citizen engagement, professional service, and protection.

That's what we've been trying to do

and I think we've been successful thus far.

That is the history of Walnut Creek.

So I'll start.

I'm one of the OGs on the cab as well.

My name is Ava Dale May the law

And I come from a civil rights background.

I work for the Federal Department of Education.

I've lived in Walnut Creek for over 30 years.

My name is LaRon Hudgens.

I was an Air Force trained pilot,

now using those same skills for Southwest Airlines.

I fly out of Oakland.

I've been in Walnut Creek for four years.

I sidestepped the interview process

I came in right after the George Floyd incident,

but I'm still considered one of the originals of the group.

Married with two kids, and we have loved our time here

Walnut Creek. Hi, my name is Nancy Waldman and I've lived in Walnut Creek

for about 26 years. I'm married, I have two daughters in their 20s and I'm a

retired occupational therapist. Hi, my name is Jordan Jewell. I'm a senior at

Northgate High School and I've lived in Walnut Creek my entire life. My dad is a

retired law enforcement officer and when I got the opportunity to be interviewed

to be a part of the Chiefs Advisory Board, I thought it'd be an amazing

opportunity to give back to a community that's given so much to me. Hi my name

is Harshman Sivakmar in Dangaraj and I've lived in Walnut Creek for, this is my

third year now, I am a junior at Las Llamas High School and when I got the

opportunity to represent the students of the students of Las Llamas North Gate

and just the children in Walnut Creek in general, I was so happy to be chosen for

the opportunity. Thank you so much. Hi everyone, Joe Pokrin, I lived in Walnut

Creek for three years.

My perspective, I kind of come from both sides of the fence.

I spent a career in law enforcement as a police detective,

and the last 10 years, I've worked in the private sector

in cybersecurity.

I'm Fran Gibson.

I am a retired community public health educator.

I have lived in Rossmore almost nine years,

and am president or past president

of the Emergency Preparedness Organization,

and it is a genuine privilege to sit on this board.

Chief Jamie is our center of gravity

and Curtis Reese is our North Star.

So the future looks good.

Hi, my name is Levi Ennis.

I've lived in Wanna Creek about 10 years,

worked downtown for a few years.

And I'll echo, it's a privilege to be on the committee

and have these conversations that are,

I think everybody can agree really important to the process.

So thank you.

So I'm going to talk a little bit about what kinds of topics.

Oh, there's a nice picture of us.

I think this is the original members of the original cab.

Several members stepped down about two or three years in.

Curtis and I have been on this for four years now.

And they will be adding more members in early next year.

Okay, so early milestones,

which is what I'm gonna talk about,

we had to spend about a year and a half meeting

virtually through Zoom meetings,

which was really difficult.

It's very hard to meet people and talk that way,

but we persevered.

We had some really, really tough conversations,

particularly after the George Floyd protest

here in Walnut Creek.

I remember having a conversation with the chief

and him asking us and polling us

whether he, whether we felt he should put out a statement

about what happened to George Floyd, not any subsequent.

And we all thought he should.

And that said, I think a really nice pattern of engagement

with the citizens and what people thought about

what happened in Minneapolis.

And also, you know, what police officers felt too

about being unfairly disparaged along with,

based on the actions in Minneapolis.

So we had some really wrenching conversations.

We also talked about legitimate uses of force

and what that looked like.

We talked about policies.

We asked hard questions.

And sometimes they didn't want to answer the questions.

I think our rapport has really improved

over the last three years.

I think we engaged now and we asked hard questions

and they're willing to engage us on those conversations.

And there's been some really interesting

and I think progressive developments in the department

based on wanting to improve engagement

with the community, so that's been really exciting.

We've also been really involved in some of the selections,

like the Lieutenant, Corporal, and Sergeant interviews.

I've been on two of those panels,

and I think at first the individual police officers

were a little uncertain about the engagement of citizens

in those kinds of selections,

and now I feel, having done the second one,

that there's far more comfort,

and they're far more open to it.

Several of us have participated

in ride-alongs with police officers.

I've also participated in what's called the ride along

with the dispatchers so I can see how they work

and how they work with the police officers.

That's been super interesting.

We actually did a training simulation,

a computer training simulation on use of force

that I think gave us all a really deep perspective

of what police officers,

how they have to make very split second kinds of decisions

based on what they see.

We've added youth members

and they have their own perspective.

You can see from just the introduction today,

some of us have been in Walnut Creek for many, many years.

Some of us are more new arrivals into this community.

So yeah, I think it's been a really,

really positive experience.

And I think we want to go further

with this relationship too.

And I think Fran is gonna talk about some of the

maybe future objectives, okay.

Oh, that's a more recent picture.

There you go.

As a new member of this wonderful body,

we have set a new cultural step forward.

We are part of setting that monthly agenda with Chief Jamie.

And I think that's wonderful.

He puts his numbers in, and we put our numbers in.

And I think that's marvelous.

We have, for instance, participated

in the public's sense of safety.

All of you have been reading, I'm sure, recently.

the happenings here and the happenings in other close by municipalities, the perception

of safety for the public is incredibly important and I look forward to participating with Chief

Jamie and his department on the perception of safety survey that we hope to do in the

future.

I think it's really important.

We've, all right, that's good, public safety.

Body worn cameras, we've been educated about that.

We had a wonderful meeting on drone usage.

My 14-year-old grandson was jealous, very jealous.

And one of the things that most concern me and energize me

is we're losing some of our OGs, as Chief Jamie calls them,

old guys. We've got spots coming up. I am in the process of looking at crime

statistics over the last five years for Walnut Creek and looking at our

population census and my question to the board is, is there anyone who should be

at this table that's not at this table? So I think we will take a hard look and

we would like to see and help develop wider venues where we can recruit people.

It's really important.

I participated in the hiring and promotional decision

with the new captain.

That was an interesting and I think informative

for both sides.

And we want to take a more active role in the community

and seek ways, farmers markets, meetings, other ways

where we can have a table and a tip sheet

and let the community know who we are.

and we can get from them their concerns.

So again, it's a privilege to sit on this body.

Thank you.

Okay, and I think just to wrap it up

is we talked about early milestones,

what we're currently doing and where we headed.

So the CAB is evolving, as had been mentioned.

Some of the original members,

Ava, Laurent, Curtis, their terms are expiring.

So one will be recruiting new members in January.

So certainly want to get that message out.

But that board will evolve.

In addition, the police department's evolving.

As Fran just mentioned, there's a new captain.

We're working with different police executives and members

of the police department.

So that evolution continues.

Some of the things that we want to do now that the board is

more established, with several years now under our belt,

is more visibility and transparency in the community.

This being a perfect example of that, of the community knowing

that, one, we exist and really what the purpose and mission

is, purposeful community outreach.

We've been attending some of the police community events,

coffee with cops, national night out we had a presence,

we had a table with flyers that we were handing out

to make ourselves known in the community.

So just purposeful community outreach,

some of the things that Fran mentioned

that we could be a little more purposeful and targeted

in going to those events in the community.

And then I think, you know, lastly, you know, where can the board where we really serve as a conduit, you know, with the community to the police department, where can we, where can we get involved in some of the community projects and I think that's still, you know, yet to be determined, but I think that's where we're strategically thinking of, you know, where, where can we be a little more proactive, you know, in our role as a CAB.

Thank you for the time tonight.

Thank you very much. Any questions from Council members?

Thank you.

About how much time do each of you

put into this pretty amazing group?

Actually, I want to start by answering that,

because I think you guys may have sold yourself

a little bit short.

I give them a ton of homework.

So anytime we have a major policy decision or a change

in policy, they're the first to receive a draft policy,

and then we talk about it at the next meeting.

And it's a lot of reading.

And we do share articles, and we talk about current events.

So not only is there the two-hour monthly meeting,

but all the special events that they've been attending.

But I don't even know how many hours of reading

I probably send you.

So maybe you can gee.

I mean, we come up with topics along the way.

So one thing that, because I have an education background,

I wanted to talk about police officers in the schools,

because of some of the incidents that

are happening in high schools.

and there is no longer a dedicated police officer

at either North Gator or Las Lomas.

And so I found reading material

and I circulated to the group and we talked about

sort of what are some of the concerns

about having school resource officers

and then what are some of the benefits.

So that's like an example.

Thank you.

If I could ask the chief and maybe the city manager

to elaborate on the role and scope of this advisory board

because it isn't appointed, it's unlike our commissions,

it is not appointed by the council

and it does not report to the council.

So it has a different line of authority or its advisory.

And perhaps you can elaborate on that.

Sure, yeah.

So the Chief's Advisory Board is just that.

They have an advisory role only.

So they really serve as a sounding board.

But, and thank you Curtis for the very kind words,

but I do look at it,

everything they tell me with a very open mind,

they have no authority to enact policy

or overturn any decision I make or anything like that.

And they've never even put that foot forward,

which I appreciate.

But we have been very open and listening to their concerns.

And I think it is important as part of our policy process

to get community input, because they do challenge us, which

is exactly what I want.

And they get us to look at things

differently through their eyes.

We have such a biased position just

just by the very nature of our job, we can kind of get blind to what the real role is,

and that is to serve everyone in the community for everyone's best interest.

And they've really pushed back on some really important topics, and it got us to think differently,

and I think we've come to a really good place.

And I enjoy our meetings very much, and I look forward to hearing from all of our board

members with the different perspectives.

And I think we've done a lot of really good work

over the last two years.

What size do you try to keep it at?

Because since it's not an official commission,

it is not operating under the Brown Act, et cetera.

So we are not establishing.

Nothing is established here at council related to it.

Can you tell us how many you have on it,

and what size is optimal for you?

Sure.

So when we began, we had 12.

I've seen advisory boards as small as five people.

But it is a lot to ask because most of them

are working professionals, so it's hard for them to get away.

And not everybody can make every single meeting.

So we grew it to 15.

And I think that's a good number.

It's manageable.

And it still gives us a really good turnout at each meeting.

We no longer meet hybrid or virtually,

so it's all in person, which I appreciate.

And the attendance has actually been better now

than the last year of the attendance has been great.

So we have 15 slots and I think we will be looking

for six new folks to join us

and some of our advisory board members

will be a part of that selection process.

So do you have term limits?

Because some of them implied that the originals

are going off and that implies a term limit in my mind.

Yeah and so I was thinking about this,

I didn't realize it's really been around for four years now

So a lot of who you heard from tonight

have really been dedicating two hours plus the four hours

a month of homework that I send them for the better

part of four years.

So there is a term limit of two years.

And you're required to attend, we'll say, maybe eight

of the 12 meetings throughout the year.

You can miss a couple of meetings.

But we'll put out our application process

on social media.

we'll put it out on Nextdoor,

and we'll put it out on our website.

City Manager.

Go ahead with other comments,

I was just gonna add something.

Okay, Council Member Francois.

Thank you, Mayor.

And Ed, thank you, all of you,

for your service to our community.

It's nice to meet you face to face.

I know I've served and seen some of you before,

but it's nice to meet all of you.

I wonder if anyone would be willing to share an experience

either on the interview panel or on a ride along

on kind of what their impressions or thoughts were

or something that stood out to them from that experience.

I was able to do a ride along with Officer Weeks

and I think I mentioned that I'm a pilot

and multitasking is what we do.

But the multitasking that he was doing

was on a different level.

And I was amazed at how much he was able to pick up,

did you see that?

Like, I saw nothing.

You shouldn't be saying that out loud or Southwest is going to be concerned.

I'm sorry.

Don't say that too loudly or Southwest will be concerned.

Well, this is some of the things I was just really impressed with.

The personal is when he brought to the job.

He clearly, he knew the community.

He understood what was out of place and what was not in place.

And I was just really impressed.

I got to show up to in a scene where there were multiple officers responding to a single

event and just him verbalizing to me how he recognized how the more people that got there

the more problems that could create as opposed to solving the problem and so I was just really

impressed with how much decision making had to go into everything that was going on and

really for me as a community member I was really surprised at what he verbalized what

they actually can do and what they can't do and I think the community is confused about

cops have the authority to do. And when I was on that ride along, it became a lot

more clear to me what they can and can't do. And some of the things that he was

making happen, there was a guest at the hotel that they wanted out of the hotel.

He couldn't do that, but he used his authority to kind of get going in the

direction that everybody kind of wanted to have happen. But he didn't really

have the authority to do it. So I was just kind of surprised at what was able to be

done and what wasn't able to be done. And I think the community in general was

probably a little bit confused is about what what the role of officers is and

what they actually have the authority to do and and how they are sometimes

handcuffed by that so I was really impressed though with the

professionalism that I saw when I was on the ride along and and I was really

glad to have the opportunity to do it. Thank you for sharing that I appreciate

it. Councilmember Darling. This is a question for the youth members I know we

had a lot of discussion when we added youth membership to a couple of our

Commissions and I wanted to see if you guys

how your perspective

Feels different from the adults on the CAB

Yeah, I'll be happy to answer that so and I feel like the youth commission the youth members of the Advisory Board

Bring a unique perspective to a lot of matters because you know, not only are we just

members of like, you know a smaller age group a different demographic that I think

Deserves to be represented in the community and like decisions when we're like discussing them and the advisory board

But also because we also take the information that we learn from the chief's advisory board and report back to the youth commission

I'm sure the youth commission has presented before the City Council multiple times and

essentially an additional job that we have on top of attending the meetings and doing the homework that chief knock assigns us is

Reporting back to the youth the Youth Commission and just making sure that everyone in the youth

Population demographic and Walnut Creek is both represented and our ideas are presented to them as well

Hopefully that answered your question. Yeah, that's good. Thank you. Thank you

It was a big experiment and I'm glad to see it kind of coming to life and appreciate it

I appreciate all the effort that all of you have put into this

I'm a city manager. Did you have some additional information to offer?

I just had a couple thoughts I'd like to point out and a few comments to add in that

You know the I believe it's the two times that we've done the recruitment for

folks to join this panel, both initially and then a little while back, there was a tremendous

amount of interest and it was really difficult to select the folks and so it's really telling

that there was interest in the community and I would anticipate that going forward that

would be the case too and I'd really encourage folks to try to be engaged and apply and make

our jobs hard, make the advisory board's job difficult in trying to figure out who to select.

So it's really nice to see that type of turnout and then also I wanted to thank the members,

especially those who have been involved in beginning

for their patients, as Curtis noted,

this got off to a rocky start starting in February of 2020

at the events of the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd

and all the events that occurred in 2020.

And so really to see this through, to have that patience,

working through a few different interim chiefs,

and then to get where we are today to really,

you know, to really have this in place

and to really have it be something that will be here

for quite some time.

So I appreciate everybody's efforts in that regard.

And then Mayor, I defer to your discretion.

I was going to provide an update coincidentally

later in the council meeting on the A3 program,

which I can certainly do.

However, given the audience that we have here,

I could also do that now, but that defer to your.

I think it would be really helpful

to have that provided now.

Thanks, so, excuse me, the A3 program for folks

who may not be aware is a countywide

mental health crisis response program.

And as Curtis noted earlier, like the Chief's Advisory Board,

which came about as the result of the killing of Miles Hall,

the Crisis Response Program is a direct result

of that incident, an attempt to prevent something

from that like that happening again.

And so we do have a significant update here this evening.

The program is a joint effort with the county

and the 19 cities in the area

to have a non-law enforcement response

to mental health crises to somebody who is in a crisis.

and where we're at today is that the Miles Hall

Crisis Call Center is open seven days a week

from 8 a.m. to 12.30, and by the end of the calendar year

we anticipate that we'll be operating on a 24-7 basis,

so that's a significant milestone.

Additionally, the number of crisis response teams

at the beginning of this year in 2023 was three,

and we are now at 24 teams county-wide.

That's being led by the county health department.

I wanna give the county a tremendous amount of credit

in this effort, they're really leading this in partnership with the cities.

The goal is to be to 34 teams within the next six months or so, and I'm anticipating we

will be on track for that.

And again, the goal is for these mental health clinicians to be the ones who respond to a

call for care and for crisis when somebody is in a mental health crisis, as opposed to

law enforcement or in some instances with law enforcement if the situation is deemed

to be potentially dangerous.

So this is a major shift in approach for this area of the Bay Area here in Contra Costa.

Also there's a youth crisis stabilization unit that is scheduled to open by year-end,

and then we are working jointly with the other law enforcement agencies in the area, and

Chief Knox is actually one of the leads on having a further integrated dispatch center

with all of the dispatch centers throughout Contra Costa to be integrated to work very

closely and be fully synthesized with the Miles Hall Crisis Response Center and Call

Center so that we're well-coordinated for when a law enforcement response is needed

and when a mental health response is needed.

And that's the update for now.

Any questions from Council for either Chief Knox or City Manager Buxray?

Then we will close this by giving you a heartfelt round of applause for the work that you have

done for us. Together you have worked on behalf of the entire community, but also

our entire city staff and our police department staff because the closer we

come together we will be able to deliver more effective service for everyone. So

thank you for what you do, thank you for those of you who will be continuing, and

thank you so much for those of you who will be retiring in the coming months.

And with that, thanks a lot for being here.

Thank you.

Next item on our agenda is the consent calendar.

We have 10 items on the consent calendar this evening.

I see one member of the public, Jan Warren,

who wishes to speak to item 2G.

Are there any other consent calendar items

that we wish to pull and discuss this evening?

and I will note that item one,

the approval of minutes has proposed changes

or amendments to the October 24th, 2023 minutes,

minor changes.

Anything to pull?

Then I will entertain a motion on items two A through F

and H-I-N-J.

Sorry.

Move to approve the consent calendar

with the exception of two G.

Second.

We have a motion and a second on the consent calendar items,

all but 2G with the amendments as shown for one or two A.

We need a roll call vote.

Council member Francois.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Hask you.

Aye.

Council member Darling.

Aye.

Mayor Silva.

Aye.

Motion carries.

Item 2G.

I will ask for the public comment.

You will have up to two minutes.

Thank you.

Hi, Jan Warren, resident of Walnut Creek.

And I'm glad the chief is here.

Just wanted a clarification.

I'd see that we have another extension on the great work

the police are doing partnering with the Broadway Plaza folks.

I saw for the first time, I've always seen the amount of money,

I had not noticed the level of police.

It was like the top level of police

who are assuming this task for the community.

And I wonder if there is a reason for that.

Is it all done by one person or is one position

split up because somebody can't do it all the time I was just curious about

that and also curious about doesn't it affect let's say one person does do it

all does it affect can they actually retire sooner because they're putting in

this extra time thanks thank you very much any other members of the public

wish to comment on item 2G. Then before we bring it for a vote I will seek I

think there's clarification on how you staff this and why the proposed amount

of money is actually at the top level of the salary scale. Yes so first of all

no the officer cannot retire earlier or anything like that. It's it's not a

a highly desirable job because there's a ton of work out there but we usually get

lucky and we get the right person to work out there. We it is a cost shared with

mace rich so it's a 50% cost share and we budget a fully burdened rate top step

officer with all incentives because we really don't know at the time who is

going to be in that position so we err on the side of caution. Any other

questions from council? Councilmember Darling? I just had one quick question not

relation to Jan's comments but I know we had got comments that were questioning

the balance of officers and neighborhoods versus Broadway Plaza and I

wondered if you're feeling comfortable with the balance that you have going

these days. Yeah you know we constantly look at our deployment model and at the

end of the day we we have to make sure that we're patrolling the neighborhoods

as we can and also patrolling our hotspots and our downtown area is a hotspot, the population

of the city grows to about 220,000 people during the daytime and certainly in the evening

hours of Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights, if you pay attention to what goes on downtown,

a lot of people come here to patronize our stores and to eat at our restaurants and we

want people to feel safe, so you may see a greater saturation of where most of the people

are. Now what we've been doing over the last two years is something known as

directed patrols where we use statistical analysis and our crime

analyst and our operations captain and our our supervisory staff to direct

officers where the issues are. So we don't just go drive around and do circles

throughout the the various beats in the city we we try to police with the best

evidence that we have available to us and we try to balance our efforts within

within the neighborhoods and also in the business community. Thank you. If there

are no other questions I'll entertain a motion. I move that we accept item 2G.

Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the amendment and extension of

the Law Enforcement Services Agreement between Maesrich and Broadway Plaza and

the city. We have a roll call vote please. Mayor Pro Tem haskew. Aye. Council member

Darling aye councilmember Francois I mayor Silva aye motion carries 4-0

thank you very much next item on our agenda is public communications this

portion of the meeting is reserved for comment on items not on the agenda under

the Brown Act the council cannot act on items raised during this portion of the

meeting but we may respond briefly to statements made or questions posed we

may request clarification from either the speaker or from staff we also may

refer the item to staff consistent with section 9.5 of the city council handbook

we will allocate up to 30 minutes and now it's nine minutes to seven so this

would mean up we will continue this until 19 minutes after seven if

necessary although I only have three speaker cards so I don't think we're

going to need them that amount of time but that's what we will allocate for

public comments on items not on the agenda you will have each have up to two

minutes to speak to the item. And if necessary and there's a throng of people

who suddenly arrive in addition to these three we will continue the public

comment period at the end of the meeting if necessary. I will call the speakers in

the following order. You may step up and line up, Luis Mora, Barbara Guinness

and David Harder. And again you have up to two minutes. Good evening my name is

Luis Moreira, I live on Providence Court,

and you know what I'm gonna talk about, pick a ball.

I'm using your city council priorities for 2324

to make my comments.

Your first one is diversity, equity, and inclusion.

And I understand the times we live in,

you have to say that.

Question is, do you really believe that?

Because if you believe in inclusion,

the recent decision to shut down play two more afternoons,

specifically excludes hundreds of people,

namely students who can only play in the afternoons,

and working adults who can only play in the afternoons.

So you are excluding, not including.

Your fourth item is parks, facilities,

and other infrastructure,

where the key words there are guided by the community,

you will make these decisions.

Well, the community is clearly telling you

we need more pickleball courts,

And I applaud you in the decision

to build new pickleball courts.

But the community is not telling you

to replace the current courts.

It's telling you to build more.

In fact, the community is also telling you

that we need our lost play time back.

But you're not being guided by the community.

You're being pushed around by a few complaining neighbors.

The third point is I'm willing to put thousands

of my own dollars towards building the new courts.

And like me, there are hundreds of pickleball players

who would do that.

But I will not put any money unless two conditions are met.

One, the Rodney of course will remain open

after the new courts are built

and you give us back our play time.

Finally, I wanna point out that we elected you,

the city council members, because we trust

that you have the judgment,

the wisdom to make these decisions.

I was amazed when you passed that decision

to Mr. Kevin Safino promptly close to more afternoons.

Please do not advocate on your duties.

You are the ultimate arbiters in the city.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Barbara Guinness.

And Mr. Harder, you are immediately after that,

so you might want to step up.

Hello, my name is Barbara Guinness.

I've been a resident of Walnut Creek since 1996.

I know many of you are aware that per statement

from a city staffer,

mountain biker, fell off a mountain bike, he just had on a rock and died of head trauma

in what I call the cliff area or the quarry area of the Walnut Creek portion of Lime Ridge open

space on 1017. This is a very tragic and traumatic event and it's rattled many of the people that

visit the open spaces. It brings to the forefront for many of the citizens of the area that mountain

biking is indeed a very dangerous activity. As you know there have been recent comments

from open space leadership of being comfortable or happy with the results of their no enforcement

policy practiced in the open spaces. The current approach is education only. The lack of municipal

code enforcement in the open spaces creates a culture within the mountain biking community

that they have unfettered access to all the trails in the open spaces. They don't have to respect the

trail signs. If you were to browse mountain biking blogs, social media

accounts, websites, they promote the culture that they should be able to use

all trails, despite the municipal codes that say otherwise. Unless you were a

witness to the mountain biking accident on 1017, you can't speculate if there was

proper enforcement of municipal codes that the person that died would still be

alive today. Can't say that. But if Lime Ridge Open Space took enforcement

seriously and created a culture where the breaking of municipal codes is no longer overlooked

and public safety for everyone is absolutely essential, it would definitely be a step in

the right direction for all the safety of all the people that use the open spaces.

Please take public safety seriously and remember per the May 2022 citywide survey,

Public safety was rated as number one priority. So the citizens of Walnut Creek are counting on your support with this important issue

Thank you. Thank you

Mr. Harder

Madam Mayor and Honorable members of this council

My name is David Harder and I live in Walnut Creek

My purpose this evening is to remind council that the aquatic center

has zero swim center experience. Worse, senior city staff does not understand

how this proposed center clearly risk children's safety and that statement's

been reviewed by the Aquatic Foundation. It's not just me talking. The nationally

ranked Aqua Bears Swim Center cleats at ages 10 and up, 10 and under, and for

weekend meets, swimmers rest between races and tents on grass. This grass area

is much reduced by the city. The Walnut Creek Recreational City and Conference

meets each have 1200 plus kids. These are big events. At the trunk or treat event,

city staff explained that the children's rest area would be partly outside the

swim fence. This action exposes young children to risks that violate the campus security

policy of the Walnut Creek School District, which is attached for your reference. This

center is funded by Mejoro. One stated purpose of Mejoro is to increase public safety, and

city's proposal does the opposite. Path forward. Substitute one of the three

attached alternatives proposed by the Aquatics Foundation. What's a few million

more? Plenty of Measure O money, better and safer for swimmers and their families.

Thank you. Thank You Mr. Harder. I see no other members of the public who wish to

speak to us tonight and so I will close public comment on items not on the

agenda. Do council members have any questions of staff? Move to the next

item on the agenda, council member and staff announcements, reports on

activities or requests. City attorney, do we have any announcements on closed

sessions or other announcements? Madam Mayor, there was no reportable action

from closed session this evening. Thank you. City manager, we've heard about the

A3 update. Thank you very much for your work on that by the way. What other

updates do we have tonight? That was it for tonight for me. So council members

let's start with the Mayor Pro Tem and let us try to remember that this is not

a report on our summer vacations. This is a report on the activities that we are

doing on behalf of the city council and the city as assigned for that purpose

and maybe brief announcements on upcoming events

for the community's benefit.

Okay, that takes all the fun out of it.

Oh, well, I'm such a wet blanket here.

Yeah, so I was going to report on the trunk or treat event.

It is a marvel for people whose grandchildren

live on the other side of the country.

I visited it with my husband and he was grumpy

Yeah, you're gonna come, aren't you?

And he said, no, and we had a really good time.

Can I do that for a city project that was very successful?

You can thank staff for putting on a city project.

Oh.

Let's see if we can do it that way.

Staff, thank you very much.

And all the people that helped it.

It was grand fun, even though I only

had a little bit of candy.

The next thing is, I can't read my notes.

Oh, the Walnut Creek city staff

had their Halloween fun bunch where they put on skits,

where they made pumpkin carvings,

where they had costume parties,

and it worked really well, I think,

in terms of making our staff even more cohesive

and just laughing and enjoying time together

is incredibly important, and I appreciate their efforts.

I also am envious of all their talent.

And then the last thing I have to report is I attended

a Contra Costa Transportation Authority planning committee

and the item that we voted on to bring it

to the full commission was more information

about the medical side of the accessible transportation

in San Pablo.

So the west side of Contra Costa

is getting some services as well.

That's it for me.

Thank you.

member darling anything with marine clean energy Rossmore Golden Rain

Foundation all kinds of things great so to start off with the Homeless Task

Force is having their annual forum on the 13th enrollment is still open I

encourage everybody to sign up it's both online or in person we did meet last

month and one of the things that they have been doing is aggregating the data

from Trinity, Lowe's and Fishes, the County Corps team and the HOP team to

try to look for trends in homelessness and it's it's interesting it's some of

the services are kind of peaking a little bit but generally things are

holding steady I think they've been gathering the data since January and so

from January through September it's actually contrary to what my husband

might believe not doing that bad. I also went to the Trinity Center bash with the Chamber of

Commerce and that was a great chance to have the business community see the Trinity Center and how

it operates and we got great food from the loaves and fishes catering staff that were learning how

to cater so that was really good and the Mayor Pro Tem was there too and for MCE we both had an

executive committee meeting where we're working on a couple different things for the upcoming year

including compensation for the CEO again and then I sat down this morning with the legislative staff

to talk about what their legislative priorities are going to be for the coming year. Electric

electricity affordability is going to be a big issue but also reliability and sustainability

and how we take the grid in California and move it in the direction that we all want to go. So

So that is what MCE is gonna be working on this year.

They are looking for examples they could use,

particularly in new facilities

that are trying to hook up to the grid,

either to supply power or to use power,

because the ability to get their customers

hooked into the grid is gonna be an issue legislatively,

and they're looking for stories.

So if you have stories,

if you have tried to hook into the grid

and been unable to do it, that will help them with that.

And last but not least, I went with the Mayor Pro Tem

and we judged the Halloween skits and the costumes.

And she reported how wonderful it was.

And she was, but I did not want to close over the fact

that our city manager has Ken's sensational skills

I did not know he had when he came out

as part of their skit.

It was Mojo Dojo Casa House or whatever it is.

And I was like, oh my god, that's damn.

So that's my presentation.

Council Member Francois.

Okay, I attended as the Council liaison

to the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce.

I attended their board meeting on October 19th

and provided a city update for them.

Usually the city manager does that, but he had a conflict.

He provided me very good notes though, which I appreciate.

And so I was able to update them

on all the things that are happening in the city

And since that time, as Bob Linshied from the chamber

who's here probably knows,

our housing element has been certified.

So I think at that last meeting I told you

we had some technical cleanups to do

on the 24th of October, it was certified.

The chamber reported on kind of their signature event,

the women's conference which will be at the Lesher Center.

Again, for the second time, I believe on March 5th, 2024,

you can sign up now and registration is reduced

if you do it before the end of the year.

The keynote speakers are Felicia Hatcher,

Allison Massari and Kelly Swanson.

And the theme is her story in the making.

So March 5th, 2024 at the Lesher Center.

It's gonna be a fantastic event like it always is.

I always get kind of energized

when the Visitor Bureau Chair, Nicole Hankston,

gives her update, because she's so energetic, first of all.

But there's a lot of fun things happening

that she's got planned for next year,

including a half marathon on Mount Diablo,

the Mount Diablo half on March 24th.

And then there's a basketball tournament

that's coming in April of next year.

She pointed out some Chinese tour operators

were touring Walnut Creek, I believe last week?

It was on Sunday because the people I was visiting with

at lunch on Sunday were telling me

people were in Walnut Creek.

Oh really?

That was really wild.

Yeah.

And fun fact, we have about over 4,400 businesses

in Walnut Creek.

And I know the mayor has been really active

in going around and meeting with staff

and several of those businesses,

which we all appreciate as we do all of those businesses.

So let's see, upcoming events.

There's the holiday parade at Broadway Plaza on the 30th.

And for those who don't know,

the Coopridge has relocated from Lafayette to Walnut Creek.

They're adjacent to Broadway Plaza

across from the new Lifetime Fitness.

And I, my wife and I went there on Saturday

and it was really fun.

There are a lot of, it's very popular.

So check it out.

The only other thing I had to report on was I did a ride along with Sergeant Joe Coffin

on Friday night.

I stayed up way past my bedtime.

We were out until almost 2 a.m., not p.m.

And like the gentleman who spoke earlier, I had the same impression that he seemed to

have eyes on the side and back of his head and was seeing things that the average human

and wouldn't necessarily see.

And what I was impressed by is how

kind of every person he interacted with

did it a very professional manner.

But also it didn't seem over policed to me

that if there was an opportunity to make an interaction

and say, okay, you don't have a,

your license is expired so you can't be driving,

you need to have someone else come pick up the car.

It wasn't a heavy enforcement mode per se.

It didn't need to be for that type of incident,

but it was more kind of a good community relations.

And so I appreciated the time doing that.

I also was there when they were able to take a person

who was under the influence off the street,

which was helpful for the safety of all of us.

And I appreciate that.

And so that's my report for this week.

Thank you very much.

I will come back to you after my report

because I might pick it up.

I don't think you weren't here.

All right, what else did you forget?

I forgot the mayor's conference out in Brentwood

And we had a demonstration

by the Mount Diablo Interpretation Society

about their potential new structure,

and if they are successful,

it will really be in addition to all of the area

around Mount Diablo, so I'm done now.

Thank you.

Thank you all for the work you do

representing the community.

The recent Recycle Smart board meeting,

which Council Member Francois and I both represent

city on. We basically are continuing to have conversations about the upcoming

new franchise agreement and as part of that process the ad hoc committee that I

serve on is really looking at how to do outreach about and get input from the

public and so heads up to our city staff that there will be outreach from

Recycle Smart so that we can promote an online survey and other forms of

of community outreach and input opportunities.

Thank you to our economic development staff

for connecting us recently with Heffernan Insurance,

which is a large insurance brokerage firm in the community.

They go under the radar a bit,

but they are very, they're here in the downtown area.

We had a great conversation with them for about an hour.

The Mayor Pro Tem, as well as Council Member Wilk

and I attended the recent East Bay Division meeting

and we've received an update on CalPERS

and how the funding is looking

and the interest rates that what it's looking at

over the coming year or so.

The presentation was made by Lisa Middleton,

who's a Palm Springs City Council member

and a member of the Cal Cities Board of Directors with me

and she's also a CalPERS board member.

A reminder that this Saturday at 11 o'clock

will be our annual Veterans Day observance.

It will be at the Lesher Center for the Arts.

This is an annual event and it will feature a speaker

who is a retiree, no, she is a former member

of the Army Intelligence Corps.

And she will be speaking on behalf of veterans.

We will also have an opportunity to honor

all of our veterans and veterans families in the community.

So I hope you will all join us.

And I will mention, yes, there was

a group from Walnut Creek here over the weekend.

And I heard about it as I was sitting in Shanghai, China,

with a group of people having lunch.

And somebody said, you're from Walnut Creek.

You have visitors from China in Walnut Creek

because he was getting it on a news feed.

So that was a little bit odd.

I had the opportunity over the last 10 days

to participate in a group of local elected officials

from California who were invited to visit China.

And it was sponsored by the Chinese People's Association

for Friendship with other countries.

And three cities were involved.

The most significant event in those 10 days

was it was actually the 80th anniversary

of when the 14th Airborne Division of the Army Air Corps

during World War II officially basically established

the Flying Tigers, which had been a volunteer organization

of pilots who were helping the Chinese battle the trend

that basically the invading forces from one

of their neighboring countries.

And the Flying Tigers became an important and integral part

of America's and China's collaboration

during World War II.

The commemoration included two members of the Flying Tigers,

one who turned 103 last Monday on the day

of the commemoration, and the other who was 99,

who came all the way to China to participate in that event.

And it was an honor to be able to be witness to that event

and understand how important that action 80 years ago

was to the Chinese people still to this day,

and how it is foundational to maintaining and building

a more positive relationship between the two largest economies in the world and the two

most powerful nations.

So, it was an interesting day and had an opportunity to also meet with the U.S. Ambassador to China

because there was one event that occurred in the U.S. Embassy.

He walked out and spent 40 minutes with the nine or ten of us and he asked us where we

were all from and I said Walnut Creek and he goes, I know Walnut Creek.

My wife's uncle was former CFO of Safeway, and he'd lived in Walnut Creek.

So see, Walnut Creek is world-renowned, twice in a week.

So there you have it.

So, and I look forward to any questions you all might have about that, but it was an honor

to be able to represent the state of California and that, and a lot of conversations about

our governor having been there just a few days prior.

So let's move to the next item on the agenda.

Number six is the adoption of a resolution authorizing the city to implement a new revised

process and criteria for affordable housing development proposals.

And thank you all.

Whoever was here tonight joining us.

Good evening.

Good evening, mayor and council members.

I'm Stephanie Brine, and I am the housing manager here at the City of Walnut Creek, and

wanted to talk to you guys to talk to you tonight about the affordable housing

development criteria. Can you hear me okay? Okay. Staff is recommending approving

the attached resolution which proposes a new process for evaluating

affordable housing developments. This process is intended to provide more

clarity, equitability, and transparency to developers by establishing evaluation

criteria. What I'm going to do is talk about why we want to change the

current process, what the current process is, talk about past investments that

we've made, our current funding availability, and then talk about the

proposed process and evaluation criteria. We want to change the current process

because there's been an increased interest from affordable housing

developers in obtaining city funds. The amounts requested continue to exceed

available balance of our funds and we want a consistency of applications to

better evaluate their proposals. We've also made a commitment to transparency

and clarity of process in our new certified housing element. Staff met with

the city's Housing Community Development Committee on October 17th and based on

their feedback staff would like to also recommend continuing the existing policy

of investing no more than 25% of total development costs. We also want to

Align our city funding awards with both state and county grant timelines when possible and

We also were looking we were made aware of some previous

policies that we were able to dig into and find exactly what

Criteria has been used in the past so it was very helpful

Our current process has developers submit proposals to the housing team on a rolling basis the proposals include previous experience

Project description and location and project budget and timeline

the housing staff at that time assess consistency of the proposal with the city goals and priorities the

Proposals financial feasibility whether they have site control

Developers experience and any kind of local community support that that development might have

Staff also look then bring the eligible proposals to the HCD committee and then to City Council for consideration

Previously since 2000 the city has provided an average of 20% of the total cost of development

we also have provided an average of 3.8 million dollars per development and

an average of

$85,000 per unit contribution. This is consistent with the city policy that's limiting investment to less than 25% of the total project cost

currently

We use housing funds 173 and 175

which as you guys I'm sure know are the

commercial developed linkage fees and the housing and Lou fees these funds are also

Repayments of existing development loans and between these two funds. We have a combined total of five point seven million dollars

the proposed process is

Is an annual call for proposals that will better help us align?

Our the city's fund is leveraged to other County and state funding opportunities

It would provide an ability to evaluate multiple projects simultaneously and not just as they come in or the next project

it is more transparent and clear and

Makes available and equitable as access to available funds. It is also

Consistent a consistent evaluation project project proposals competing for limited funds

essentially

The evaluation process attempts to more clearly define the criteria with six formal categories and then points allocated to each category

If you look at attachment one exhibit a it has a much deeper dive into the various funding

Categories and the points associated with each of them here. There's just a you know summary of them and there's a point allocation

But the attachment exhibit a attachment one exhibit a does have much more as you know detailed example of what would go into each piece

So staff recommends that the council tonight adopt the resolution that authorizes the city to implement this revised

evaluation criteria when we review the affordable development proposals

And I'm now available for any questions

Thank you very much for the concise and efficient report on the staff report as well

The questions from council members councilmember darling

Thank you, and thank you for bringing order to life

I did have a question

I know in a couple of cases where we've had an affordable housing project that's received city funds and

Then as they get into the development process

There's some other need and they need to come back and ask for a little more

Would there be a way to deal with an men you know amended funding for a project that was already in the pipeline?

The plan right now is to have the HCD committee

Help to determine exactly how much existing funds goes towards any go toward any development and so

It would really depend on how much funding availability we would have if there is a situation that arose like that

it would be a conversation that we would want to have.

But the subcommittee to be able to say

that there's increased need or a change in need

and therefore if we have that funding available

at the time, there might be a recommendation

that we use it for that purpose.

So it's not precluded in this process.

You could have the conversation if it was necessary.

That's right.

Yeah, okay.

And we don't need to bring that much order

to things to fill all that up.

I'm trying to limit.

And then when you have an annual cycle,

it's a great opportunity

to really look and spend your money efficiently.

But I know there's so many different funding sources

for affordable housing.

Is it clear that there is a point in the year

that it's the good point?

Yeah, that was one of the topics

that we had talked about at HCD.

And some of the biggest projects,

Measure X, for example, ASIC funds,

those tend to have due dates in December, January,

even February.

And so that's one of the reasons,

one of the main reasons why the committee had thought

we should look at making the determination and awards

in the middle of November to help any developer

be able to know how much of a city funding they would get

and then be able to add it to their existing applications,

which would be so that it was the hope

that if we did it early enough in the fiscal year,

that it would allow developers to really utilize that

and leverage it with other resources.

because I always look at the city money as being leveraging is just the best opportunity with it

and then if there is a Bay Area-wide bond for affordable housing I guess we have the same

opportunity there and hopefully they're they sync up their schedule with everything else that's

going out there. I would hope and there is an opportunity for us to reassess when would make

the most sense. The other thinking around this timeline is that it would it would align with the

the end of the fiscal year so we would know how much funding might be available for us

to be able to make the award and do a NOFO that would allow for what we currently have

budgeted or available. It would also allow for us to do a proper assessment of the previous

fiscal year's community needs, affordable housing needs, and so part of the thinking

was there's also a natural launch point at that time for us to do some kind of general

assessment and then be able to maybe tweak our emphasis around maybe this year we want

to look at senior housing or this year we want to look at extremely low income housing

proposals and kind of create a funding opportunity that would align with what our needs are on

an ongoing basis.

And so it is I mean we would hope of course that legislation would kind of align with

that but it would serve multiple opportunities multiple kind of goals to

be able to do it on that timeline okay thank you councilmember Francois any

questions yes thank you for the report and thank you for bringing order and I'm

curious about the mix of affordability levels and maybe if you could talk a

little bit about the mix of housing types and the levels of affordability

and kind of framed in the context that I don't and I'm not super familiar with

either of those on the affordable projects we have now but kind of how

would it maybe if you provide an example of how those would apply to like 699 YPR

right well there's usually the projects that are almost 100% affordable are the

ones that seek us an investment from us and those projects tend to have a

different percentage mix for extremely low, very low, low, and then moderate, right?

699 YVR has that kind of a... I mean, I don't know the exact percentages, but they

do have that kind of a mix of affordability, and there are, of course,

some places that have much more of an emphasis on extremely low, and at the end

of the day, one of the things that we would want the opportunity to be able to

kind of right rudder left rudder you know like make some tweaks here and

there is to say you know we need X number of we are low and X number of

extremely low income housing for example according to our arena numbers we you

know I'm going to use it as an example I'm not saying that we necessarily are

but if we know that that's a need that we have we might want to say in that

year's funding opportunity that we are extremely interested in extremely low

affordability mixtures and then it would allow developers to respond to

our needs as we've outlined them. That's the hope of having of having this on an

annual basis. In terms of housing type it's also something that we would

really want to be talking with the committee the HCD committee to be able

to say would we want is you know we want to do tiny homes this year or townhomes

this year or like have have a mix of the kinds of housing that we provide. I mean

And the answer might not, we might have an answer that says, no, we want to really focus

on the biggest bang for our buck.

But it's an opportunity for us to really seek kind of as much adjustment and flexibility

as we can on us having an intentional conversation with developers about what we would like to

see in our community around affordable housing.

That's helpful.

So the policy itself wouldn't preclude a development of all one housing type or a development

of all one affordability level?

That's correct.

It wouldn't preclude anything.

It would allow staff and the council to be able to tweak what it is that we would like

to see as we do our funding availability because we would be issuing an annual opportunity

to say this year we are targeting X, Y, and Z, and then it would encourage developers,

hopefully, to address those targets.

Okay.

And then just in terms of the procedural and the taking of – you know, when is it anticipated?

Obviously, if we take action tonight, it's a resolution that would take effect, but from

a reality it would start next year, at the end of next year's fiscal year?

Well, we do have two existing proposals that have already come in, and we were thinking

about asking them to be some of our first ones to go through this process.

I also have another person who's kind of waiting for us to finalize this process so that I

have a couple of developers who've reached out to me already to say, what is your process?

can I get involved? How can I apply for investment from the city? So I would

imagine our internal conversations have been that we would enact it pretty

quickly and you know we are open to having a little bit more of a launch and

and allowed us to start the new year but my understanding is we would be open to

starting immediately and I would defer to you guys on what you would like to see

happen. Well that's those are my questions for now. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem, any questions? Yeah, I have one. How do we publish that we're in the

business of looking for developers? Do we have a list so long that it'll

never, we'll never be able to be short. Yeah, we'll never be short of

developers. We, we, I do, since I've been,

since I've been with the city, I've gotten many

And I would say, you know, greater than half a dozen who have called and asked about what

our funding pipeline is.

And we do and I send it to my staff and I say, hey, can you put this in the list of

developers that are in our interest or have expressed an interest in working with us?

And so we do have a list.

And that's again, since I've been here, my staff also get requests, they get added to

the list because they've folks when they call have all said we've all been

really clear about right now we are pipeline is basically relatively

committed and has been and and so the short answer is yes we do have a list

and when we would publicize it we would also publicize it into the community at

large and social media you know as we would do any kind of RFR or notice of

funding opportunity, we would make sure that it goes beyond

an existing list of people who express an interest,

but also on other places where, or other, you know,

mediums where developers would be looking for these kinds

of advertisements.

Great, thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you for the presentation.

I have the honor of being on the committee,

and you've made it sound like it was really exciting.

Thank you for your enthusiasm.

I think one of the first questions I'll ask you to answer

might be for someone who doesn't understand why we take fees that we've collected from

market rate developments and commercial projects and invest it in basically 100% affordable

housing projects.

Why do we do that and what is the value that it affords to our community and the process

of actually getting additional funding for that?

Yes, that is a question that I know I've heard a lot.

One of the biggest weight reasons to use the fees for that purpose is I would say it would

allow us to have an ongoing source of income and ability to support affordable housing.

Affordable housing can be really, really expensive to create, and if the city didn't have even

a little bit amount to be able to demonstrate support for that project, it's very possible

those projects don't happen.

So these fees are some of the best ways that we've seen to be able to, A, show how much

the City might support affordable housing to come to the community, but also it is one

of the first linchpins that every developer will use when they apply for other funding.

They say, look, we have the City's support.

We have the City's affirmation.

They have even given us funds to be able to do this work.

Otherwise the affordable housing doesn't get built.

So for these affordable housing developers that are applying for federal, state, and

funding as well as some non-profit banking financial institutions, however they work

that.

This is an important criterion or a go-no-go criterion in their competitive process that

they have to do outside of the city.

That's exactly right.

I've heard that from several different developers.

I appreciated the questions about the annual call for proposals.

like to award the funding, and it would happen at this level, not at the committee level

because I'll just correct. The committee doesn't have that authority last time I checked. They

may have an authority to make a recommendation to council, which is always the appropriate

thing to do. For the annual awarding of dollars to occur in, let's say, November timeframe

each year, when would the call for proposals need to start because you've got to back it

up because they've got to compete, fill it out, go through a competitive assessment process.

I mean we would have to be able to close out the previous fiscal year enough to know what

kind of funding we'd have available. So I would imagine probably, I mean off the top

of my head. Early September? Early September, mid-August perhaps. As early in the fiscal

year as possible. 60 to 90 days to wind down the fiscal year which closes June 30th and then an

appropriate time to be able to decide what we're looking for and how much money we have to award.

Yeah that would make sense. The affordability mix I appreciated your questions. The what we're

really I think what you're saying is not that there'd be a mix of low very low etc in a single

project although we are having a conversation with one entity about that but it's really

determining what we're looking for in that we're targeting for so that they can target

their proposal accordingly.

It's actually both.

There are a lot of examples of projects that do have the affordability mix within the project

itself and we would also want to be able to have the flexibility to tweak it based on

existing needs so it would be both of those situations.

or as we look at 12 proposers that might want to build,

and if one of them does townhomes and ownership units

and that's not what we're looking for right now,

then they won't even probably take the time.

But we also have the ability because it's a point system

to say if the more you're aligned

with what we're looking for,

the higher the point value you'll get.

So it sorts a little bit like sorting hats and Hogwarts.

And my last question is, so let's say we've awarded funds, how long does the, they've

got to compete to fill the bucket, the bucket is only, you know, 15 to 20% full from our

award.

How long do we give them and is that a criterion in this process where the, you get it for

two years, you can renew it for a year, but then you have to go back into the queue because

is we're gonna claw back those funds

that we haven't actually given them the money,

we've awarded it, but how long do we keep an award out there

and deny others that might be more likely to succeed?

Yeah, that's a great question.

Right now, it is two years.

And I think that at the end of two years,

then we would have a conversation amongst, you know,

amongst people about whoever wants

to be part of that conversation about whether or not

to extend that agreement for another year.

Right now, though, the agreement is for two years.

I think that in years past, my impression

has been that it's relatively easy to extend if needed,

if the developer can demonstrate that there have been

conditions, I'm thinking right now about 699 YVR that actually is just around two

years and and of course they started the loan, they got the loan in the middle of

the pandemic and there are all these extenuating circumstances that has has

made that project a little bit more of a struggle and so I think that I think

that in years past it's been very possible to extend that based on unique

circumstances. And it can also be at staff's discretion to just say two years, to say we're

not going to be expanding it more than that. So perhaps we can have a conversation here

at the dais about whether we want to put in some process for looking at that because the

longer that money is not actually getting put into the ground. Yeah. And I would, without,

know with of course appropriate considerations but maybe it also

shouldn't be a staff level ultimate decision because they're competing for

their dollars but I'll we'll have that conversation. Can I ask a follow-up

question on that is 12 months or 24 months is that standard? It's

what I've seen in other places although different communities have different or

some places aren't explicit right about about two years some places are very

explicit I think that it really is I know how long the cities tolerance or

the funders tolerance would be what milestones does a developer have to

achieve in that period of time they have to get entitlements and a building

permit start construction or so if I may you know essentially there's progress

that's expected and so you know one of the first things is acquire the land and

and then it's going through and getting entitlements,

et cetera.

The way that the contracts are written currently

is that essentially that staff has been given the latitude

to extend the agreement for another year or two, et cetera.

And that has not been limited.

And so to the earlier point that having scarce dollars,

that may be something to consider in the future.

And each one of the contracts is slightly different.

So some of them have benchmarks

about actually starting the permitting process, et cetera.

Others are acquiring the land

and that has been one of the reasons

why we wanted to have a little bit more structure

around the program.

And I wasn't targeting any one project in particular,

but it's harder and harder to get money

and the costs to build are rising significantly.

So I think we have to have at least something in writing

as to how we approach that

as well as the process for allocating to begin with.

If you'll take a pause,

we'll see if any member of the public wishes

to make a comment at this time.

So I'll open public comment.

Please step forward to the microphone.

You will have up to two minutes.

Jan Warren, the Woodlands, and yeah,

I think I have maybe five or six on my meters

till I'm a little shy for eight o'clock.

Yeah, I appreciate the discussion and I structure,

I thought we had extended two years, two extra years on,

I could be wrong, on the 699.

Everybody's trying to build affordable housing.

So one thought I had is we're never gonna have enough money,

but in order to have a flow of money,

at the end of the year, there was discussion

at the subcommittee meeting that might have some extra money

that we could put in.

I would like us to consider at the end of our fiscal year,

at least looking at any extra dollars,

that we might be able to move to help us continue

to attract new people.

It doesn't have to be, you know,

but, you know, a couple of millions would be good,

but to something, you know,

because we're not gonna get enough

just in new fees and whatnot.

I have a comment about the,

I'm on page two with all the listings

of what we've developed since 2000.

And so these are all 100% affordable, is that right?

at the time, I mean, I will get that,

we'll get that confirmed for you,

but I believe you're correct.

Okay, okay.

Oh boy.

We also in this housing element,

didn't have anything coming up that we had to worry about

having to turn over because it was a timing out,

but I think the next element we will.

So it's another piece that we need to think about

how many more will be the,

we just need to look longer term

and yet have some planning for those

who are wanting who, so even fair playing field,

so that those who wanna come in and get money.

I'm gonna give you an extra minute,

but you gotta be really succinct.

I'm trying, I'm sorry.

They're different thoughts.

So that those who we already have it,

the two in the pipeline that are interested,

and then these other people on the calls

that wanna be interested, that if you decide

as a group that you want to release $6.99.

It has to be done in a way that's fair to-

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

No, no, thank you very much.

Does anyone else wish to provide public comment?

Then I will close the public comment period

and bring it back to council and staff.

Stephanie, perhaps you can clarify whether the projects

that have come out of the ground in the last 20 years

are in fact basically 100% affordable.

That's my understanding as well, yeah.

And it was, I remember, I was around

when both the in lieu housing fee

and the commercial linkage fee were proposed and adopted.

So they have made a significant difference.

Is there a way that affordable housing funds

and this process could be used in the future

where if a project is basically running

It's an existing project and the useful life of the building has been funds could be used

for renovation or to to allow for the investment in that property to ensure that it remains

affordable and attach a new deed restriction on it.

The structure that we're proposing doesn't limit that in any way I feel like that would

be a decision that you guys would be able to okay I think that was the other question

that Jan Warren posed.

Any other questions before we take it to comments?

Thank you very much.

We'll have a little conversation here.

And who would like to start?

Well, on behalf of the committee,

I think we can support this.

Because I think this is clearer and not random.

I think I call for proposals and to be thinking

about what we're looking for in the next year or two

three years is much more thoughtful and targeted and specific to our needs as a

community as opposed to just the development that gets her first no

matter what it is gets the first crack at the at the apple. I also think that

this gives us an opportunity to compare and contrast and actually negotiate a

little bit where this one's able to do this why can't you do that I think

There's a little open-endedness if possible.

And I also think we do need to be looking at not how to eliminate projects and get our

funding back, but how to put them back in the queue and compare them to other projects

because oftentimes, they're losing steam in the competitive process year over year over

year.

And for some reason, not only lack of funding, it may be some nuance in what that proposal

and in particular that's keeping it from getting funding.

And we had the same thing happen in 2005,

the state had established, they had funds

to build a library and we had a great proposal,

but Lafayette beat us out and we had to find

a different way to build the library

because we were not going to get the funds,

even though we felt our proposal was better.

So, other comments and thoughts?

Councilmember Darling.

I really appreciate the staff taking the time

to work this through.

I appreciate the committee working with them.

Going through the housing element process this year

has really reinforced to me how much the state

is going to be looking for accountability.

And I think this will help us in several ways.

It will add structure to the process.

It will make it more transparent.

We will have to be working as we go through

housing element and show how we're looking to implement it. It will also

help us send signals out to the development community of what it is we

need to do to fulfill the commitments in our housing element. I have used

processes like this of the past and they do result in generally overall better

proposals even if you lose some of the flexibility that you had when you were

still doing it ad hoc. I like the structure which my husband would not

believe because I don't normally like structure, but I like the way you can use the competitive

process to encourage people to bring you better projects that are more targeted at where we

need.

So I'm ready to support this.

I think it's something that we'll have to tweak as we go forward, look and see how it

works.

The scoring criteria, sometimes you end up with weird things based on scoring criteria

and you might have to tweak them.

But I'm willing to support this.

As far as revisiting past proposals and allocations of money, I am not sure I want to put in

a harder and fast, you know, in two years, you must.

I want to leave some of that flexibility with staff, but I think we do have to periodically

go in and look and see where are people making progress and where are they not making progress.

So I can agree with that, but the other thing I think we should do is if somebody is going

to be asked to give back their money, I mean obviously there's a logical thing, if they

lose site control, we've got a problem.

But if they're just not getting it over the finish line in various competitions, perhaps

they should come back and compete for the money again with us.

I would want to be careful. I would I would be willing to do that, but I want to would want to be deliberate about it because

You don't want to create the perception that oh well, that's Walnut Creek

they can give you money and they'll take it back and because sometimes it affects the willingness of

The applicant pool. It's a lot of effort to put forward a proposal and they want to make sure that we can ask staff just to

Assess that as they move forward. Yeah, get back to us. Yeah council member Francois

well, thank you to Stephanie and and to the committee for all the hard work that went into putting this together even just

this table on page two I

Think I've looked for something like this for quite a while

So to have it summarized there in terms of the number of units and how much the city funding was is really helpful

I think and maybe it's on our website already. If it's not maybe it should be in the future

and I

I appreciated your responses to the questions about the mix of affordability in terms of

the housing types and the levels, because I wanted to make sure that we weren't seeking

diversity on everything and making it more difficult as a result, that it really is a

flexibility measure and obviously, of course, that it would be correlated to what our policies

and initiatives are in the housing element so that we're achieving what we're trying

to do through the housing element.

In terms of the agreement, it sounds like two years is the standard process and I have

worked on affordable housing projects and even with the entitled by right SB 35 process,

it still can take longer than you would expect for them to get through the process.

But maybe on the extension portion of it, that comes to the Council for a decision and

in some sort of demonstration of good faith efforts

that were made during that time

and what will be accomplished during the next extension.

And maybe the extension should only be for a shorter period

of time than the initial agreement.

So let's see, I had another question,

but I can ask that offline, thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem?

It is always wonderful to see somebody look at a system

and try and find a better one.

I just appreciate just resetting the paradigm.

So thank you so much for that.

With regard to the two year limit,

I just know financing is always wild and crazy sometimes.

And when you have a two year limit and the banks go nuts,

or the market turns down and funding can't happen,

even for the basic parts of the development.

I think we need to be mindful about maybe thinking

of some of the criteria that we would use

for extending the time.

And if we've got two projects that are really good

and we're really enthusiastic about it in the pipeline,

it should apply to both if they're, you know,

if one is exceeding, maybe we should, yeah.

So I think criteria for extensions,

But I, there are just sometimes in construction

where it just doesn't happen.

And it just, I pretty much think every developer

should have committed suicide,

would have committed suicide, not should have,

would have committed suicide five years into the job.

It is an insane way to make a living.

So yeah, I'm in favor of the changes

with maybe some little tweaks.

There was one other question that I don't think

we can commit to, but we should at least decide

whether we want to have a conversation about it,

which would be to consider allocating surplus funds at the end.

This is a Finance Committee recommendation,

but giving it a high priority for surplus funds

to be allocated in part, perhaps.

Boy, I threw a lot of caveat words and weasel words

in there, didn't I, for affordable housing.

So are you thinking just just making it a permanent priority did no

But maybe we should remember we could give a direction from a policy perspective that that should be

There were there was a period of three or four years that we were investing a lot of surplus dollars in security

Facilities and things like that and maybe we might want to remind

Staff that this is a an important priority given aren't the importance of the housing element and achieving our goals

I mean certainly your your council's option

They would just add that you do have five other council priorities and other needs so that they all be taken into

Consideration and balance depending upon the circumstances at the time

It would recommend

Not over emphasizing any one area unless your council was really wanting to do that to be very specific

because as we know times can change very quickly in terms of how we need to

allocate funds particularly your end funds but what I heard you suggest is

that this is obviously an important area and keep it in mind for the future okay

so we will entertain a motion I moved to adopt the resolution authorizing the

city to implement a new revised process and criteria to review affordable

development proposals we'll take the other items separately we have a motion

a second to approve the recommendation and the appropriate resolution. Do we have a roll call

vote please? Councilmember Darling? Aye. Councilmember Francois? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem haskew? Aye. Mayor Silva? Aye. Motion carries 40.

So I'm going to make a motion that we ask staff to look at the extension criteria and how to

integrate that appropriately into what they would recommend appropriately into this process.

I will second that. We have a motion and a second on the extension criteria.

Mayor Silva. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Haskew. Aye. Council Member Darling. Aye. Council Member

Francois. Aye. Motion carries 4-0. And I think staff has heard the comment about if we get a

plethora of funds maybe we should remember that this that 5.6 million dollars isn't going to go

very far if that's what we have in the kitty. Okay with that it concludes our meeting and

I am happy to be able to adjourn the City Council regular meeting tonight and to say that we will see each other next Tuesday evening

November 14th for a special meeting of the City Council