all we have to do. Thank you.
Good evening, and welcome to the Tuesday, March 19th,
2024 City Council Meeting.
Would you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you.
Would the clerk please call the roll?
Councilmember Francois?
Here.
Councilmember Silva?
Here.
Councilmember Wilk?
Here.
Mayor Pro Tem Darling?
Here.
Mayor Haskew?
Here.
Thank you.
And the next item on the agenda
is the California State Assembly member Rebecca Bauer-Kahn,
and I'm guessing we have a representative for her.
Thank you.
Good evening, mayor, council members, and staff.
Thank you so much for this opportunity to present
on behalf of Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Cahan.
Rebecca Bauer-Cahan represents the Assembly District 16,
which includes Dublin, Livermore, Pleasanton,
Alamo, Black Hawk, Danville, Diablo,
Lafayette, Moraga, Orinda, San Ramon, and Walnut Creek.
She was first elected in 2018.
She had never run for office before.
That she is now in her third term.
and she lives in Arrinda with her three children
and her husband.
As a legislator, she sits on policy committees,
including insurance, utilities and energy,
judiciary and natural resources.
They reflect her main policy areas.
She is chair of the Privacy and Consumer Protections Committee.
That is the committee that sees all of the AI bills,
which is all the talk right now.
As Privacy Chair, her jurisdiction is over matters related to privacy and protection
of personal information, including digital information, as well as data security, information
technology, as well as false advertising, charitable solicitations, and consumer protection
in general.
She also has additional roles on different select committees, and again, these reflect
her priorities and her values, California mental health crisis, cyber security, green
innovation, police reform, poverty and economic inclusion, state parks, and she chairs the
Women's Reproductive Health Select Committee.
She introduced a new conversation and a bill on menopause equity so that insurance companies
These cover menopause care equally.
The main important policy areas that we hear from her constituents are those up there,
privacy and consumer protection, environment, water and energy, insurance, housing and transportation,
safety, health, including mental health and education. And you'll see that in her bill
packages she does usually write bills addressing all of those policy areas. Part of her work
as a legislator is to help create the state budget. California is a huge, huge state and
it's the fourth largest economy in the world. So you know that it is going to be a difficult
process to make sure that budget reflects the needs of Californians.
The governor put out his proposal in January, and now we are in that time where legislators
and interest groups respond to what is in the budget.
They can either advocate for or against what they see.
And interest groups aren't just lobbyists, they are regular folks like me and you.
We can call our legislators and say we support or we oppose something that we see in the
budget. We are constitutionally mandated to have a budget by June 15, so they do
need to meet that. Now in the time that I've worked for the state, this hasn't
happened, but I hear stories from before. If they don't have a budget by then,
state workers don't get paid. So let's knock on wood, that won't happen.
Last year in 2023 in her legislative session she introduced 23 bills and 12
became law. Now in the interest of time I'm not going to read through all of
them but if you're interested you can go to her website and see her legislative
packages from prior years as well as the legislative package this year. I will
point out one which is AB 363 which protects pollinators and it controls the
use of what's called neonicotinoids, their pesticides that significantly
contribute to bee colony collapse. If we don't have the bees, we have to import
them and that means higher food costs. She did have to take a few swings on
this bill before it actually passed. That's why I pointed out. Here are some
additional bills that passed last year and I do want to point out AB 1369, the
telehealth for terminally ill patients. Currently, terminally ill patients with
rare diseases have to go to great lengths to get out of date, I mean, I'm
sorry, out-of-state specialist care. And so this allows for telehealth care for
terminally ill patients. In 2023, she also saw some budget wins. It was a tough
budget year, but they were able to protect some of the important places that she cares
about.
60 million greenhouse gas reduction fund as well as 343.1 million dollars of funding for
increased child care reimbursement rates.
And we all know if parents can't work, our economy sinks.
Some local district budget wins.
I'll just mention a couple.
One was $1 million for the city of Pleasanton to remove harmful PFAS from their water, and
then also over $5 million in state funding to San Ramon Police Department to fight organized
retail theft.
Oh, I do want to point out the legislator also fully funded the local control funding
formula which funds our public education with the 8.22% cost of living adjustment and anyone
who receives a paycheck, you'll know that that really makes a difference.
This year, what can you expect?
She will continue to advance reproductive and health issues, consumer and environmental
protections.
As chair of the privacy and consumer protection committee, she actually has become a forward
voice for AI.
And she will tell you, she'll be the first one to tell you that she is not a technologist,
She's not a programmer, but what she is is a former attorney, and so she understands
the mechanisms that she can use to regulate AI without dampening the free market.
And so she has a package of four bills, again, in the interest of time.
I won't go through them, but you can read more about them on her website.
Along with creating policy and laws, she has a responsibility to serve her constituents,
and that's where our district office can help.
If you need help with a state agency or a state process,
please call us, we can oftentimes help you with that.
If you wanna take a position on a law or an issue,
call us and we will enter it into the database.
The reason this is important is because as a legislator,
she has access to a database of how many of her constituents
are either for or against any issue.
And that is one of the data points that she will consider
before she takes a vote.
So our boss is a very humble and generous boss,
and she'll always say that she doesn't accomplish
these things by herself.
It takes a whole team.
And there we are.
That's our whole team.
So we do have some upcoming events
that I want to let everybody know about.
We have a behavioral health event.
It'll be streamed, and you can register
to receive the streaming link.
It is a discussion about Prop 1 or Proposition 1.
And I know that we don't know the outcome yet,
but we have some experts to help us understand it
and what that might mean for our mental health
and our behavioral health providers.
In April, we will have a misrepresentation event
where we'll be screening the documentary
and misrepresentation, and that will be followed
by a panel discussion.
In the future, we'll also have a spring cleanup event
and community office hours where constituents
can meet with staff, and we can help you
with a problem that you may be having
with a state agency or a state process.
So please do keep in touch.
You can sign up to receive communications,
you can follow us on social media as well,
and you have all the information there.
And thank you for the time.
Thank you.
Does any member of council have any additional questions
comments? Yes, I just wanted to pass along tell the assembly member thank you
I know when we have been struggling with people that come here and say things
that are hateful and not who we are and she's she was part of a big event recent
you know a couple months back to say that that was not who we were as a
community and we all really appreciated that. Be sure to let her know. Thank you.
Thank you very much for coming and make the presentation. Okay next on the
Next on the agenda is something that makes me smile from ear to ear.
And that is a certificate of recognition presented to Rich Payne, who has been named Public Works
Leader of the Year by the Northern California Chapter of the American Public Works Association.
Rich is respected by his peers, the City Council, supervisors, staff, and the wider community.
He is celebrated for his innovation, mentorship, and strategic acumen.
Wow.
He's his unwavering dedication to the city of Walnut Creek has significantly contributed
to its betterment, enriching the lives of its citizens.
There's somebody here who's probably going to say something, and then I will present
the certificate.
Not as eloquent as that, but I'll do my best.
Good evening, Council.
My name is Juben Pakpor.
I'm the American Public Works Association
representative on the board of directors.
I represent the 5,000 members in California,
Nevada, and Hawaii.
I'm a volunteer, so it's not my day job.
What makes this even more special for me
is I'm a 25 year resident of Walnut Creek.
So I travel the state, Nevada, Hawaii.
I also go to Washington DC to advocate
and represent the White House and Congress,
but this was the shortest commute I've had to make
to make this kind of presentation.
And it's amazing to be here.
I'm gonna pause right there
and just say thank you to council.
I know you don't get this.
It is not about riches for 30 seconds as a citizen.
I know it can be a thankless job.
And as a citizen, I would just want to say,
while I'm up here to say thank you,
even though we don't come here and say thank you,
we appreciate everything you do.
My career started 25 years ago at Contra Costa County
And the question then is a question now as far as public public officials is is your
public works department doing good?
Are they doing and representing the citizens and servicing the citizens?
You will get the call when they're not doing well.
Right?
Roads are blocked.
Due to storms, you have potholes, storm drains are backed up.
When things are bad in public works, you know it.
You as the as elected officials know it.
When things are humming along, you don't get the calls, right?
Everything's going along, and you have a busy schedule, and things go on, and people such
as Rich and Heather and the entire department are in the background making sure that things
are operating.
I'm here to let you know that you have an amazing public works department.
With this award, I had nothing to do with this, so I wasn't on the selection committee
even though I'm a citizen of Waller Creek, but I wanted to say that Rich is an amazing
person. I've known him for a long time and it's an honor to be here to represent him
with this award. And lastly I want to mention that this is not an operations award. This
is a public works leaders award. He was competing against public works directors, city engineers,
and a whole host of other folks in public works. And congratulations on this. It's well
deserved and I can't be prouder to be your friend, so congratulations.
Thank you very much, alright, I'll say a couple things.
Madam Mayor, thank you.
I just, an award like this, I can't say enough about the team I get to work with every day.
And you know, just like any leader, this doesn't happen by just being one person.
It's a whole team, all of my public works team.
We work together.
And like Jubin said, we have a great boss, director Heather Ballinger.
I get to work with just amazing people that really care about this city.
We get great leadership and guidance.
Not only city council, they set the bar really high, our city manager expects a lot of us,
and it means a lot.
When you come into the city, there's just this, we call it a nuance.
Everything's maintained the way it should be maintained, and I've got a great team that
helps do that, and it's part of that experience when you come into Walnut Creek.
So we're super proud of it, and this award really should be a team award to the work
that all of our staff do in not only public works, but I think in every department within
the city.
So thank you very much, appreciate it.
Can we say something to you?
Yeah, you can say nice things any time you want.
So I've been on the City Council, I'm in my 18th year, and Rich and I were in the 2006-07
class of leadership Contra Costa, and that's where we initially met, and it was my first
year on Council.
And I really truly want to thank you for everything that you do and what you've done for the community
at large, and taking my text messages as I'm walking downtown and I find a trip and fall
hazard or a sprinkler that's been leaking, you guys will figure out where the problem
doesn't get it solved, so that the community isn't faced with a worse problem three or
four hours later, so thank you about that. But thank you for making it easy for us to
be elected officials. And you do great work, all of you, thanks to the entire Public Works
Department because I think they're all watching from home.
Thank you. Anybody else? Just I'll add another yay for you. Congratulations. All right.
With that happy glow, we now go on to presentation item E, which is the Walnut Creek Public Safety
Update.
And I believe the chief is going to kick it off.
I will.
Good evening.
Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council, Jamie Knox, Chief of Police, and it's my pleasure
to kick off our Public Safety Update this evening.
We'd like to update your council and the public on a few items tonight to include some current
and future initiatives, some important issues, and as well as a state of safety in the city.
First, I'd like to go over our mission statement. So our mission here is to protect and serve the
community through professional conduct and proactive enforcement of the law. And our leadership team
recently revisited this statement and we felt it was still relevant and represented the very best
of what we strive for.
I don't even have to say next slide.
You're on it.
So I know that that organizational chart looks a little busy, but I wanted to highlight there's
a lot to running a police department and our department is comprised of two major divisions.
Our administration administrative division is led by Captain Andy Brown and our operations
division is led by Captain Ryan Hibbs.
The Administrative Division includes some major groups that support our mission, largely
behind the scenes.
They're not as visible as the Operations Division, but their work is just as important.
The Investigations Bureau, our Professional Standards Unit, and our Support Services Section,
which includes dispatch, records, and police services officers, and property and evidence,
are all vital to our mission.
The Operations Division is comprised of our Patrol Bureau, our Traffic Bureau, which includes
our homeless outreach program and special operations which includes our SWOT team and
crisis negotiation unit, our UAV or drone team, our bomb squad which is the only bomb
squad in the county, and our reserve division which I believe is one of the largest per
capita reserve programs in the entire state.
I should also mention that our SWOT and crisis negotiation team is part of a regional team
where we partner with Pleasant Hill, San Ramon, Martinez, and BART.
And just to highlight some current initiatives we're working on, one is the completion of
our ABLE program, which we highlighted during the City Council Priorities Update last month.
Our customer feedback platform, which you'll hear more about momentarily in the enhancement
of our intelligence and investigations capabilities with our Paragrine software integration.
And with that, I will turn it over to our administrative division commander, Captain
Andy Brown.
Thank you, Chief.
Good evening, Madam Mayor, council members, members of the community.
My name is Andy Brown.
I am the administrative division captain.
The chief gave a nice kind of overview of the diverse functions of the administrative
division.
I'm going to focus a little bit more on the professional standards unit, which through
hiring and recruiting touches all parts of the organization.
So the PD is comprised of sworn officers and professional staff.
So the term sworn officer refers to any uniformed patrol officer, detective.
We have 10 sergeants, five lieutenants, two captains, and of course, the chief of police.
The professional staff positions include a variety of critical support functions.
They're not peace officers, but they are critical to the department achieving its mission.
There's a lot of numbers up here, but I want to just point out, if you add up the total
allocated positions 85 and 43, it's 128 positions, and we're currently staffed at 116.5 positions.
So that's a 9% vacancy rate, and you can see the breakdown between sworn and professional
staff.
So the vacancy rate is important.
What's also important is our deployment strength.
And for our sworn officer deployment strength,
we're at 72%.
And that seems pretty low,
but you have to factor in the seven officers
that are from the vacancy rate,
along with two other major factors
that are impacting our deployment.
And that's officers that are in training
and officers that are on leave
or some sort of modified duty.
So currently we have two recruits in the academy
and we have five officers in field training,
some phase of our field training program.
Once they successfully complete the field training program,
then they become a solo competent officer
who's now considered a deployed unit
and that will increase our deployment strength.
The other piece of this is the leave.
So there's 10, currently 10 employees
that are on some sort of leave.
Typically it's related to an on the job injury.
Sometimes it's an injury that happened off duty,
but they're unable to perform their standard function.
Typically that'd be a patrol officer function.
And so if they're on modified duty,
they can still help the department through projects
and various other assignments
that really help us on administrative side,
obviously not on the deployed side on the street.
So staffing is obviously critical for us.
And in the last year, we've really
streamlined our recruiting process
with the help of Human Resources Department.
We hired 17 employees in 2023.
And we're currently kicking off a campaign
with Epic Recruiting and really to formalize and really
create a branding strategy for our department
with the hope of always attracting
the most highly qualified candidates
for my diverse pool of applicants.
I'm gonna go back one.
So Epic recruiting will actually be in town next week,
filming our employees as they interact with the community
and creating content for our recruiting efforts.
I think Lieutenant Morehouse is in the room here.
There he is.
He's instrumental in getting Epic,
coordinating all the videography
and drone footage and all that stuff.
So thank you Lieutenant Morehouse.
So as my role as the Administrative Division captain,
I'm also responsible for making sure that we comply
with all state laws, new statutes.
A relatively new statute is the Racial and Identity
Profiling Act, otherwise known as RIPPA.
And what RIPPA does is it prohibits racial
and identity profiling in law enforcement.
It requires law enforcement agencies to collect
report demographic data on all contacts, vehicle and pedestrian stops as well as any citizen
complaints alleging racial identity profiling. Walnut Creek PD was first implemented RIPPA in
early 2022 and we report quarterly to the DOJ and I'll get into kind of how that works.
Small writing, I realize that on the screen, but our officers are issued department cell
phones, and there's an app on their cell phone called RipaLog, and that's how the officers
document that data required by Ripa.
So the reason for the stop, date, time, location, demographics, they go through several screens,
input that data after every contact.
And then on a quarterly basis, we update the Attorney General with that information.
So, let's look at our information for 2023, for RIPPA.
You can see the race and gender breakdown.
And one thing I want to note here is that 83 percent of all of our contacts are traffic
stop related, so the remainder would be pedestrian contacts, pedestrian stops.
Also, the inventory division is responsible for implementing new technology and programs.
And one program we implemented recently is what's called Axons My90.
It's a customer engagement software program, which is essentially a post-contact text survey
to either witnesses or victims of crime following their interaction with the law enforcement,
with the Walnut Creek Police Department.
As you can see by the graphs, the respondents in those surveys have a positive or a very
positive view of the department, 85% of the time, and 90% of the respondents felt they
were treated with respect by our employees.
These are pretty impressive numbers considering the victims in these cases are probably having
one of their worst days of their life.
They may be traumatized by the experience, but a lot of them, actually 15% response rate,
take the time to fill out a survey and give us this feedback, and there's other questions
along with these.
I just wanted to highlight these as examples.
Another great thing about Axons My90 is the qualitative feedback we can get, and there's
a comments field at the end of the survey, and the respondent could say anything they
want. And most often they will say very positive things about their contact with our employees.
Sometimes they call them out by name. I'm not going to read these verbatim, but you can see
kind of the quality of information that we're getting. Really not having a way to capture that
data previously, this is a really nice way that we can, you know, we can take in the information
and share it with our employees. We know the community supports us tremendously.
this is proof, right? So going to line up, going to a briefing with our officers and reading these
comments and sharing them with them is pretty powerful. With that, I will turn it over to my
colleague, Captain Hibbs, who will give you an overview of the Operations Division.
Thank you, Captain Brown. Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the City Council,
members of the public, staff. My name is Ryan Hibbs. I'm the Operations Captain for the Police
Police Department. As Chief Knox said earlier, I oversee the operations division, or ops,
for cool cop speak. So if you look at the overview of some of the things I oversee,
probably the biggest thing is patrol. We have 36 officers deployed over six patrol teams.
They work three days a week, 12 and a half hour schedule. The Traffic Bureau is also
So a major part of that, housed within the traffic bureau, is the homeless outreach team.
Those are two, as the council knows, those are two of the biggest complaints that the
city receives is complaints about homeless encampments and traffic or traffic-related
issues.
I also oversee the SWAT and the crisis negotiation team, as Chief mentioned earlier, the drones.
And then I oversee the contracts with law enforcement services with John Muir Hospital,
Broadway Plaza, Apple, and Nordstrom on a voluntary basis.
Let's talk ABLE for a minute.
So we did give an update about this at the City Council Priorities Update.
ABLE stands for Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement.
This was a program that we adopted as an early adopter in June of 2023.
I know that we talked about it earlier, but I'd like to touch on it just a little bit
again here.
So ABLE supports a growing healthy police culture.
It supports a culture of intervention and a culture of accountability.
This was right up our alley as the Walnut Creek Police Department, we received a number,
we had to receive a couple of letters of support from community leaderships, from city leaderships,
from the Chief of Police, and it was a commitment, and it was a big commitment, and it was one
that we did not take lightly.
But I'm happy to report that we, as an early adopter in June of 23, we've now received
training from the Chief on down to the newest police officer, and it's, again, it's becoming
a part of our ingrained in a part of our culture. So this is this is sort of the future of policing.
We are in on the ground floor and we couldn't be more proud to to be part of it.
Did you know that there are people willing to do this job for free?
I can't imagine doing it but that's just what our reserve officers do and
to do it for free is an understatement.
They donate 6,000 hours as a division
of hours per year to serve the community.
And you'll see them at events like the Walnut Festival,
the Art and Wine Festival,
just about any half marathon that's run in the city,
they're running traffic control for us.
And they do it with a smile on their face.
We have 28 active reserve officers,
which as Chief mentioned is one of the largest programs
in the state.
That's historically a lower number than we're used to,
but surprisingly enough, there are still a large pool
of really good applicants that wanna do this job for free.
These are working professionals.
They attend a police academy
that's kind of geared around their schedule,
but the point of all of this is that they are instrumental
in our service to the community
and we could not do it without them.
So people call the police department
for a variety of different reasons,
but the common thread is that they want us there
as quickly as we can possibly get there.
So to that end, here's our average response times.
This is not just for priority one emergency calls,
this is for our average,
this is for all of our calls for service
over the last five years.
So I point out that we've hit the sub five minute mark
for response in furtherance of customer service
and our goal.
We wanna remain under the five minute mark,
but also point out the previous three years
and say that we're just a tick over five.
So it's not terrible, but we've gotten better
and we're going to continue to get better at that.
The reason we pull five years worth of data
and the reason I've gone back to 2019
is because that gives us a little bit of a better
understanding of what's normal.
So 2019 is high, and you'll see in a couple other slides here,
2019 is kind of a historical high
for a number of reasons over the last five years,
but we're trending in the right direction.
As I said, with the five years of data,
this is an overview of total crime.
So, highlighted in the orange,
and what you'll notice is very low, is violent crime.
And what you'll notice is that most of our crime
is property crime.
I'll touch on that just a little bit more in a later slide.
But of note, 2019 is the historical,
of these last five years, historical high,
and 2023 is the low.
So, we were trending in the right direction there,
and it's significantly lower than the previous two years,
but certainly significantly lower than 2022.
Crime rate is a little bit of a different way
of looking at the same data.
again 2019 sort of spells out that's the highest single year for the last five years of our crime
rate. We're almost at 37 crimes reported per 1000 residents and as you can see we've gone down almost
10 from that to 2023 so again trending in the right direction. This is a very stark graphic
that illustrates just how much of our crime is violent and how much of it is property and I'm
Please report that over the last five years, our average property crime has been trending about 95% of total crimes.
So the takeaway there is that property crimes are typically crimes of opportunity.
Vehicle burglaries, thefts from shopping carts is a big one, retail theft.
The idea here is to kind of make sure that you're not a victim of a crime.
So having an awareness of your surroundings and making sure that you don't have valuables left out in your car.
out in your car, locking your car, that type of thing, locking your house, that type of thing.
Another illustration of the decrease in crime from 2022 to 2023, 18%, again, this is just hard data.
And then we continue to invest in our employees in furtherance of community service and making sure
we have a staff that is healthy and ready to lead the mission. Captain Brown recently
spiritually spearheaded in furtherance of the employee wellness program, Captain Brown
spearheaded a first responder yoga program, which oftentimes, a program like yoga and
mindfulness and meditation doesn't always meet with our initial approval, if you will.
We're a little skeptical of that type of thing.
That's weird.
I know.
But, I mean, most of us, I think Captain Brown could attest to it.
of us really took to it, and an instructor that had developed a program specifically
for first responders and specifically for longevity and mindfulness and mobility
and just wellness came and put on a week's worth of classes.
I attended two, Captain Brown attended all of them, the chief attended one.
We had a lot of buy-in, and I think we were all kind of surprised as to how mobile some
of us are. But it was really well received, and we're going to continue that into the
future.
As, again, as the council knows, probably the biggest complaint is traffic, and to that
end, we're in order to be a little bit more efficient in responding to and addressing
those complaints, expansion of our traffic bureaus on the horizon. Currently, we have
three officers and a sergeant in that division. However, we are adding a fourth, and at some
point with staffing allows. We'd like to add more. And then recruiting is is one of those things that
tends to come up a lot for as a challenge for law enforcement agencies. We're not seeing the same
numbers that people want to be police officers over the last several years. Captain Brown mentioned
epic recruiting. That's that's one stage of it. Our brand has become really important. In fact,
actually, Captain Brown and I both interviewed a number of candidates today and yesterday for
for police officer entry level trainee.
And one of our questions is why Walnut Creek?
What makes you wanna come work here?
And outside of the, hey,
this seems like a family atmosphere,
we really wanna come work here.
The brand and our social media presence
really struck a nerve with them
and really resonated with them and it brought them to us.
So that's one component that's ongoing
in addition to Epic recruiting.
With that, we'd be happy to answer any questions
council may have. Okay, let's start at the far end with council member Francois.
Thank you mayor, thank you chief, thank you captain Brown, captain Hibbs. The crime statistics we
see it you know read a lot about and see a lot about online and they're certainly
trending in a very positive direction yet there's a perception out there among community members
that crime is up. What do you think accounts for that? I can speak to that. So
how does everybody get their news today? Are you watching the news or you are
you going to social media? So a majority of the people I don't care who you
are, if you have a phone and you have any apps whatsoever and some news outlets
have their own app but you don't even have to go to Facebook or Instagram to
get your news stories.
So before where you had to watch the news to get your news,
now it's just everywhere.
So when you see something, you believe that that's the norm.
Think about how many times a plane lands successfully
in this country, and you never really hear about that.
You only hear about when the door falls off.
Now, that's a big deal, and we want to hear about that.
So the truth is this is a very safe community.
Our crime numbers are on the lower end of the spectrum.
However, we're not without crime, as you all know,
and when it does happen, it is a concern,
but because of the nature of social media,
and there's a couple of local news outlets
who are kind of scanner hounds and follow us to calls,
and so they'll post stuff, and people,
that becomes the norm for people
because that's what they see.
So there is a little bit of a disconnect there,
but the numbers don't lie.
Well, that's helpful.
I think your example of a door falling off a plane,
you know, I'm aware of that,
but it's repeated on the news every night now,
so that might just kind of be a trend,
but even one instance of crime
could be concerning to the victim, obviously.
So what can people in the community do
to avoid being a victim of a property crime
or a violent crime?
Are there steps that they can take
to ensure that that doesn't happen to them?
I'll give the captain some air time on this
and they can fight over who wants to speak first.
I will, if you don't mind.
I appreciate the question.
Any time a person makes themselves,
you know, it's important not to invite it.
So if you've left something in your car,
it might be worth it to go back and get it.
And I don't mean to point fingers at victims
and say it's them, but thieves look for crimes
of opportunity and look for reason,
they look for an opportunity to go and take something
and they look for the best window of opportunity
that gives them the opportunity to do that.
So I would say that securing a car,
and I'm speaking, this is more of a,
we're obviously talking about just car burglaries,
but there are other steps that homeowners can take
to alarm their house, lock the house,
have lights on, alert their neighbors,
environmental design such as bushes and things that keep
the house invisible from the street probably aren't the best.
But by and large, it's just securing and making sure
that you're kind of aware of your surroundings.
One of the biggest things you can do
is put a lock on your gate.
If you have a house with a rear yard, you'd be surprised.
Sometimes people look for those opportunities
and they'll see if your gate's unlocked.
Might knock on your door, see if anybody comes to the door.
No one comes to the door, they might go around back.
So be aware of dog sign,
even if you have a little chihuahua,
put a lock on your gate.
Ring cameras are also,
or any type of surveillance cameras are also very helpful.
All right, I'll add one more thing.
So walking around like this is not going to be a good idea.
Awareness, vigilance, aware of your surroundings.
Don't be an easy target.
And if you seem aware of your surroundings,
even if there is someone looking to do harm
or steal from you, they'll go elsewhere to do it.
And just lastly, trust your intuition.
If you see something suspicious,
don't be afraid to call us.
That's what we're here for.
Thank you all very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, chief.
Thank you, captains.
It's always good to hear what's happening
because certainly I think as council members,
the first thing we hear about when there's a crime
is what's going on, what are you doing?
In fact, one of the things that we,
that I, at least I see when there is a crime is,
well, that's what happens, we need to fund the police.
So I just want to clear the air.
There has been no defunding the police
and we have 85 positions now available
that are uniform because of the budget
that we have approved, is that correct?
That is correct.
Thank you, okay, so just for the record on that.
I did wanna ask, I do have a question though.
So I wanted to ask a lot of people that are watching,
probably a lot of people in this room,
also live in Walnut Creek, but the unincorporated area.
They call 911, they get the sheriff.
How's our response time there,
especially when we're closer to some of these areas
that are in the county area?
So generally, if somebody does have a landline,
they call 911, it usually goes
to the public safety answering point appropriately.
But if you're on a cell phone and you're in our area,
usually it's gonna come to us
just by the geofencing that occurs.
If we have an automatic aid kind of informal agreement
with all of our sister agencies
and sister cities in the area,
if there's something that's happening close to our borders,
whether or not it's in Pleasant Hill or in the county,
generally we go if it's kind of a hot call.
So we have a very good working relationship,
and when the dust settles,
and if we're arresting people or detaining people,
then we can figure out whose jurisdiction it is.
But the reality is we work very well
with all of our partner agencies.
Great, thank you.
Just to thank you.
You mentioned the RIPA program and log.
Is that only for traffic as in either pedestrian
or vehicle traffic,
or is that also for crimes in progress, et cetera?
It's any time that we have contact that we initiate,
that we take action on in terms of if there's
a search component to it.
That information is important to capture per ripa.
It just happens to be that traffic
is the lion's share of those contacts.
Another statistics question.
85% positive view of the police department
and 90% feel that they have been treated with respect.
How many people responded?
It wasn't just your mother, was it?
Right, exactly.
Exactly.
So in the last six months, we've had 1,000 respondents.
Great.
At about a 15% response rate, which is actually
pretty good in marketing terms.
It's a reasonable response rate for our customers.
What percent?
15%.
15.
Customers.
Oh yeah, Betsy Burkhardt over there, I'll tell you that's a really good percentage.
Okay, and the ABLE program, we're one of 22 police agencies in the state which there
have to be more than 500 given that the counties have sheriffs departments and the cities.
What's it going to take to get the word out and get more engaged with it?
I can answer that.
So if you remember there was a marketing video that was produced by Sedgwick.
We are basically the flagship agency for their marketing video, and my phone has been – well,
not ringing off the hook because no one calls anymore, they just text.
But from other chiefs saying, hey, we saw your video, we're becoming an adopter, this
is really exciting.
So it is spreading like wildfire, I think, is the terminology Captain Hibbs used.
And we're really proud to be one of the early adopters.
There's less than – or about 3 percent in the nation are adopters of this.
And this stemmed from the EPIC program out of New Orleans, which stands for ethical policing
is courageous.
So this is sort of the new version of that.
Has anyone from the Cal Chiefs Association suggested that you put together a couple of
other agencies that are using it and propose a session at the League of California Cities
Conference in October?
I will make sure that that is brought up.
I didn't really mean to be your mother giving you
an assignment.
What are you talking about?
I've gotten those assignments in the past from people.
Thank you.
And thank you guys for all that you're doing.
I was curious.
The RIPA information, it sounds like it's only recently
started being collected.
Has there been any analysis done on it
from a larger perspective to see what conclusions you
can come to from it?
So that's the, thank you for that question.
That's a good question, and there are some media outlets that have kind of reported on
some initial reports that have gone out through DOJ, and a lot of people are comparing the
RIPA data to your resident population, so this is what we know about Walnut Creek.
We have about 70,000 people.
We do have our census data, our demographics, but when you consider what happens in the
city we we know about 50% probably commute outside the city to work and
that our daytime population swells to about 220 to 230 thousand people and if
you look downtown you can see how diverse our city is it doesn't really
match the resident demographics so what you'd have to do is really find a
population sample that is representative of who would be likely to become who
would be likely to come into contact with police.
And that's basically how you would
structure your research model.
We haven't quite done that.
But interestingly enough, when we
looked at the demographics of our My90 customer engagement
and feedback surveys, we do ask for demographics.
And just as a happy accident, we noticed
that the demographics match very closely
to our resident population.
those folks that are calling us that receive that survey
more than likely live here,
while the car stops is much more transient
and that I don't have statistics in front of me.
What I can say is 70% of our, I'll use the word clientele,
that we may arrest, 70% come from outside the city.
So it's complicated, we'd have to look at it
from many different angles.
so we don't really have any definitive conclusion.
But I've looked at the data and I'm not alarmed
by anything that I see.
But we'll pay particular attention to this in the future.
Yeah, I know it's gotta be a complex multivariate analysis
that makes my head hurt.
Yeah, a good example would be the Rossmoor community
is probably far less likely to have contact
with the police department than other parts
of the community.
And if you look at the daytime population
where it's the largest, it's usually
within just a couple mile radius of the downtown area.
And then good on you guys for learning how to do yoga.
Are you, and it's a great tool
to help people relieve the stress,
because obviously you guys are
in a very stressful profession.
Do you have a sense of how your officers are doing
from a mental health?
I know we have one of our council priorities,
is creating that corporate culture,
and I was wondering how you're doing,
feel like you're doing on that?
Yeah, I mean, first respond to yoga
is just a component of the overall wellness program.
We have a very robust peer support team,
and that is really critical to our employees.
Although sometimes I wonder who is taking care
of the peer support leaders.
And so that's another piece of it.
But yeah, it is very challenging.
And we're looking at this for the long-term
and how do we keep our employees healthy, engaged,
happy out there, serving the public
to the best of their ability.
Okay, thank you guys and thank you guys for all you do.
Okay, one of the disadvantages of being mayor
with a group like this is all the good questions
have been used up.
But let me see if I could come up with just a little twist.
Do we have any idea how 2024, those statistics,
were a little old?
Do we have any idea about what's happening now?
Yes, I did some homework.
I'm glad you asked.
First of all, let me say this.
So we looked at 10 years of crime here.
And 2023 is the lowest crime rate we've had in 10 years here.
If you look at the average crime rate,
2023 was 18% lower than the average crime rate
for the last 10 years, which is remarkable.
So far, year to date, our crime is trending lower still,
and it's trending 20% lower.
Yes, knock on wood, please.
20% lower currently than it was last year.
So all good signs.
So we need all of our residents and our visitors
to continue to be vigilant.
Hide all of those belongings.
Don't keep things out in your vehicle.
Lock your doors, lock your gates, be aware of dog sign,
and remain vigilant and don't stare at your phone
like Captain Brown suggested.
Great suggestion.
Thank you.
And I have one more question.
And I remember it came up with another presentation you made.
People who are around something that isn't appropriate
just kind of tend to fritter away.
How can we help our fellow citizens
when we see something that isn't exactly right?
Well, you know, everybody's heard the expression,
if you see something, say something.
I'll say, if you see something, please call us.
And don't assume that someone else is going to call,
because we sometimes do that.
You might see an accident on the freeway
and just assume, OK, there's 30 other people here.
Someone's going to call, because you don't know,
because all of you might be thinking that same thing.
So if you see something suspicious,
or if you see someone that might need help
and you don't know who to call, you can always call us.
And we can refer them.
If it's not a police matter,
we'll utilize the appropriate resource that we can,
but, you know, we're public servants.
That's why we're here.
We're here to serve the community.
Thank you, and I might mention that Council Member Wilk
was at BART and saw something and called the police,
and he's still bragging about how fast
of the police, not about himself, no, no, no, no.
He was bragging about how fast the police were out
and answering the call
and really averted a very difficult situation.
So it has worked.
It was like the cavalry, honestly.
Within two minutes, there were six police cars
and 12 officers running out to stable.
Well, no, it was a fight at BART.
It was a serious fight that happened at the BART station.
And certainly it made the news that night,
but I did call 911 and while the dispatcher
was still getting information from me,
the police had arrived.
That was well done.
Thank you.
And Chief, I forwarded the page on the Cal City site
for how to apply.
I have no doubt that you did.
Thank you very, very much.
I don't know that we have, oh, we have another comment.
Just one kind of along the lines
of a public service announcement.
We've got a lot of folks from the public here tonight.
How can they get engaged and involved
with the department ride alongs and coffee with a cop?
So yeah, we try to host several events.
We do national night out every year.
We do coffee with a cop.
We also have a chief's advisory board
and I see three of my members right up here in front.
We have Mary Taylor, Fran Gibson and Dr. Juanita Owens.
Thank you very much for being here tonight.
So we'll recruit again in about nine months.
we'll be recruiting again for additional members
for our Chief's Advisory Board.
But yes, we do have a ride along program.
I would encourage you to contact us
if you're interested in doing a ride along
to see how exciting this job can be.
I say policing is 99% boredom and 1% adrenaline.
You just don't know when you're gonna get
that 1% adrenaline.
And please check out our website.
We just, the city revamped our website
and we're really trying to get as much information
on our website that would be useful to you all.
And if you have any suggestions,
you can certainly contact us.
You can find me my email on the website as well.
Thanks, Chief.
I'm checking around.
Okay, we're gonna wrap this up.
I am sure that everybody who has heard this
is like doubly proud of our officers.
Would you please make sure that all people
up and down the line get to have our deep, deep thanks
appreciation for all they do to make Walnut Creek a safe and welcoming community.
I will, thank you. I will most certainly do that and you actually be surprised, I
bet you that the our 911 center is probably streaming this right now. I'm
always shocked at how many people watch the City Council meeting. Everybody seems
to know everything by the time I get back to the office so, but we will pass
out along. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. All right. We're moving on to the next
section and since this is the part where there may be some public opportunity to
participate, I'm going to kind of lay out the rules. Some attendees may be
participating in their first Walnut Creek City Council meeting. I want to
welcome everyone and talk briefly about the public comment process. For each
agenda item there will be an opportunity for public comment on the item. Thus if you desire
to speak to an item on the agenda this evening please hold your comments until the City Council
considers this item. Additionally we have a section on the agenda titled public communications
for which it is public comments for items not on the agenda. Any comments during public
communications should not relate to the item that is on the agenda this evening. Consistent
with section 9.5 of the City Council Handbook, 30 minutes will be initially allocated for
public communications for the items not on the agenda. Additional time for public communications
for items not on the agenda will be provided at the end of the open session portion of the meeting
if necessary. If you desire to provide a public comment please complete the speaker identification
card and line up behind the lectern at the appropriate time. Wait your turn and then when
you approach the lectern please state your name and city of residence for the record.
You have two minutes to address the city council. Please keep in mind that this is a city council
business meeting. The council has adopted rules of decorum to assure that meetings are conducted
efficiently and effectively and that all members of the public have a full fair and equal opportunity
to be heard. The city council handbook outlines decorum expected in this chamber and can be found
on our website. All remarks should be addressed to the city council. Please do not use threatening,
profane or abusive language which disrupts disrupts disturbs and otherwise impedes the
orderly conduct of the council meeting. Again each member each speaker will have two minutes to make
your remarks. Written comments have been submitted and are received up to two hours before the meeting
and they have been posted on the city's website for public review and are included in the meeting
record but will not be separately read into the record.
Thank you for your patience for listening to that and we are now on to the consent calendar.
Is anybody have any does anybody want to pick out an item?
I would like to pull item 2J.
Okay.
Anybody else?
All right.
Is there any public comment on any items
on the consent calendar?
I see none.
May I have a motion?
Move to adopt consent calendar items 2A through I
with the modifications to the housing element
annual progress report that were presented at the dais.
Second.
Thank you.
May I have a roll call vote?
Councilmember Silva.
Aye.
Councilmember Will.
Aye.
Councilmember Francois.
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Darling.
Motion carries unanimously.
Thank you.
Now we're up to public communications.
Two J.
Two J, sorry.
So thank you, Mayor.
I pulled this item mostly to promote it
because I'm really excited about that we are
authorizing a contract for design services
for installation of turf, synthetic turf fields
at Heather Farm.
And I just wanted to get an update from staff
if we could on the nature of the project,
the timing and the source of funding
for that wonderful project.
Good evening, Council, for the record,
Kevin Safian, Director of Arts and Recreation,
or Public Works Director, Heather Ballinger is here as well,
depending on how specific you wanna get into the questions.
So we are excited about this project.
Surface level.
Surface, good, I can do that.
Not too deep.
Yeah, I got it.
I'm with you.
I'm with you.
I'll cut you off there.
So we're excited about this project.
It's a partnership between the city and the Walnut Creek
Soccer Club, who approached the city,
I want to say, back in 2020 with an idea of converting
the two ball field, ball field one, ball field two,
at Heather Farm to synthetic turf, which
will add playing time for the community.
Because presently, whether it's raining
or they were closed for maintenance,
there are a number of days, weeks, and almost months
that those fields are closed,
and so we're excited about that.
Where we are now, with your approval of the contract tonight,
we will continue to do work
with the company called Verity Design,
who has initiated the preliminary work
in conversation with staff and with the soccer club
on design and layout of those two ball fields.
So they'll continue that work.
We will go through the process
of probably revisiting the budget
and coming to you with a concept as we move that forward.
The design and bid will continue.
The rest of this year, our commitment to the soccer club
was to have a contract awarded by the end of this year.
So we can start construction next year.
And then spring, summer, fall,
depending on how quickly we move the design process,
the construction will commence.
Hopeful to begin the use of those ball fields in the fall
for the start of the soccer club's recreation season
at Heather Farm.
and at the same time,
unrelated to this specific project, Heather Farm,
but related to soccer as a whole,
lights at Titus Valley Park are also coming.
That'll happen this year.
And so that'll add additional playing time
to benefit us in two ways.
One, more playing time for the soccer club and community.
Two, while those fields are closed at Heather,
there's another place where people will be able to play.
So, excited about the project.
Happy to answer more questions, but that's where we are.
That was great.
Paul of next year is what I thought I heard you say.
That's when we expect to be open,
depending on the design and everything else,
but that's our goal.
Because that is when the soccer club
starts the recreation season.
And if I'm not mistaken,
we have Measure O funds to thank for this project.
We do, yes, thank you to Measure O and the soccer club.
All right.
And just if you, do you,
we know yet what the surface of the field will be?
It'll be synthetic,
but the actual materials are to be determined.
The base.
correct. So the infill, is that what you're asking? Yes. Yeah, that's all. I broke my
promise to not go deep. No, it's fine. And if you ask any more question about that, I'd
have Heather answer. So all right. Okay. Council members, one question. So these won't just
be soccer fields. Correct. They will also be at least ball field. One will continue
to be able to support Little League, Krieger, softball, etc. in other seasons. That's correct.
Yes, so you'll see some brown and some green. It might be light green and dark green
But yes, there'll be two different fields of play both for baseball softball as well as soccer ball field two is
All soccer, but yes ball field one for sure. Great. Thank you
Thank you. May I have a motion, please? I would
Well first I'd like to thank the residents of Walnut Creek for supporting measure
Oh, it's you see the proof in the pudding that this great project is coming forward as a result of that
I also want to thank the Walnut Creek Soccer Club
for being a great partner and stepping up
and entering into an MOU with the city
to bring this project to fruition.
And with that, I will enthusiastically move item 2J.
I'll second.
Pick a person.
May I have a roll call?
May I have a roll call?
Council member Hansel. May I have a roll call?
Aye. Council member Silva.
Aye. Council member Wilk.
Aye. Mayor Pro Tem, Darlene.
I may or ask you.
I.
Motion carries unanimously.
Okay, now item three.
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 public communications
but may respond briefly to statements made
or questions posed.
Request clarification or refer the item to staff.
Consistent with section 9.5 of the city handbook,
30 minutes will be allocated at this time
for public communications that are items not on the agenda.
Additional time for public communications
for items not on the agenda will be provided
at the end of the meeting if necessary.
And we are ready to go.
If anybody remember, it's two minutes.
Hello.
You all know me.
Hi, Loella.
Thanks for talking to me.
My name is Pete Bennett.
I know your department pretty well.
I've been a victim of crime in this city many times.
I've been beaten.
I've had my ribs broken, my fingers broken, my nose broken.
I've been arrested.
I've been run off the road.
I've been set on fire.
I've been poisoned.
I've nearly died multiple times.
I'm lucky to be standing here right now.
I have a website that I'm gonna talk about
what I've been through, it's called walnutcreekpolice.com.
It's been up for a couple of, about six months.
Doesn't have very much information on it.
I liked what I saw with the department today
because the presentation told me change is coming.
But you guys, I'm living in the shelter.
I have lost millions of dollars.
I haven't seen my son since November.
I'm sorry, since July of 2011.
He walked into the arms of a police officer in this city,
and that's it.
Sounds fair, huh?
I've had my cars towed away, family murdered,
friends murdered, roommates murdered,
and I can't even get a police report.
So here today I stand up.
I'm gonna raise the bar because you already know
that I've gone to the FBI for years.
I have 30 years of FBI investigations around me.
I want my police reports.
I want the truth.
I'm not gonna lose my life.
It's been very close, very close.
Thank you.
Next speaker please.
Hi, my name is Jane Balchenlo.
I teach in Pleasant Hill at Sequoia Middle School.
Councilmember Francois came to my classroom
and spoke to my students about being
a leader in your community.
I live in Pleasant Hill, but I pray in Benetikva,
where Councilmember Wilk prays.
I just wanted to do two things today, one,
to support you as a council, to say thank you
for being so supportive of my synagogue and my community,
and want to know that you are supported
by other communities in this area
as well because we all come to pray at Benetikva
in Walnut Creek.
It is a wonderful community.
If you ever want to come by, I'm sure that Councilmember Wilk
will be more than happy to invite you.
I have my rabbi here today as well.
but I just wanted to say thank you,
and know that you have the support
of the Jewish community here in Walnut Creek
and Pleasant Hill.
Thank you.
Honorable members of the city council,
I am Rodney Lemry.
I am one of the justice ministers
at Mount Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church
here in Walnut Creek.
And I'm here today as a Unitarian Universalist minister
and proud member of a diverse spiritual interfaith community
here in this city.
It's come to our attention
that there have been many instances of antisemitism
within our community, events at recent council meetings
as well, targeting you and members
of our wonderful partner, Bnei Tikva.
As a faith movement, Unitarian Universalism
is centered around divine love, and I
want to make it clear that hate simply
has no room in our beloved city.
We are guided to recognize the inherent worth and dignity
of each of us as individuals,
while underscoring our deep interconnections
that we all share.
This interconnection keeps us called to show our love
to our neighbors and to stand in solidarity
with those of very different beliefs from our own,
but we firmly denounce any acts of anti-Semitism,
discrimination, or hateful speech
aimed at our Jewish neighbors and leaders
within our community.
Our faith values pluralism and celebrates diversity.
I'm here to show unwavering support for our Jewish friends
and all marginalized groups that battle against hate.
I want to take just a brief minute
to ask anyone in the audience who
shares this belief that hate does not live or should not
live in Walnut Creek to just simply raise your hand.
And if you are of the Jewish faith, take a look around.
You are not alone in this moment.
You are not alone.
Thank you very much.
Ordinarily, we don't allow clapping, but I'm crying.
So next, please.
Thank you.
I'm Fran Gibson, proud leader of the 32-year-old Rossmoor
Emergency Preparedness Organization,
with the core mission of helping ready our residents
for a major disaster emergency striking Rossmore and beyond.
I'm here to invite Madam Mayor, city council members,
our police department, our city manager,
and other city administrators to join us
in celebrating our 32nd birthday on Thursday, April 11th
from 4.30 to 6.30 at the event center.
You will be joined by partners and stakeholders
inside and outside our vulnerable senior community
who are instrumental to our public safety and resiliency
following a major event or incident in Rossmore,
our city, our county, our region, our state, and beyond.
I've been a proud Rossmore resident for nine years
with graduate training and professional experience
in public health, specializing in community education.
Rossmore houses 14% of your population census
and 21% of our residents are 85 years and older,
very vulnerable.
Americans 65 and older suffer the greatest number
of deaths and injuries in any disaster emergency,
anyone, human made or natural.
Rossmore confidently looks to you
for the sage policy guidance
that keeps all Walnut Creek residents,
workers and visitors safe in future catastrophes.
When the big one strikes in whatever form it takes,
be it earthquake, wildfire, severe weather,
landslide or flooding, which are our top,
five top natural hazard risks,
we are all in this together.
I wanna thank each of you for all you do
to protect the quality of life and the well-being
for everyone in our beloved city.
And please come and party with us.
We.
Thank you.
I love parties.
Good evening, honorable members of the city council.
My name is Reverend Rustin Comer.
I'm the lead pastor at St. Matthew Lutheran Church
in Walnut Creek, also the proud home of Benetikvah
during the High Holy Days of the Holy Season.
I stand before you today not just as a representative
of the Christian community in Walnut Creek,
but as a neighbor, a friend, and an ally
to our Jewish sisters, brothers, and folks.
It has come to our attention that there have been instances
of antisemitism expressed within our community
at these meetings, some of which, regrettably,
have come from individuals identifying as Christian.
I'm here to unequivocally state that these views do not
represent the beliefs at the heart of the broader Christian
community in Walnut Creek, nor the beliefs of Jesus, whose
ways we follow, and who, by the way, was Jewish.
Our faith teaches us to love our neighbors as ourselves
without exceptions or conditions.
This principle guides us to stand in solidarity
with those of different faith traditions,
recognizing the inherent value
and dignity of every individual.
It is with this spirit that we vehemently oppose
and condemn any forms of antisemitism,
discrimination, or hate speech directed
at our Jewish neighbors and Jewish leaders on this council.
We acknowledge the rich tapestry of cultures,
religions, and backgrounds that make up
the vibrant community of Walnut Creek.
The strength of our community lies in our diversity
and our ability to come together
in times of need, celebration, and advocacy.
Thus, it pains us deeply to witness the resurgence
of such ancient prejudices in our time and place,
and we felt compelled to speak against it.
In moments like these, it is crucial
that we reaffirm our commitment
to creating a community that embraces tolerance,
respect, and understanding.
We pledge to work alongside our Jewish friends
and all marginalized groups to combat bigotry in all forms.
We are dedicated to fostering an environment
where every person, regardless of their faith,
can live in peace, peace, and secure and free from fear.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next speaker, please.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm John Valentine.
I serve as pastor of Holy Shepherd Lutheran Church
in Arinda.
Additionally, I am the dean of the Mount Diablo Conference
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,
which three congregations reside within the city limits
of Walnut Creek.
For the record, I'm a resident of the town of Moraga.
There's a great passage from the book of Ecclesiastes,
which most people believe is a song written by Pete Seeger,
referencing how for every time there is a season,
you know, a time to be born, a time to die,
time to laugh, a time to weep, time to be silent,
and a time to speak.
Let's be clear about this, folks.
This is one of those times to speak.
This is not a time to be silent.
This is not a time to hope that what you witnessed
in these chambers last month will just go away.
This is not a time to presume that the toxic hatred
articulated in these chambers is just the dying gas
for the small cadre of kooks.
What transpired in this chamber last month was wrong.
It was and is and always will be wrong.
Given my own faith traditions,
long standing complicity with anti-Semitism,
I must stand with my Jewish siblings
and particularly with council member Wilk
and I ache for them and I ache with them.
But that attack can't just be seen as an attack on them
or as on a single one of you.
It has to be seen as attack on all of you and all of us.
In fact, it's an attack on the very core
of what we hold dear.
That assault which you witnessed must be named,
it must be repudiated,
and it must be remembered again and again and again.
Because if it's forgotten, if it's considered a one-off,
it's hidden away, it will be repeated.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
I would just like to say, for the record, I'm gonna cry.
It's okay, I've already done.
Don Valentine was my best friend in high school.
And I hadn't seen him for about 20 years
and he came to my inauguration in 2016.
And we've had an opportunity to get together
a couple of times since.
And John, it means the world to me
that you came out to speak, thank you.
Thank you, are there any other public speakers?
Well, thank you, thank you everyone.
And?
And I would just like to also state,
thank all of you for coming and supporting.
I've received, and I think that we've all seen
some of the communications come in.
I've received hundreds of comments and letters
and communications in support of what happened.
While I obviously was the target directly
from people that were coming in,
I think we all recognize that the Jewish community at large
was also a target.
And as we heard so eloquently spoken by the speakers
tonight, particularly the pastors that
came to repudiate the hate speech,
it is an attack on all of us.
It's an attack on all of our freedoms.
It's an attack on all of our identities.
It's an attack on our city, community, state, and country.
And as long as we realize that, then we
know that it is our obligation to always speak out against us, and thank you all so much
for speaking out tonight, your letters, your calls, everything.
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, yes, here. I'm going to do it, too.
Next on the agenda is announcements, council member and staff announcements and reports
on activities or requests.
Is there anything to say from closed session?
There were no reportable actions
from closed session this evening.
Thank you.
City Manager.
Yes, Mayor Dan Bakshi, City Manager.
I do have a few updates this evening I'd like to provide.
The first, I'd just highlight that last week
the Chamber of Commerce hosted its civic affairs meeting
and invited Matt Regan of the Bay Area Council
to provide an update on the basically the economy of the Bay Area and also spoke about
Walnut Creek and I just thought I'd hit on a few highlights that are worth noting.
He obviously noted that you know there have been some hits to the economy in the broader
Bay Area but even with that the Bay Area is by far the most powerful region in the country
in terms of economy and is still extremely strong.
the amount of, even though there have been some tech layoffs,
the tech industry is extremely strong,
the venture capital situation is extremely positive,
and we're already starting to see some upticks,
even though there still remain some challenges,
particularly in the bigger cities
with office vacancies and whatnot.
But I really wanted to highlight as well
as you did also compare Walnut Creek with many other areas,
and we are doing exceptionally well comparatively
in terms of vacancy rates for office
and retail, and just overall,
the overall status of the city in terms of safety,
which we heard earlier, cleanliness,
and really just general vibrancy that we're doing well.
So I'd encourage anybody to take a look at that
if you haven't seen that already.
It was very interesting to hear.
Two other things I wanted to highlight.
Last week, we invited an officer
from the city of Pittsburgh, actually,
who is an expert in investigating human trafficking.
and he provided a couple of training sessions
to a lot of our employees, many of our employees.
This is something I'd wanted to do for a number of years
and our chief knew just the person to invite in.
The thought being that human trafficking,
whether it be sexual trafficking or labor trafficking,
is horrendous and it's happening more than you think
and it's happening in public in many cases
and you really don't know it's there.
And so the thought is we have a lot of individuals,
Obviously our police force, but beyond that,
our folks in public works, whether in the community
or arts and recreation staff or others
who are out and about.
So provided some tips and training for folks
who might be able to identify that.
And the reality is if we can prevent
even one of these cases from happening,
it will have been time well spent.
So I wanted to bring that to your attention.
And lastly, some good news,
that Congressman Desanier's office helped obtain
two federal grants for the city of Walnut Creek.
The first was for about $960,000 for new radio equipment,
public safety communications for our police department,
and the other is about $1.2 million for paving
of Ignacio Valley Road from the city limit
in the east to Oak Grove,
and it also includes numerous traffic
and safety improvements in this area as well.
So it was really nice to see,
and we'll obviously be putting that to good use.
Taking volunteers?
I don't have an update.
I have events later this week.
I'll report on them next meeting.
Okay, Kevin.
Going down the line here.
I had the, one of the best things about being in this role
is really doing the fun things that we,
I typically wouldn't know about otherwise
or certainly be invited to.
One of those is Read Across America,
where like my colleague, Councilmember Francois,
I got to read to grade school second graders.
They took you and not us?
I don't know what to tell you, I'm a good reader.
And second graders, it's just so fun because they have no filter.
They just ask every question, what's the highest mountain you've climbed, what's the lowest
mountain you've climbed, how old are you, how old are your parents?
So it was just an absolute joy and they had all the questions prepared for what does a
city council member do and all the questions they could ask.
And that night I then met with the Youth Leadership Commission and where we've got these brilliant
high school students that were certainly prepared and asking really thought-provoking questions
and I try to give thought-provoking answers as well with that.
So that was a terrific day getting to do those kind of things.
Not that every day is not great, but that was specifically great.
with County Connection. We have approved the draft status of our 2024 federal advocacy program.
I'll be going to Washington D.C. next month. I'll talk a little bit more about that at the time,
but we will be looking to get additional grant funds from our congressmen and senators. And
we'll be talking about the marketing plan. We've actually focused for County Connection. We focus
on strengthening our core operations. We're now doing promoting on TikTok, I guess as long as
because it's allowed to be in this country,
we're promoting on TikTok,
and WhatsApp along with normal channels as well.
And then we're gonna narrow in on specific demographics
like youth for the Youth Clipper Card.
So those are some of the changes
that we're gonna be doing for this year.
And then lastly, I leave on Thursday,
I think you leaving on Thursday as well,
for CalCities and Mayor Haskew as well.
So CalCities has our policy committees
that are meeting in Burbank this Thursday and Friday.
I'm on the Environmental Quality Policy Committee.
Among other things, and there are a whole host of things,
but among other things, we'll be discussing
long-term urban water conservation.
And I will mention how that goes at my next meeting.
That's my report.
So I'll start where, I'll pick up where you left off.
I serve on the League of California Cities
Housing Community and Economic Development Policy Committee.
And one of our discussions this week will be,
There's two bills that we will be discussing.
One is a Bauer-Cahan bill that is proposing ministerial zoning
for reproductive health care facilities.
It's going to be an interesting conversation.
The other bill has to do with basically making a state mandate
that retail shops and retail thrift stores
need to be treated with the same set of zoning rules.
scratching my head on that like duh,
but evidently some communities are zoning them out.
So it'll be an interesting conversation.
The, I also participated this last week.
I was in Washington DC for five days
at the annual conference of cities across the nation
that convened in Washington DC in March
to talk to Congress and get updates on what's happening.
And I serve as one of the vice chairs
of the National League of Cities Housing Committee.
and we had a robust conversation
about current housing policy and HUD,
and one of the things, one of the little tidbits
that came out, Representative HUD came to talk to us
and pointed out that there's a program
in the American Rescue Plan, $5 billion for home,
affordable housing and affordable housing
and homeless services,
and only one million of the five billion
has been subscribed.
So I was texting our community development director
on Saturday going, or Sunday going,
we may dig for some more reasons to ask for money,
because there might be some money there.
So thank you for taking my text.
Also during the week in D.C.,
we had the opportunity to have the President
of the United States speak to the congregation,
and it was very informative.
We also heard an interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin,
who is one of the preeminent presidential historians.
And she was interviewed about different,
what do you see today versus yesterday
and the future around presidents.
We had an opportunity to talk about housing and homelessness,
the fentanyl crisis in this country,
rail safety, and a variety of other national issues.
I will hurt that had a brief but informal meeting
with Representative DeSonia and had an opportunity
to thank him for those two earmark programs
and also had an opportunity to participate in a meeting
with Representative Eric Swalwell
as well as our state senators.
That was a larger meeting of representatives.
But both Senator Padilla and Senator Butler were there
with us to talk about the issues
that are important to California.
also had an opportunity to talk with the
infrastructure investment.
Okay, there's a lot of federal dollars
that are called Build Back Better for infrastructure.
A lot of them are coming through
the Department of Transportation,
and it's Secretary Buttigieg,
and there was a booth on infrastructure,
and after hearing a lot about it,
I did go do some investigations
with texting the public works director at the same time,
saying, what should I ask?
we may have uncovered a way to get a couple of,
a little more money for some bridges
and they're happy to help.
I will mention that the Association of Bay Area
Government's Executive Board, which I serve on,
is meeting this Thursday and we will be talking about
the bond proposed to be put on the ballot
for the nine Bay Area counties, the housing bond
that is proposed for the November 2024 ballot.
And I will let you report the sister cities.
Okay, thank you.
And I too get to do really fun things for the city.
It's budget season at MCE.
So MCE executive committee met
and we walked through the budget
that we're going to be adopting later this month
looking at electric rates,
electric, the operating budget for MCE.
One of the things that we're struggling within the budget
is that in hot summers,
the cost of energy goes through the roof
and you need to have a reserve fund ready to go,
but it's not hot every year.
It wasn't hot last year.
So all that money we put aside is still sitting there.
So we're trying to figure out how to get that ready
so that we're ready for hot summers.
And we're also looking at the potential
with all the federal money,
the Infrastructure Act includes the possibility
for public agencies such as MCE to receive tax credits
if they are building projects, energy projects.
It used to be those were solely the province
of private investors.
And so in our budget this year,
we are looking at setting aside a pot of money
so that the staff can look at whether or not
it is prudent for MCE to develop either a generation project
or a transmission project.
Because transmission is one of those things
that's driving the cost of energy through the roof.
The good news out of the whole MCE budget discussion,
while the people that are getting their electricity
from PG&E are going to be facing a big rate hike,
the MCE budget does not include a rate hike.
And so we will continue to be,
and most people in Walnut Creek are MCE,
unless you opted out,
are not going to be seeing that kind of rate hike.
And if you did opt out and go to PG&E,
go think about whether or not you want to call MCE
and see if you wanna come home.
MCE also sent their representative
to the East Bay Leadership Committee this morning,
their Water Environment Task Force,
and the fellow walked through just, I learned a lot.
I've been on the MCE Board for three years now,
and I learned a ton from the guy about the duck curve
and how renewables are changing electric demand
in the state of California.
And I know we have had a lot of concern
as we move forward with our sustainability action plan
about whether or not the state is going to be ready
for that increased electrical demand.
And I see people shaking their head.
We are, there is a lot of work going on
to deal with a lot of new technology that can help.
You know, right now, during the middle of the day,
today in the state of California,
there was more power being generated
by our renewable resources than we were using.
you couldn't give the stuff away,
we had to turn people off.
In the summer, you get this period between four and nine
at night where the demand goes through the roof.
And so everybody in California that works
on power generation is looking at how you can shave
that curve either through modifying people's behavior
or through storage or through innovative projects
like one of the MCE projects that pairs
a peaker gas plant with a battery bank.
And so there's a lot of things going on.
So despite the skepticism of one of my audience members,
I'm hoping that we're good on that.
I won't cover our finance committee meeting
because council member Wilk and I talked about that,
but it's already adopted, so we're all good there.
And then the sister cities, our youth ambassadors
are going to be in town next week.
And we are looking forward to entertaining them.
I met with the Sister Cities Committee
and there's a lot of people working really hard
to bring the young people from Naceto
and from the Hungarian city.
Pro Shio folk, I never can say that name.
But anyway, we're looking forward to meeting them
and Mayor Heckew and I will be entertaining them next Monday.
Yeah, did you work on your song?
That was a song?
Yeah.
I got to represent us one time.
And they sang the Hungarian National Anthem.
And I just mouthed the words.
And who knew what I was really saying?
OK, back to serious stuff.
Contra Costa Mayor's Conference, of which I am the chair,
had a meeting early this month about.
And the speaker was about education and scholarship
organization, founder foundation that centered enrichment
and is doing amazing, amazing work getting people
from to college and beyond.
I also went to the trans pack meeting,
which is this group of five cities,
and we're the ones that are administering the funds
from the measure J, I think, or X, measure J,
I'm pretty sure.
And that's to help us seniors in getting transportation.
And so we had the first four people,
four organizations out of eight.
We get the next one at the next meeting.
Walnut Creek was among the four and I was just glowed.
I didn't even know how far our senior transportation goes
and what they're doing to take care of our citizens
and actually citizens in the surrounding area.
So I get to brag about that.
I'll do the best I can to get us as much money as we need to.
The other thing I attended was a CalCog,
which is an organization representing regions.
And excuse me, CalCog.
And they talked about the updated in the legislation.
And quite frankly, I have detailed notes,
and I am not going to bore you with them.
There's some interesting legislation out there
and we're gonna do our best to make sure
that what gets passed is what we want to have passed.
On Friday night, I went to, my husband and I
went to Boundary Oak.
Many people forget that there is a restaurant up there
and they don't do everyday restaurant dinners
but occasionally they have a special one
and the special one was St. Patrick's Day,
and it's amazing how many different colors of green
there were, and the food, no, no, no, I don't think,
oh, the string beans, but yeah, it was a lot of fun,
and it wasn't as well attended as I'd hoped it would be,
so please consider putting your name down
so that you get notifications.
I know they have a Mother's Day brunch
that's hard to get into,
because lots of people take their mothers out.
They also have an Easter brunch.
And so please remember that Boundary Oak, our golf course,
does have special times when people can get together
and enjoy getting along with each other.
Yesterday, I, as a member
of Contra Costa Transportation Authority,
got to go to Gomentum Station.
And for those people that don't know, in Concord,
there is a testing ground for automobiles
and new concepts for transportation.
And I did get to ride a very short ride
in this cute little car that holds four people
that they think is gonna be a first and last mile,
immensely efficient and inexpensive way
to get people from here to there
so that they can get to BART.
And the final thing I can say is,
there is a mayor's update for March now, out,
and so on YouTube, if you go and you hit mayor's update
for March 2024, you might get to see me telling you
all about the rest of the good news in Walnut Creek.
That being the end of my comments,
we will now go on to our consideration item.
We need a five minute break.
So we will be back at quarter two.
He'll be back.
Welcome back to our consideration item,
agenda item number five,
consideration and action on proposed
Shadelands Property and Business Improvement District branding and I believe I believe I am that person
Terry Kilgore assistant city manager and this evening
We are here tonight to talk to the council as the legal oversight body for the Shadelands property based improvement business district
The PBID as it's lovingly known is the organization where property owners have agreed to assess themselves
to build up a piggy bank of funds to spend on ways
to better the district and the surrounding environment.
The city contracts with the Chamber of Commerce
to manage the district.
And as part of that, there is an advisory committee
that meets regularly and has developed an implementation
plan for the 10 year cycle of the PBID's authorization.
Over the last eight months, the PBID has been working
on a branding strategy that we will be presenting to you this evening.
And it's important for this council to provide insights and ultimate approval as the oversight
body as this is a comprehensive approach to relooking at how the shade lens is presented.
It includes a new logo, a new tagline, a new color palette, and a new name.
All of these things are not just intended to be used for marketing purposes, but will
will also appear in the physical realm
in the form of bus wraps, potential signage,
and other practical improvements.
So this evening Bob Linshye,
the President and CEO of the Chamber,
will start the presentation,
and we have a few consultants
who will also walk you through additional details.
Bob.
Thank you, Terry.
Terry, Mary Haski, members of the Council.
As Terry indicated on Bob Linshye,
President and CEO of the Wanla Creek
Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau.
So it's a great pleasure that I get to lead off
tonight's discussion reflecting on the remarkable journey
that the Shadelands Property Owners District
at Walnut Creek has participated in
over the last eight months.
For nearly a decade, our community has epitomized
the power of collaboration and progress,
shaping Shadelands into a dynamic center
of activity and innovation.
Together we have achieved significant milestones
from establishing our shuttle service
from BART to the Shadelands
to implementing our district plan.
Our collective efforts have enriched the fabric
of our community, fostering a stronger sense of unity
and purpose within the Shadelands district.
Moreover, our influence has extended beyond our borders,
leaving a lasting regional impact.
These accomplishments stand as a testament
to our dedicated collaboration and partnership.
Our steering committee representing the diverse sectors
of Shadelands has played a pivotal role
in guiding our initiatives.
We are grateful for the unwavering support
of the city of Walnut Creek
and the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau
whose collaboration has been indispensable.
And I want to acknowledge the city manager
and his leadership team for their assistance
this process. The forthcoming rebranding of Shadelands marks a significant milestone
in our journey. It represents an exciting opportunity to redefine and identify and communicate
our values and vision effectively. As we embark on this endeavor, we recognize the importance
of engaging internal audiences, raising community awareness, fostering partnerships, and most
importantly, attracting prospective tenants. This initiative holds immense potential to
showcase the distinct offerings and lively atmosphere of shade lands, driving growth
and collective success. We are deeply passionate about this new direction and remain committed
to ensuring its success. Now, I'd like to turn over the podium here
to our consultant, Jared Ash, from Capstone,
who will be followed by Andrew Thiebolt,
who's on Zoom from Seattle.
And lastly, Calvin Jung from Creative Mint.
And I will conclude remarks at the end.
Additionally, I want to acknowledge the presence
of our chair, Angela de la Hucey Ashley,
whose leadership has been instrumental
since the inception of the PBIT.
Jared.
Thank you, mayor and council.
I will be probably one of the quicker ones here.
About 18 months ago, we embarked on an implementation plan
for the shade lens.
The number one piece of feedback we came back with
from not only the P-bit advisory committee,
but from over 100 businesses in the shade lens
was how do we create the shade lens as a destination?
How do we spark new life into class C office buildings?
How do we make it a place that people are starting
to talk about, and most importantly, how do we link trips?
And you'll hear in the data, how do we get people
who are going to a doctor's appointment
stop and do a second item?
So our first part is we're gonna show you a prototype video
of this will get a lot better and a lot more local,
but we wanna show you a video of just where we are going
with this branding campaign within that.
Make the most of your day at Shadelands,
with over 300 ways to brighten your life.
Train for a favorite sport.
Make health a priority.
Choose farm fresh.
Enjoy your choice of comfort foods.
Discover new brews.
Join a community.
Begin a family.
Welcome a new friend.
Entertain with stories.
Give back to yourself.
Make your idea a success.
Shadelands, always something to move you.
So as we move forward, we're going
to talk about what is our process if we
can pull up the first slide.
As we launched the implementation plan,
the branding came up as the biggest piece.
First, we went out to an RFP, and we
hired EMC Research and Creative Mint
as a result of that process.
EMC went through two polls, which we're
about to hear from Andrew on.
The first was both web and in-person.
We then went through a scientific poll,
and we put those results through the chamber.
We held a forum presenting those results,
and we'll summarize those today.
We did five meetings with the Shadelands Marketing Committee,
a task force working on that.
We had seven presentations.
So we only met every other month,
so you could tell that the long time process
reporting to the whole Shadelands PBID board.
Two presentations to the Walnut Creek Chamber Board
where we solicited their feedback.
We held two meetings with senior city staff
to get their input throughout the process.
And I believe the city staff held subsequent meetings
with more of their team members internally.
We did a study on the Shadelands survey
where we had survey takers on the bus going to BART,
learning about who was coming there, what kind of consumer
were they, what kind of workforce members were they.
And we took all of this into the branding campaign.
We held three public focus groups
as we had some initial recommendations
to continue that feedback.
We then sent out a, sorry, in the middle of the focus groups,
we sent out a mailer to the 106 property
owners of the shade lens.
So we wanted to make sure if they
weren't reading their emails, if they
weren't following us on social media
and reading the newsletter, that they were at least considered
to be, hey, come and give us feedback.
Come and give us comment.
We are doing this.
We didn't want to miss any of the out-of-state venture
funds that own some of the properties.
And then as we had some of the final recommendations
of the branding campaign, we did a public survey that
went out and got 122 pieces of feedback.
So a very thorough process we believe
to get feedback along the way from members
of not only the Shadelands,
but from the broader Walnut Creek community in the process.
And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Andrew of EMC
to talk about what some of those findings
in the research work.
Thank you very much, Jared.
Can everyone hear me?
Yeah, okay, great.
Next slide, please.
And really quickly, my name is Andrew Tebow.
I'm a senior principal with EMC research.
We do public opinion research like this
all over the country.
I am based out of Seattle currently in my basement.
I wish I could be there with you.
The reason you do research is because
in order to get where you wanna go,
you first have to know where you're starting from.
And so that's what this research was about.
What are the challenges and opportunities?
Next slide, please.
We did two studies as Jared mentioned, one a visitor survey.
So we wanted to understand people who are already coming.
We wanted to know their attitudes,
their wish list, what they like and dislike.
And then we did a nearby resident survey
because we wanted to widen the circle.
If you think of the first survey
as kind of like existing customers,
the wider survey is potential customers.
The type of people we're trying to attract as we go through this campaign. The visitor survey was online. It was distributed in a variety of ways.
It started at the made in the shade event, but then through the city through shade lens through.
the Chamber of Commerce and other community channels,
other tenants on the property.
We got 480 total interviews.
You'll see some of the results from that.
And then the resident survey was a more typical survey,
a statistically projectable random survey done by phone,
email and text to web.
You have to do a significant portion of non-phone interviews
because people don't answer their phones as much anymore.
we did that study of it was an adult residence.
So age 18 plus in Walnut Creek, Concord, Pleasant Hill and Lafayette.
We did 400 interviews total there.
So we'll be talking about these two surveys moving forward.
Next slide please.
So starting at the end of the book with some key findings to frame up the data you're going to see.
Most visitors and nearby residents have a generally favorable opinion of the overall brand.
but the specific brand image is limited and static.
So if you ask me,
do I like or dislike
shade lens or do I have a favorable or unfavorable opinion?
That's your general brand.
The specific brand image is when I ask you,
what words or phrases come to
mind when you think about shade lens?
When we ask that very question,
top responses were medical facilities and offices,
And the most frequently mentioned reasons for visiting
are the medical facilities, grocery shopping, and dining.
So, you know, medical facilities and offices,
that's need to go, not choose to go, right?
And same with medical facilities, grocery shopping,
and dining, one of those is choose to go,
but we want more of a dynamic feel.
The consultant team, well, the whole team will be tired
of me saying this, they've heard it so many times,
but I think of this like the old orange juice commercials
where they said it's not just for breakfast anymore.
They were trying to break out of a more static image
and become this bigger thing,
not by changing who they were or what orange juice was,
but by just changing how you thought about it.
The other thing that Jared talked about,
this idea of trying to encourage link trips,
most visitors say the majority of their visits
are for a single purpose right now.
And that's more common when you're doing errands
and things like that going to appointments.
We read a brief description.
It wasn't really messaging.
It was just describing what's available already.
And you'll see that language in a few slides
and both residents and visitors
responded very favorably to that description.
And what that description did is it talked about
the breadth of amenities and activities
that are available there.
things that people didn't know about and surprise
is always a very powerful motivator
when you're thinking about engagement.
And after hearing that description,
two thirds of the people we talked to
in the broader resident survey said they were more likely
to visit based on that description.
When we asked them what surprised them the most
about the description they heard,
they came back at us talking about the variety
of activities and amenities that were available.
It was more than they had imagined
they first thought about it. When we asked about other amenities and services they would be
interested in, there's a wide range. There's no single dominant thing that folks are looking for.
They want more restaurants, exercise facilities and gyms, shopping and improved transportation
infrastructure. And when we talked about those amenities, that also helped increase
interest in visiting. Next slide, please. And we'll get past the text after this. Yeah. So this was
the overall brand rating here on the left. Overall, do you have a favorable or unfavorable
opinion of Shadelands? So it's a very high level question. You can see overall 93%
had a favorable opinion. That tells us that the brand has value, right? It's a favorable opinion.
And if you look at the intensity,
so the strongly favorable is 30% roughly.
So a lot of this is somewhat favorable.
But as people become more engaged with shade lens,
I would expect that the positive intensity
numbers, the strongly favorable, will go up.
There's almost no unfavorable opinion.
On the right, when we asked people about the brand image.
This is a resident survey as well.
So we said, and based on what you know or have heard,
what words or phrases would you use
to describe Shadelands, Walnut Creek?
We didn't provide them any answers.
We took down whatever they said or they typed it in online
and then we built it up into categories
so we could analyze it.
And you see the top two here are things related
to medical and healthcare,
as I talked about in the key findings,
and then offices and jobs, the job center.
So the things that tend to sort
to the top are a little more static.
And what we want to do is move
to a more engaging and dynamic brand.
Next slide, please.
This is the description.
So I'll read it so you don't have to.
Shadelands is a 270 acre property located in Walnut Creek.
So we didn't presume they knew anything.
In addition to being a key jobs and employment center,
Shadelands Walnut Creek has shopping, restaurants, bars,
and outdoor dining, medical and health facilities,
retirement community, world-class fitness
and athletic facilities for kids and adults,
seven acres of outdoor spaces, including a children's park,
walking trails, and community spaces
with a weekly farmer's market, outdoor art, gardens,
and music.
And based on that description,
even people who weren't familiar with Shadelands,
hadn't visited, they didn't really know much about it. Everyone responded really favorably to that.
You see, not only did we get a strong overall reaction, 90% favorable, but we got 45%
strongly favorable. So we're getting both intensity and overall brand strength,
which is exactly what you're looking for. I neglected to mention on the last slide that 93%
favorable was only among people who were familiar with Shadelands, right? So it doesn't make sense
to ask people who have never heard of Shadelands, do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of
it? So those who are already familiar, 93% had a favorable opinion of everyone we talked to. When
we read them this basic description, you get an incredibly positive response. And if you think
about all the things that are there, it is an amazing breadth of amenities and services.
Next slide. What surprised you most about what you just read or heard?
Lots of activities. So much I haven't seen. So much there. More to it than I thought.
Children's Park, trails, open space, green space. So the variety and the green space
were top mentions, but dining, shopping, nightlife, you know, there's a lot that people like there,
the size. There were a few people who weren't surprised, 9%, but you can start to see this
bigger brand image forming and people responding to it. Next slide, please.
Next, we will read you a list of amenities that might be added. After each one, please indicate
how interested you are in that amenity. So this is on a five-point scale, so one was not at all
interested, five was very interested. We're showing everything above the midpoint, so the fours and
fives. And we rank this by intensity, that five, the dark blue, very interested, because the things
that people are intensely interested are the things that are most likely to get them to engage and
visit. So you look at this list, and it's a great list. Sit-down restaurants and bars, pedestrians,
paths and walkways, small retail and independent shops, outward dining and picnic areas, venues
for live performances, cafes and coffee shops, space for community events or showcases. All of
those, half or more, say they are interested. And at the top, you know, you have 60% plus
saying they're interested with roughly 4 in 10 very interested. So those are great numbers.
next slide. And this should, oh that's it. But I did want to say that the slide wasn't in there but
the result of all of this was that two-thirds said they were more likely to visit based on what they
had discovered in the survey, what they had heard in the survey. Good evening, my name is Calvin
Young and I'm the creative director and owner of Creative Mint. So what do we do with all this
information? We learned so much over many many months of talking to so many people
And as a branding company, we're not
here to tell anybody what to do.
We're here to listen to all the stakeholders,
understand what their desires and values
and what they're offering the community,
and making something that's going to work for everybody.
Certainly when people were involved in this,
they had their own opinion based on whether they were medical,
whether they were selling office space,
whether they were childcare, beer.
Everyone has a different reason for being in a shade lens.
But the one thing that was very clear
was it is no longer a business park because when you think business park
you just think off old office buildings and that unfortunately was part of the
research of one of the negatives and what we try to do is listen to all the
needs create it create something that is going to be an umbrella for everybody
that's going to work and then also focus on the virtues and make them all
positives so one of the things is Shadelands the name itself we all know
it and we like it because we know it but when you hear Shadelands some of the
comments were shady, dark.
So one of the things we wanted to do
was really push it to a positive state.
And a lot of that was why we created a brand that's
very colorful, that's very vibrant,
that it's about vitality, it's about activity.
It's about things that you go there to do things.
It's not passive.
We talked a lot about a blue zone.
Wouldn't that be wonderful as an inspiration or a blue dot?
Everyone knows those great places
where everybody is vital.
They live well.
They eat well.
they exercise, it doesn't matter what age you're from,
whether you're a child, all the way up to a senior,
which represents Shadelands citizens,
you wanna be able to offer them something
that they will improve their lives.
So what do we do with this?
We take the findings of the survey research
and the interviews and in-person meetings,
and then we craft the Shadelands story
and what the brand promise will be.
What can we all say, can all the businesses say
that people will believe it as true?
And through that process, we are defining the vision,
the personality, what we call marketing pillars.
What are the three main things we want people to remember?
We create a positioning statement.
And we also felt we needed a new descriptor,
because if it's not going to be Business Park, what is it?
How are we going to change the thought process of what
people think Shadelands is?
And certainly a new tagline, which is always helpful.
We also looked at the domain that you have.
And we're like, is it helpful to you?
Google's obviously a big thing.
So how do we get the right domain that's
going to help the process?
Just like when we worked with Visit Walnut Creek,
it was on the eighth page of a Google search.
And then after working with us for about three months,
you're on the first page, number two.
So there are things you can do to improve where you are.
And it's just important to do best practices.
So we thought about that as well.
Next slide, please.
OK, so the biggest question was, why a new descriptor?
And the main thing is, if you say business park,
People have a sense of what that is,
and they're not going to think about all the other businesses
that are there, 300-plus businesses beyond office space.
So that's doing a disservice to all the people there.
And that won't attract new businesses
to create vitality in that neighborhood.
So what do we do?
We take the vision, and it kept coming back.
We want a vital destination.
We want that blue zone, blue dot feeling here.
And we can all deliver on that.
And we also all agree that we like the idea of calling
ourselves a district, right, rather than a park.
We looked at all the different words,
everyone agreed? I like district. I think that says something that we're a bigger
area of the city. But then beyond that, what kind of district is Shadelands? So
that was the challenging part. How can we find a word that's going to
represent all the diverse businesses? So we have a process that we go through. We
have a team with four different team members who take the information that
was approved in the roadmap and we all read it whether they're involved in the
project directly or not. And they all go in their own corners and use whatever
tools, applications, dictionaries, whatever they may, AI,
and they come back and make a list of words
that represent the idea of a vital destination.
Then we apply that to the word district
and see how that reads.
Does it sound right?
Does it sound serious?
Does it sound useful?
And then we also look at it.
Do they work for all services?
So some of them might sound nice, might work,
but it doesn't read well for, say, medical or seniors.
So we have to cross those out.
And then we take one more stab at it
and say, okay, let's try to find the same idea,
but different words.
Let's just throw everything on the wall
and see what happens.
Do we find anything that we've missed?
And then through that, we just start editing back again
and we ended up with the three that you see there,
Vitality District, Dynamic District, Life Action District,
and then we took that and tested it
with all the stakeholders within the process.
And then next was the logo.
So, the logos don't just come from anywhere,
we don't just sit there and create things.
We're looking at, again, going back to the brand roadmap,
which we call our Bible for our marketing,
that everyone agreed on.
So by the time we go through this process,
we can come up with lots of ideas.
And we had 21 internally that we shared with Bob's team.
And then we narrowed it down to 11 to represent to the P-BID.
And then we ended up with these five that were deciding logos
to look at and make a decision on.
And the winner was, next slide.
Here we go.
So we wanted something that would be very recognizable.
So we thought the idea of the S is nice.
We have a sun in there, we've got the road,
we have a representation of the lakes
that are in the ponds that are there.
We also wanted to make sure that we created a logo
that didn't feel like another business park, right?
Because we didn't want to have that perception.
We wanted to broaden the perception
that this could be bigger than that.
Something that's more lifestyle,
more representative of other brands
that you might see that aren't so corporate.
So we wanted to make sure we got that.
And we also wanted to change the colors.
So right now we're doing purple and dark greens,
things like that, that represent the shady feeling
that people kept talking about.
We wanted to change that, flip it on the side,
and say, no, it's bright, it's happy, it's fun,
it's a wonderful place, don't think of it that way.
I think you'll see there a descriptor and tagline
all put together, and you saw in the video
how it all comes together when you're talking
about all the many things you can do.
So we ended up on Vitality District
because we feel like that's something
that everyone can get behind, they can offer that,
that's something that's positive,
it's something that no one can say,
no, I don't want that, everyone wants to be vital
no matter what age you are.
And then the tagline, always something to move you.
Because we felt like we wanted to put in the emotional,
as well as the functional.
And we tested that, and that tested well with everybody,
because it represents all the things you can do.
The other thing we wanted to look at
is the color palette.
Oh, not yet.
The color palette, the other thing
is we're going to create a website,
but we want to make sure it's not just white pages.
We want to make sure that it's a very dynamic brand, very
colorful, very bold, just like the people we
want to be at Shadelands and who are already there.
And then we think it's important to show it in context,
because I think it helps you visualize how
it's going to come together.
So you can see on t-shirts, it has a sporty feel to it, bags.
The bus will be very important, because it's a moving billboard.
So right now, it's quite dark.
What we heard is a lot of people didn't notice it.
So what we want to do is make sure
that we use that billboard to its most effect,
having the bright colors, putting
all the different types of things on the bus
So when people are standing behind it in the traffic,
they'll go, hey, I didn't know there was child care.
Or I didn't know there was beer, craft beer there.
So we want to make sure that we create a bus that
is informative and is a moving billboard.
And on the top there, if we have events, just go back one second.
Yeah.
So we want to make sure we have a strong color palette so we
will be identifiable.
Let's say at the Art and Wine Festival,
our presence will be very strong there.
And that means we have to be very graphic and strong.
And we also thought the concept of this may or may not happen,
but it's part of the conversation.
How do we take something that feels static
and make it move and have vitality?
We thought if we could do visual video signage
that had different things going on
and moving as you drive by, walk by,
I think it's an opportunity to really sell
what's inside of Shadelands by showing them movement,
by showing them different things
and not burying their business behind brown walls, brick walls.
It'll all be lifted up and shown to the street
where everyone drives around.
And then finally, community events.
I think that's really important to bring in the community
as far as Orinda.
We want people to come in and be excited about unique
opportunities, community events we already
have made in the shade.
And how do we create other ideas, like a vitality expo
that maybe is a medical job fair, cornucopia,
taking that farmer's market and expanding it and making it
much more vibrant, and then things
like self-made, which could be people making products
and selling them here.
So it's about always changing up the energy there,
but making sure that the energy is there.
And that's what everyone was telling us.
That's what they wanted.
And therefore, that's where we ended up.
So I just want to mention that Calvin did it.
All the folks did a good job representing the process
that we went through.
We know that there's signage issues related
to a master sign development process.
So we wanted to present concepts to you,
knowing full well we have a process
to go through out there with making sure that our signage is in conformance with city policy
as well.
That concludes our portion of the presentation to you all.
I want to acknowledge that the property owners business improvement district steering committee
has met several times on this.
We had a unanimous vote with one abstention and I believe that this represents a process
that we took very seriously. We think it's an exciting opportunity for
Shadelands, 3.4 million square feet, 106 property owners, 270 acres of a vibrant
area that needs a facelift and a brand lift and that's what we tried to
represent to you tonight. I'd be happy to take any questions, the tough ones I'll
give to the consultants in the back. Does anybody at Council here have any
questions? I have questions of staff when this is. Okay so maybe not yet. All
right. Okay do we want to go back to staff? So I need some clarification.
The Shadelands Business Park is in the city of Walnut Creek and it is not a
single property owner it is multiple property owners in a business park that
It has been part of the city of Walnut Creek for over 50 years.
It's in the general plan as a business park and its zoning is business park with some
slight modifications, flexibility now.
This is different than Broadway Plaza.
Not only by size, but that is a single property owner, private property owner that if they
come in with a brand change, we're not going to have a conversation about it.
Am I in the right ballpark of my statements?
Yes, council member Silva, that's correct.
The proposal this evening is not to formally change the name.
The trick of it is it shows up in many places
as a business park, that's how it's been known.
But we're not trying to change
the Shadelands Business Improvement District moniker.
So there's multiple names out there,
I think is how I would explain that.
The reason we wanted to highlight it for you more so
is that it will appear in additional documents
before the council, it could show up in signage.
And so we wanted it to be as clear as we can make it
that this is changing how we present and talk about this.
The city attorney can provide some additional insight
on what would it take to change it formally
in these various locations,
but for the purpose of tonight's discussion,
we were limiting it to those things
that are more practical in nature.
So it's really a moniker.
It's not that the business park is changing.
From a land use standpoint, correct.
It's you're not changing the zoning designations,
you're not changing the general plan,
even from the naming of the business improvement district.
This doesn't change any of that.
Okay, thank you.
I think it might be for one of you over there.
just I'm interested a little bit more in the process kind of the vitality
district kind of you know did you what other comparable and maybe there aren't
any centers did you look at did you examine kind of to come up with vitality
district you know kind of our our original research looked at 38 different
office parks or similar parks in 18 states. We had trouble identifying a
direct equal match in that research based on two criteria. 106 property
owners in a business park. You think of like the most comparable we would think
of here is Bishop Ranch, one main property owner there. The second big
differentiation in any of that research was the distance to a highway or a mass
transit line like rail. All of the other items in possible comparison
were a lot closer or they got into more retail shopping than the Shadelands is
as a business park. Well Bishop Ranch I think is probably maybe a good one
right because it was an office park and then the retail and the dining came
afterwards but it came with its own separate branding and naming it
technically it's still part of Bishop Branch but it's named City Center I
think or something like that. I think the official name is City Center at Bishop
Branch but they're trying to brand it as City Center or going to the center as
as some people in San Ramon have told us.
And then I couldn't quite, there was Vitality District,
Dynamic District, and was it Life Activity?
Life Action.
Life Action District.
Those were our final three that we tested
through multiple focus groups and the last survey.
Are there any, do those, is that term exist,
and is there another center out there in the United States
that has that name like Vitality District,
or something similar to that?
I don't know, Calvin, if you have anything to add.
In the research that I did on it,
Vitality had come up related to more not
in terms of a whole area, a whole district
that we're trying to create.
It was more specific to here's a Vitality Center,
and that could be something at a university campus
or at a medical center, or senior programming
was even called it, but not in direct comparison
to what we are trying to do that brings in medical
and sports and fitness and senior living
and office and innovation and end.
Yeah, from our research of doing it,
just looking it out, and Googling it,
we do all these things, we throw it through AI,
see what comes up there as well these days.
We didn't find anyone called Vitality District.
it was more a concept of vitality.
And I'm sure a lot of cities use that word
when they're talking about rejuvenation
and things like that,
but not in the way that we are talking about,
which is about activity, energy, keeping healthy,
doing, making good choices for yourself, things like that.
And maybe if you could just speak a little bit
to the idea that you felt something more
than just taking off business park was needed,
like shade lens or the shade lens,
something else was needed to embody this concept of trying to recreate the space.
We actually at one point took out the word vitality we were just calling it
like the shade lens and that came back in the focus groups as not aggressive
enough particularly from some of the business owners whether it was elements
massage or it was encore gymnastics or even like a physical therapy place where
the feedback was, no, we want to hold change.
Amy Callahan representing the Walnut Creek Executive Park
was like, no, no, I want you to breathe more into this.
So add more to the descriptor.
Yeah, what came back was when we took it out
as part of the process,
and people felt there was no vision.
So you're just gonna call it Shadelands,
which is what it's called now.
So you're really not making a change.
So we definitely need to define it as something different.
That's why descriptors are good, because it redefines right
away what you're talking about.
Even if you don't know what you're talking about,
people will go, what does that mean?
It starts the conversation, and people
will get to it very quickly.
As you can tell from the little commercial we created,
you get it.
At the end, when you see all these people moving around
and having a great time and being healthy,
then you get it right at the end.
And as a next step, which after tonight, hopefully we
will go to our various committees with the PBID
and go through a process to put a budget
behind marketing the name
and what the shade lens is becoming.
And so the goal is that we get people,
not just in Walnut Creek, but in the region,
talking about what is going on out there
and to use that in partnership with the chamber
and in partnership with the city economic development staff
to go out and attract new businesses out there.
We've talked to commercial brokers
who are excited about this
and we're gonna convene a group of them around our launch
to how can we partner better to attract businesses
that wanna leave Oakland, for example, in the medical space
and make this their next bigger home.
I think I would add to that too,
that what's powerful about brand is
when you create something that people can stand behind
and they believe in and it excites them
where they weren't excited before,
then we'll have more engagement
with the people already in JLIM.
So we want more engagement.
There's 300 plus businesses,
but we probably just know a handful, they're all hidden.
And they're not engaging with the newsletter
and the communications out there.
So I think once people fall in love with what we're doing,
they'll contact us, they'll reach out,
they'll say I wanna be part of it,
I wanna be on the website, I wanna be part of it.
And that's part of the power of creating a brand
and including everybody.
We're not creating something that they didn't hear about.
They've had a chance to think about it,
be part of it, be part of the process.
So that they've been heard and that's important.
Good evening Madam Mayor and City Council members.
I'm Angela De La Husse Ashley and as Bob said,
I'm chair of the PBID committee
and have been since the Shadelands inception in 2014.
And I want to speak to the word vitality
because obviously it's coming up a lot.
Spoiler alert, I love the term now.
I was very skeptical in the beginning.
In fact, when it came up,
I was like vitality that sounds like a bowl.
And Calvin said that's not necessarily a bad thing,
But in all honesty, when I heard the first descriptor
for Kaiser is Thrive, I was skeptical about that too.
I was thinking, that's what I want my kids to do
when they graduate from college.
That's not something I would use to describe a hospital.
But really what we're talking about here
isn't some sort of legal change.
We're talking about synthesizing and creating
cross-pollination with the businesses, which
has come back with a resounding request
from all the different businesses in Shadelands,
from the accountants to the lawyers,
to all the people siloed in the back,
and when we look at Shadelands
and we look at what's organically grown there over decades,
we see that it's resoundingly medical.
Medical has organically grown there,
and it continues to grow.
It takes up 560,000 square feet at Shadelands,
and that's 100% full occupancy,
and it's bursting at the seams.
So how do we incorporate medical
and bring people there for medical
and cross-pollinate with the other businesses
without changing a legal name.
And that was how we got to Vitality.
There are so many people on our committee
and over the years have changed out,
but we have an incredible amount of experience,
professionalism, and capability, including a branding
expert that was with Del Monte.
And again, we had, with one abstention,
we had a unanimous vote in favor of vitality.
I think it kind of grows on you, to be honest.
But again, the word vitals in it, which connotes medical,
and vitality means prosperity, growth, thriving.
So that's how it culminated over about a year, actually.
I mean, eight months in the intensive process,
but it's been about a year.
So, thank you.
Thank you, that was helpful.
Thank you guys, and it's interesting to think about this
and how shade lens has kind of been changing
because we did go through and strategically do some changing
to the zoning to try to get more than just a business park
and now we're trying to take what's happened there
and capture it.
My question is, it's related, like Angela,
when I first heard Vitality District,
I thought Vitality Bowl?
And I won't tell you what I thought when I said,
It's always something to move you.
But my question is, have you guys
shared this with 12-year-old boys?
And there's always a risk when you come up with a rebrand
that somebody will take it in a way
that you didn't quite think of it.
And have you guys thought about that?
I think I don't know about always something to move you,
but I think the word vitality resonates
with the younger generation because they think of health.
And health and vitality is very popular right now,
as is eating healthy, living healthy.
Part of what we're trying to achieve at Shadelands
is more activity in terms of walking, biking,
and using the park and all the facilities.
So vitality also connotes traversing the park,
seeing what else is out there.
And so to answer your question, I think
with the younger generation, I don't know about 12-year-olds,
In terms of.
It's a snicker factor.
Yeah.
The younger generation, I think vitality resonates actually pretty well.
Okay.
And so you're thinking that the fact that many people who hear vitality district think
vitality bowl isn't necessarily a bad thing.
I like you, Kevin, you want to respond to the bowl thing?
I was going to say we did have a lot of participation, I think, from every owner of the sports mall
as well as we did discuss this with parents in the neighborhoods of what feedback and
so 12 year old boys actually is a big target particularly of the sports mall and their
plans there and doing that and Jackie Texeria who represents the property management of
the orchards is that's actually attracting middle school kids afterwards to like the
the juice place and having snacks and French fries
and pizza there after school, particularly on Wednesdays
when they're all out early.
That's actually a good thing in bringing them there.
So we didn't run a focus group with kids,
but we did incorporate that via the representation,
particularly of the sports mall and parents who participated
in focus groups and stuff.
OK.
Thank you.
Can I add anything on the Vitality Bowl?
Well, sometimes borrowing from a brand that is positive
Vitality Ball is healthy.
So if you thought that, you wouldn't
think the negative thing.
So it's OK, and that's OK.
Can I tell a story on that?
Sure.
Can I contact?
So one of the businesses that is brand new
and is going into the shade lens is a fertility clinic.
And there's seven people leaving UCSF in downtown San
Francisco.
And they chose the shade lens to come to.
And they did their research.
They were considering everywhere between Livermore
to El Dorado when this group of seven was trying to find it.
And they eventually got to the shade lens
because we became known as a medical destination.
And that was already sort of happening organically.
So how do we build on that?
She's spending, and I remember seven and seven
because she's also spending $7 million
to invest into their 7,000 square foot space.
Like I said, it was all seven, so it was easy to remember.
That's the kind of business we want to attract there.
And she participated in this and got excited.
And then she said one of her biggest problems
was they had somebody who was taking BART from San Bruno.
And how did they get them from the BART here?
And oh, there's a shuttle bus.
So one of our surveys that came back
from some of the business owners was,
hey, we all like the bus.
We don't think anybody knows about this.
So how do we promote it?
And it goes into this whole branding campaign
is we're doing that.
But if you just think about how does that business fit into
where can the Shavelands go
and how do we get people talking about it?
That's part of this campaign and that effort.
Thank you guys.
Kevin.
Thank you, thank you all.
So one question, I'm not sure who the best for this is,
is so well, Jared, you stand back up.
So you were just talking about medical,
which is the reason that this fertility clinic came,
even though it was Shailan's business part.
So does the word vitality, does that speak to medical?
I mean, I'm not sure what,
I first heard the word vitality,
I'm not sure what I thought of.
Vigor, vigor and vim, I don't know why,
I don't even know what vim means,
but I'm not thinking medical.
You know, the word that kept coming up
as I'm reading through everything
and I'm listening to everything was lifestyle.
That it's, this is sort of a lifestyle.
It's pretty, has a lot of aspects that put that.
So I guess the question though,
since we're talking about fatality is,
does that equal medical?
So I'll let Calvin also respond.
One of the things was how do you touch on office space,
a sports mall, a shopping center?
One, soon to be two senior living centers.
How do you find that balance in all of that out there,
which is not easy to do?
But even talking to the seniors living there,
talking to the property owners that are there
and the businesses that are there,
they liked the term because they felt
like they wanted to change it from that business
park of a classy, outdated set of buildings that
doesn't have sprinklers in all the buildings anymore,
because that was the code in the 1970s when they were built.
They weren't there.
Most of the two-story buildings don't have elevators.
So they're talking about, hey, we've
got to take the stairs up.
Vitality, right?
You're feeling energizing.
People came back and said, can you set up cornhole somewhere?
So we're talking to ARF about doing cornhole
on the adjacent side.
Just because people wanted life,
people were talking about how do we create chess clubs
for after work or lunch hours out there.
And it just fit into this concept
of how do we also recruit businesses
and how do we create an energy into those businesses
and that sort of, so it fits into attracting more businesses
that we want to attract out there.
Yeah, so I think one of the challenges,
The research was they know it's medical,
so we don't have to really explain that part.
They know it's a safe way.
We don't need to explain that part.
So what are the parts that we're trying to uplift and bring
forward and explain in a better way with a word that
works for everybody?
So that's where we derive the vitality.
I mean, the life action was there.
That could work, but it was a lot of people
thought it was too long, too weird, too different,
and that's OK.
Dynamic was kind of not saying enough,
because it says a lot of stuff's happening,
but it didn't cover this idea of living well.
So that's why we ended up with Vitality.
It's a very hard challenge when you're
representing so many different types of businesses.
I mean, the other option is say nothing,
and then you don't have something strong
to project out to the world.
So when you're advertising and doing billboards
or whatever, you're doing digital two-second ads
on a social, it won't resonate as strongly.
So I do believe we need to say something strong.
Just any brand that you think about
says something very strong.
Therefore, it sticks, and then you're interested.
You may not know what it means right away,
but you're interested.
At least it grabs you, and that's what's most important.
And I think I heard about lifestyle.
And we did run, I do believe the phrase lifestyle came up
a number of times.
But one, it was definitely overused in all of the research
that it's out there, describing a lot of other places.
And I think the feedback we got was
our current tagline is live work play.
I might have just messed up that order.
And it was feeling like that was too consistent
with where it was and we needed a bigger punch
was the feedback we heard.
And that includes from the office market.
All right, okay, thanks.
Then I got a question for Bob.
Could you please pull up slide six?
It was the reaction to description.
So this, I'm just gonna refer to it,
but I'm not gonna ask you to be specific
on these different points, Bob,
but more of a general question
because the concern that I've got in general
is that we've been nicking away at the business aspect
of what Shadelands is.
There's been a variety of different things.
And I'm not talking about the kind of current uses
for Shadelands, which I completely support in these areas.
I'm talking more of we've moved to senior housing,
and now it's becoming housing as well.
Actually, was this, the next slide, actually.
And there we go.
And it feels like they're, especially with the state mandate
of having more housing, but there's no state mandate
for having more businesses,
and then we've got a commitment on council
to reduce or at least mitigate the job's housing imbalance.
I love the description here.
Key job shopping, restaurants, bars,
outdoor dining, medical health facilities,
all these kind of things.
Love the description.
So what I'm asking you, Bob,
as executive director of the chamber,
is do we have the chamber's commitment
that we're going to keep to the kind of uses
that we're talking about here,
and the chamber is not going to support
a residential usage of the,
whatever we want to call it, Shealands Vitality,
whatever it is, that the chamber's not going to support
residential, should we be changing the name
from what has been business
into something that's more all encompassing.
Are you asking me for our position for the future?
Asking for the position of how does the chamber
view Shealands overall, is this something that truly
is going to be primarily for the kind of vitality
and lifestyle and businesses and sports
and all the things that we're talking about here,
as opposed to something that's just residential.
As a Chamber of Commerce,
I'm hoping that it's the Chamber of Commerce position
that yes, it's gonna be for commerce.
Well, of course, that's what the shade lens is intended to be
but I'm not gonna commit honestly, frankly,
to the future of what is possible with shade lens
because look what's happened since COVID has occurred.
look at all the vacancies that have occurred.
The economics of building buildings is different today
than it was before COVID.
So, you know, we're gonna support commerce.
Our mission is to support economic development,
business development and advocacy for our companies.
Housing.
That's what I like to hear.
Well, housing is an important element of, you know,
of an ecosystem in our community.
So I don't know what the future is gonna hold,
but I can tell you we're trying to breathe some life
into this area that formed a business improvement district.
Why?
Chronic vacancy was the number one reason why it was formed.
And business improvement districts form all over the place
to change the course of that direction.
So, we're trying to breathe life into it.
So, I hope I'm getting near an answer.
Yeah, no, I understand.
I like the business improvement portion of all of that.
So, no, I can appreciate that.
All right, thanks.
No, that's.
Is that it?
Is that the only question?
That's good, no, you, that was, yeah.
Let me add one piece on the vitality question.
Normally, you hear the word economic
before you hear vitality.
It resonates big time in my view with economic vitality
is what we're trying to achieve in our community.
Wellness was the other name that was proposed to us
from a branding expert that Jared mentioned.
But wellness doesn't incorporate the true ecosystem
that we're trying to achieve out there.
So that was one of the reasons why it didn't
rise to the level of that.
So anyway.
I thought I'd add that since I had the mic.
Thanks, Bob.
So Council Member Silva.
OK.
I think I have a question.
I'm trying desperately to figure out
how to ask it in the question anyhow.
When we're talking about a property,
we're talking about a property, and vitality
is not a descriptor of property.
And I kept going round and round.
Why does this not sing to me?
I like the concept of vitality.
I'm not sure it's my favorite word yet,
but I like what you're trying to accomplish with the word.
But I think it needs to be something, well,
I think the word came up when somebody over there
was talking about it.
Shadelands campus, which kind of says
it's a piece of property.
It's a location.
And then you get to descript after that,
but it at least tells people it isn't just,
vitality just doesn't sing to me as a descriptor
of a piece of property, as a piece of property.
Did anybody understand my, I know, well, yes it did.
Did anybody understand what I was saying?
So I think that's where the term district came from.
and was discussed, so it's the Shadelands district
to define that area with a descriptor word of vitality,
like bright orange was the color.
And by the way, I do not like orange.
It's like my rival of like eight teams,
but that made sense for here, right?
So it's kind of like the descriptor to it.
So the district is the campus where that campus had come up,
Park had come up again, do we keep park and lose business,
but people wanted the change.
So it is the Shadelands district with the word vitality
as a marketing-ism to,
did you want to add to that?
I think with branding too,
you're always trying to hit the emotional chord.
So by just talking about a building,
that's not exciting to people,
especially the way the buildings are right now.
There's a lot of negativity around the type of buildings.
I don't see it, I like them,
But a lot of people don't like red-brown buildings.
They feel like that's dated and I don't want to be there.
So what we wanted to do was bring something emotional to it
so that your heart could sing when you felt about it.
So if you just talk about an animate object that's
not going to do it, we need to add something
that's emotional on top of it.
So a brand that works both functional as well as
emotional is going to be more powerful.
So that's where we landed on that.
I hope that helps.
because I'm dealing with the fact
that we're naming some kind of area.
Shadelands area, I don't care.
Exudes vitality, does, you know,
I understand what you're trying to accomplish,
but we're naming something that's, I don't react,
district is so not vital.
The word district is not vital.
So I am struggling with how to describe what it is.
I wanna know Shadelands Place,
where lots of good things happen.
I mean, I came up with Shadelands Campus
for what you need and want.
And that's, you know, I mean,
I also thought that giving it a place name,
but I guess I would ask then what kind of campus?
That's what we're trying to achieve.
You just say campus and you know it's a place.
And I do know campus was a descriptor word
that was talked about during one of the meetings.
And that was eliminated.
Park was talked about, campus, district.
There was probably 12 others, and I
don't have that information in front of me.
And it was voted upon to go to, at one of the board meetings
for the PBID, to go to district as that over campus,
over park, over a couple of other.
So we did look at a lot of different word commons,
all these other words that other people use,
and they just didn't feel right
because they felt dated to us.
If you're trying to revive something,
you don't use something that's older.
You try to bring in something that feels
like the Mission District came up.
People look at, when you say Mission District in the city,
people are cool.
So they give you a chance if they're younger.
So I think that's what we're just trying to bridge
the generations and not just stick to what it was.
They had 50 years of that.
Now it's time to kind of just move it.
We're not trying to do something extreme.
We're just trying to move it a little bit
to a different direction, yeah.
Thank you.
All right, I don't expect there are any ES answers
to this question, but is there any public comment?
I see no public comment.
Smiles, but no public comment.
All right, so we're gonna bring it back to council, I guess.
So I think we need to just kind of give our feedback.
Yes.
Thank you very much and I understand the problem.
I also want to compliment Calvin because I was on the, in numerous meetings when the
whole Calapolitan came forward.
And I do understand the challenge of 160 property owners.
Death by a thousand cuts is what it really sounds like to me.
So my limited research was to look up what is going on at Hacienda Business Park in
Bishop Ranch. So those are the two closest. Those are our competitors. It's not something
in Florida or Texas or Vermont. And Hacienda Business Park is no longer Hacienda Business
Park, it's Hacienda. And then I read through very quickly, and it was talking about it's
a place where you can live, it's a place where you can work, and you can dine. It's the same.
It may have fewer property owners because Kaiser owns what were originally the People's
buildings, etc., but I'm not sure that changes the Pleasanton. And it is closer
to the freeway, but it they seem to be adapting to the same problem. Bishop
Ranch, they have the advantage of having a ranch, but this was Shadelands Ranch
way back in the day and the word ranch got dropped. I would agree with, well
first of all, I would say we have to get this right because it's too far from the
freeway and 160 property owners and if this isn't the right thing and it's you
know well I could go with this one or I could go with that one or you're
spending a lot of time explaining why it's a vitality district I that makes me
squirm because I don't think you have time to explain it to a lot of people
so I'm going to give you my frank pieces of feedback first of all I don't think
it's a district because a district to me says I should be looking for other
districts in the community. And so, and the same problem was encountered by
Walnut Creek downtown when they went to try to come up with districts in the
small downtown area and they eventually abandoned trying to create districts
because they couldn't agree where the borders were, etc. So I'm struggling with
the word district. And then when I combine the word vitality with district,
I just don't know what that means. Yes, I thought of Vitality Bowl, but I also
thought of vitamins, it doesn't say energetic, active lifestyle, more than a
place to work. The problem is you're trying to find a phrase, a tagline, and a
second word in the name that says it's more than a place to work. And it's, and
you can't say it's something for everyone because that is, you know,
that's the classic trite line. The logo is okay, but the color palette, I can't
vote for black and orange because it's dark and dull and not friendly and it's
not vital. The shade lens that was in multiple colors had energy to it, and it
was moving, and that would make me interested. That logo was the
color palette and that was energetic. And the tagline, I just struggle with
something to move you. I loved the video. The video was working until the tagline
came up and I went, I don't know what it, so I'm not on board here and I wish I
could be. Francois, please. Okay, well I appreciate that and I know that that my
colleague has a marketing background that I lack and I can just speak well
first of all I want to there's a tremendous amount of effort that went
into this and I want to thank and applaud that and with professionals who
when especially when Calvin when you were speaking in terms of the need to
create a sense of space through branding I admire I was following you and I can
to see what you're trying to do.
I'm a lawyer.
I know what the trend in law firms has been.
You have a name with like everybody's egos on the door
and there's 15 different names and the trend has been,
nope, now it's just Cooley or it's Latham.
And it's trying to simplify the process.
And when you said that that was tested for Shadelands
and it wasn't as much of a change,
I understand that too, I think.
Cause I, my first reaction was why isn't it just Shadelands
or the Shadelands, and I understand why that,
and your explanation helped me understand
why more is needed.
I definitely think something is needed,
and I just, I'm struggling a little bit
with Vitality District as well,
and I'm not a professional, I could throw names out there,
and I don't know that we have another good comparable,
I can think of Stanford Research Park, or the Googleplex,
or the Apple headquarters, but there's no other area
that I can say, you know, use what they did,
because I think it's unique, and it should be unique,
what we're trying to create there.
I do like Kaiser's marketing campaign,
and it would be too much of a rip-off, I guess,
just to call it the Thrive Zone,
or the Wellness Zone, or something like that.
But I...
But if you keep betting off people,
we're not probably appreciative.
No, that's true.
So I agree something needs to change
and I don't know what the actual change should be.
I think maybe with, there was both a tagline
and then the vitality district and I'm wondering,
do we need both of those or can we simplify it
and just try to encompass what we're trying to do
in the new name of this or in the tagline?
Yeah, maybe that's, yeah.
The color palette didn't, I wasn't as offended by it
or the logo, I kinda liked it.
I thought it, when you explained it,
you know that it was, kind of there was the road
and then there were the, I'm like,
oh yeah, I see the ponds now.
I liked the S, I thought that was simple and strong
and whether it's orange and black,
I don't feel super strong about it.
If it were blue and gold, I'd feel really.
I'm very happy.
Yeah, all right, we're for both of us.
I know it's tricky.
I definitely applaud the effort and I want to,
I think the city wants to continue to work with you on this
and just get to a point where we're all as excited
as it seems like the PBID members are on what the new name,
logo, tagline should be.
Cindy, are you ready, Kevin?
OK.
Well, thank you.
Having a marketing background myself,
I know the work and effort that goes into this.
And a lot of cooks in the kitchen.
And then you're sifting it through.
And then you're putting it out to all
of the interested parties.
And you're bringing it back.
Then you're rehashing it all.
And was it a year?
Was it a year?
Is that what I?
Yeah, I mean, that's a lot.
And so to suddenly come and you're talking to five people
and it's hard to hear.
Well, no, we don't like that.
So I'll tell you what I do like about it
and I'll tell you what my concerns are.
I'm actually not as bothered about the term district.
In fact, when I first heard vitality district,
it was vitality I was focusing on, not district,
because we've talked about theater district
and that's something that has percolated over the years.
And while we don't officially have a theater district,
I don't know if people would be looking for other districts.
So that didn't concern me.
Vitality, I think there is an ambiguity there.
I'm getting there, I guess.
That may be the best way to put it.
I understand what you're trying to achieve,
and I don't think there is one word that fits all.
I had thought about something for everyone,
but evidently, I've been told that that's trite.
So, maybe that won't work.
So, but I do like the idea that this is life.
It's about life, and it's about style,
And it's about more than office work and office businesses.
And I get all that.
So does vitality hit there?
I don't know.
But I do know that we want to have something that
is invigorating to at least get people thinking beyond going
to a stayed office center.
In terms of the color, I guess I'm not
crazy about orange and black either.
And that's not because I'm a Dodger fan.
I'm just not crazy about orange and black.
But I do like the multiple colors.
And when I looked at those five examples,
I thought, oh, I do like the multiple, especially.
And I don't know why we're not seeing more,
because green, there's green right on our screen right now.
I'm thinking green, especially shadings even
sort of gives an idea of green.
So vibrant, whether it's primary or secondary colors,
those are things that do appeal to me.
I don't know if I'm unique, but that appeals to me.
And I like the S.
If there was a way of incorporating that,
I guess if I was part of the initial committee,
that's what I'd be looking at.
And my questions that were for Bob before
is really what I wanted to try to get across
in general is that I see in general terms
as Shadeland becomes more,
it also becomes just encroaching upon the idea
of something that provides jobs
and something to do that provides jobs,
and there are state mandates for housing.
And Bob, you had said about that housing adds this vitality,
it's part of the ecosystem, absolutely.
And we firmly believe that on the council,
we have of course accepted the arena numbers,
we continue to look at housing that is primarily downtown
because that's where people don't have to get into cars
and drive around and reduce commute times
and greenhouse gases.
And I just get concerned that as we start to open up more
of what we're broadcasting Shadelands can be,
I get concerned that we're also potentially
looking down the road and encroaching more
and having more residential there
and therefore taking away from jobs.
And then suddenly next thing we know,
we are being asked to rezone.
And so that's just a concern that I'm putting out there.
I know this doesn't have anything to do
with this particular issue,
but that's just my general umbrella thoughts
when we're looking at changing the nature
of what Shadelands Business Park has been
and where it's going.
Okay, so I've been struggling with this
because we really are, we've been working on this
for a long time, and I think some of you
have been working on it far harder than I have,
but the idea that we went through and did the rezoning,
we're pulling in new businesses, we're adding places to eat,
We're adding those things that when we added the orchards.
And now we're starting to figure out a way to capture.
We've got Cali Craft, we've got a sports mall,
and we've got a fertility clinic.
And how do you capture?
Those are three very different things.
It's a mini town where nobody lives.
Except old people.
But I didn't just say that on TV, yeah.
So I was originally skeptical of Vitality District,
but then when I think about Thrive,
I can see where Vitality District could capture things
as diverse as Cali Craft to a fertility clinic.
And the district gives it that sense of place.
Vitality captures what it is you're trying to do.
So I can go in that direction.
I'm not sure I love always something to move you
just because, yeah, there's a colonoscopy joke in there,
which I am not going to make
because I'm not gonna make another joke.
I love the S, I love the bright colors,
I love the idea of doing the bus wraps
and increasing the visibility
and I think that's all really great.
So I think you guys are,
you're heading the right way in my mind
at capturing a very diverse set of interests
and trying to make it seem,
trying to capture that it's more interesting
than just going for a colonoscopy.
So I can live with Vitality District,
your tagline, I might wanna,
and I like the S and I like the bright colors.
Okay, I am having trouble.
I don't think I would ever like
Shadelands vitality district,
because you're trying to move us
with one word to get us through the next, what, 40 years.
I thought about, I'm a New Yorker,
so I just say, why not new Shadelands?
And that says everything's gonna change.
And it keeps it simple.
And then you could get a tagline that says all kinds of things.
Or you can explain it.
I just hear.
And I look at the percentages of the votes.
49% is not an outstanding rave even from the people voting.
So I'm just struggling with it.
I don't see how most people will understand
you're trying to accomplish. And so it's a lovely thought and it works with lots of sentences after
it, but I don't see what it accomplishes for people moving in from Maryland and
Oakland and lots of other places. So I am not the person to vote for Orange. I really don't like
orange and except in my juice and so I like the colors, the colors sparkle and I like
the way they sparkle and talk to me. The tagline I think is is pretty much how you explain
what you're really trying to accomplish because taglines can change, names are harder and
that's my feedback.
Are we getting what we need?
I'm not sure how to respond to that one.
It got a lot there.
We need to synthesize this.
Obviously, there's a lot of feedback.
Some of it was similar, some was not.
And I think, you know, if there's going to be further work on this, then I think there
needs to be some clear direction about what that should be.
I think the one thing I heard everybody likes is the S.
Yeah, I mean, so there's a couple of things here.
I mean, what you were being asked to do is approve this this evening.
There's the district name, the logo, the tag lines, and color palette.
And so you could give feedback on each of those, and we'd need to know what the majority
of feedback is, because there was obviously some disparate feedback.
I would also add just, you know, one of the things that I heard from some of you stronger
than others that's consistent is you like the overall approach, the idea of better encapsulating
what is happening at shade lens and what could happen at shade lens.
Background information, the overall approach of broadening the appeal, you're all favorable
to that.
I also heard to make sure we don't drift too far that it's intended to be a job center
in an area for commerce.
So while we want to embrace additional ideas as has been over the last several years to
make sure we don't go too far and lose the fact that there are jobs there and offices
in an area of commerce, so to keep that in mind in the marketing materials as well.
We did hear that there was broad support for the S. I think the others we should go through
and narrow the feedback down so we have some direction about what to do next.
Could we actually bring up that one slide that had the finalists of the colors and logos?
To be honest, let's go back to the previous slide.
To be honest, if we use number one but the S was made up of the colors either in number
number three or a number five, I like it.
So what it sounds like is we think it needs to be brighter.
Or colorful, yeah.
And I heard that from four of us.
No, I actually think Cindy might.
I was reacting more towards the palate in slide 14.
When you look at the logo in option one, but when you look at the idea that that logo is
is going to have the secondary palette around it.
So I agree.
It needs to be brighter.
It needs to be energetic.
This makes me want it.
The orange and black makes me want it.
Can we hear it instead of muttering?
Oh, I was just going to say, the logo
needs to be brighter, because that's what says energy.
These two colors do not say energetic, vital to me,
active lifestyle, a variety of things to do.
I mean, it's two colors.
It doesn't say variety by just its very nature.
So it sounds like the logo from just a general standpoint
can work if it's brighter through additional color
or something like that.
This might be a little bit of a gender difference too,
but I like the logo.
And I like the way that it looked on bags and shirts.
And so, I think if you make it too bright,
that may not be worth that, sure.
And maybe that's okay.
But I mean, I think that it's something to consider.
I understand the point that it's not energetic
and the colors aren't energetic enough.
But if there's kind of a low,
if there's this marketing swag part of it too,
I think we need to,
and maybe they don't have to be the same color for the swag.
and council if I could just add that part of the exploration they did look at this logo with three
colors it got a little hectic but I think the point about could the color palette brighten it up
be here clearly it's it's hard to compare logos which are a shape and colors at the same time
so when I've been involved in this in different environments you would look at the shape in black
and white or grayscale because then you're not letting color drive you and then you
add color into it.
So we're getting, we're at the end of the line as opposed to the beginning of the process.
So consensus around the yes, color palette, see if there's a way to weave in more colors
to the overall theme, the logo, I think we just give some general feedback on the logo
to see what they can play with, see if they even make it work with something with some
additional color, keep it orange, and potentially weave in some colors into the additional marketing
materials beyond the orange and black, is what I'm hearing.
And then I think the others are, I mean, the big ones, the district name.
And the tagline?
Yeah, the tagline.
Why don't we tackle the district name first?
I did not hear consensus, even though I can kind of live with it.
But you're not a, it's, yeah.
It's grown on me.
It's grown, yeah.
But I do think vitality bowls and SIE berries
when I see it.
It's really hard to come up with a word that says so many,
I mean, basically it's one word for a whole town.
I mean, it would be like us trying to do that
for Walnut Creek.
It wouldn't be a probably a smart idea
because although Calvin did a great job with Kalapolitan.
The and it's not like Kaiser and thrive because Kaiser is a medical health and wellness
Facility and thrive is a single word that they drove really hard
With a multi-million dollar campaign and Alice and Jani
Just add is I don't think you need to come up with anything else. I think the question is
Can we live in it or not? Do you want to support vitality district or would you like the team to come up with some other options?
I'd like to. I'd like to see some other options. dido. Anybody else? That's three. I could live
with it but I wouldn't mind seeing other options too. I'm with Kevin. Three and two. Three and two.
But I think all of us are. I think it's fair to say none of us are completely sold.
I thought Luella was on to something when you said new shade ones. I mean that kind of spoke to me.
Yeah. And then last is tagline. Colonoscopy. Were there options on the screen again?
Sorry, sorry guys. No, I got it. There were other options considered but they were not
presented here is my understanding. So it looks like from the staff report the top three were
or always something to move you,
always something to do, your healthy, happy place.
More than a place.
And your healthy, happy place,
there was concern that it was too similar
to some other corporate branding campaigns
that already exist, like McDonald's
and I think it was Walgreens going from memory.
So it really, this one would be more exploration
if council wished it.
Always something to move you. It just that's
Doesn't tell me what I'm gonna do. I you know, I moved from here to there. I
Exercise I don't it's not very specific
to what
The equivalent of thrive is which is a very focused answer
So I I know I know what you're trying to accomplish. I just I just don't know that you did it
So, whatever the name is, Vitality District, whatever it is, that's the long-term name
that we then approve after the advisory on this.
But the tagline, as we were saying, we could change that every five years.
There could be an initial tagline of, it's not just work anymore, whatever.
And then in five years, when people start to take that in, it can become another tagline.
So it's not like we have to look at this for, well, this is it, 40 years, here we go.
So maybe that makes it easier to sort of digest whatever it is for the next five years and
easier to come up with some other options as well that we could then look at as that
makes sense for the next few years.
And then we move on from that.
That makes sense to me.
I personally did not have kind of a visceral or negative reaction to always something to move you so I could the tagline was
I was okay with that
anybody else want to make a
comment
So let me test so you guys are thinking this could work for now
All right. I mean, I'm looking for at Matt and Kevin. I
Said I liked it. I like always something to move you. I don't know. I'm 49% on it. I guess
That's more than it's vote got, yeah.
And you're a hard no.
No, if you said it's always something to engage you,
I might, because I don't,
I'm not getting movement out of this.
So it's, there may be the germ of an idea there.
The problem is 160 property owners,
it is trying to reach consensus.
And I leaned over a little while ago and I said,
and now we know how the Design Review Commission feels.
And it's not black and white.
Okay, with always something to move you, or would you like them to come up with other
options to compare it to?
The problem for me is vitality district and always something to move you, I'm like, whoa,
these are, they just don't, they're colliding in my head.
And so I don't feel like one is building on the other or elaborating on the other.
And see, I see movement also as a transportation or a transit message.
So...
I did like the word engaged better, actually.
The hard part is there is the static medical stuff, which is very specific and that sort
of thing.
And we're looking to grow the other side of the coin, which is the restaurants and the
places and and the activities even using it as a like overall recreational park
with the walking and the things that came up in the in the example so I I
cannot think for the life of me how you wrap all of that round into five six
words so right the live work play that that was mentioned I mean if we're
trying to get at the concept that you go there for just more than one thing more
than just a doctor's appointment maybe it's not a tagline but a collection of
words of what you're doing or what you could do there I think I think what
you're hearing probably besides from a waffling now is maybe having more
options on the tagline I think we also have to remember that if you really want
to convince people it's going to be a series of internal visual messaging in
in that area, district, set of streets,
in which we used to do it in front of the leisure
and the arts district.
You don't just see, it's not just about dance,
it's also about music and singing.
And you would see it on banners.
So you, oh wow, somebody,
there's a knife and a fork and a spoon.
There's a basket of produce on a visual.
And you got some of that with the freestanding easel signs,
but if it's hanging on banners,
I mean you have to get to the point of it doesn't matter what the words are, the visuals
sell it better, but then maybe the words will come.
And I was thinking that there was something telling, I like other people really reacted
well to the commercial, the moving pictures, that was where you explained what you were
we're trying to accomplish the best of all.
So I don't know if that helps
but more visuals really will help.
I agree.
I like the billboard signage.
I thought that would, would it, to throw out idea
and maybe this is making it too complicated,
should, is an ad hoc, would that be helpful or no?
No, I'm hearing that, maybe that would be.
I mean, you certainly could.
The other options, I mean, you gave this direction.
You know, you have the advisory board
from the PBID to vet this through.
We have staff assigned there,
but I mean, you could certainly create an ad hoc
if you wanted to.
That's making it too complicated.
Yeah, I think that's, and as much as, you know,
some of us have much more marketing experience than others,
but, you know, yeah.
Look to the people that are the expert in this.
Yeah.
So what I'm hearing is you'd like some additional work
on tagline options.
You know, I keep thinking, it's a wonderful life,
but there's a movie with that title.
But really, we're talking about living life to the fullest
and being able to do that in that area.
That there's, without saying there's something for everyone
because that's the first.
Right.
It was my simple life.
I said it out loud to myself.
All right, so I'll summarize here,
make sure we're all on the same page,
make sure our team here with Shailin's,
his understanding this as well.
general concept you're supportive of in terms of broadening the messaging.
You like the video.
You like the way the billboard signage looked.
You like the S. Make sure we, in the marketing, remember and also focus on job center and
commerce in addition to the expansion of the other elements that were highlighted.
palette, try to use more than orange and black, district name, look at other options, and
tagline look at other options. Is that accurate? Okay, I'm seeing five heads nod. Okay.
All right. I think we have done our best to confuse the entire situation. And so I think
I hope we've given you some feedback you can work with. We're adjourning our regular city
Council meeting and we'll see you in a couple of weeks.