Walnut Creek City Council: 1/21/25 - Walnut Creek Meetings

Transcript

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I find the only one actually counts to 50. Good evening. I'm Cindy Darling, Mayor of the

City of Walnut Creek, and welcome to the Tuesday, January 21st, 2025 regular meeting of the Walnut

Creek City Council and the Public Facilities Financing Authority. The City Council is conducting

this meeting from the City Council Chambers. The video meeting is being video streamed and can be

viewed live or later on the City's website. As some attendees, including all of our guests here,

maybe participating in their first city council meeting I wanted to welcome everybody and talk

briefly about the public comment process. For each agenda item there will be an opportunity

for the public to comment on the item so if you desire to speak to an item that is on the agenda

please hold your comments until the city council considers that item. Additionally we have a

section on the agenda titled public communications which is for public comments for items not on the

agenda. Any comments during public communication should not relate to an item that is actually on

the agenda this evening and consistent with section 9.5 of the City Council handbook, 30 minutes will

be initially allocated for public communications for items not on the agenda at the beginning of

the meeting. 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 we need it. If you desire to provide a public

comment, please complete a yellow speaker identification card and line up behind

the lectern when we get there. Wait your turn and then when you approach the lectern,

state your name, city of residence for the record and you'll have two minutes to address the council.

And this is the important part. Please keep in mind that this is a city business meeting.

The City Council has adopted rules of decorum to ensure 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 the council chambers 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 disturbs or other ways impedes the

orderly conduct of the City Council meeting. Again everybody's going to have their two

minutes to make your remarks and written comments have been that were submitted and received up to

two hours beforehand have been posted to our website and our part of the public record will

be included here but not being read separately into the record so that's the

technical part of things now if you would all join me in the Pledge of

Allegiance

Thank you. City Clerk Susie Martinez, please call the roll. Council Member

Davenny. Here. Council Member Francois. Here. Council Member Silva. Here. Mayor Pro Tem

Wilt. Here. Mayor Darling. Here. All right, next on the agenda is a proclamation

recognizing the month of January is Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

Katrina Natale, are you here? She is supposed to be accepting this but

Perhaps she's tied up in traffic

She at this time she's not here so I will just present the proclamation

Many of us assumed that human trafficking

Couldn't happen here and that if it did there was nothing we could do about it

But we are recognizing human trafficking

Prevention month today because neither of these assumptions is true

The city of Crip Walnut Creek urges all of our residents to take collective action to strengthen the community

by reducing the conditions that contribute to exploitation, building resilience and creating

environments where people are protected from human trafficking and other forms of violence.

During this month, we recognize the survivors of human trafficking and commit to building

a future in which no person is deprived of human dignity or denied their inherent human

rights of liberty, security, and access to justice.

We want to make it known that human trafficking

has no place in this city, this county,

this nation, or this world.

We do have a really nice proclamation,

and when I find Natalie, I will provide it to her,

and we're happy to proclaim this month.

Moving right along then, we get to the consent calendar,

and I will note that we have received an amendment

to agenda item 2F and a red-lined agenda item report,

and license agreement for the model,

railroad society has been presented.

So now we're at the point where,

do any of my fellow council members

wish to pull an agenda item?

Council Member Silber.

Thank you very much, Mayor.

I'd like to pull item H.

And item F.

Item F.

Okay.

And I'd like to comment on item E.

Okay, we'll pull E.

So that gets us to,

does any member of the public wish to comment

on an item on the consent calendar other than H, F and E.

Okay, seeing no speakers,

I'll ask the council if somebody would like to make a motion

for B, C, D and G.

Go ahead.

I'll make a motion to approve items A, B, C, D, G.

Was that right?

Yeah.

And I.

Second.

All right.

the roll Mayor Pro Tem Wolk? Aye. Councilmember Francois? Aye. Councilmember

Davenny? Aye. Councilmember Silva? Aye. Mayor Darling? Aye. All right, are you Natalie?

Oh, sorry we already read the part about the proclamation but come on up. We got going a little faster.

I'm Cindy Darling and it's a pleasure to talk about how important it was and now I'll let you say a couple of words.

Oh, okay, thank you so much. Thank you. Sorry I'm late. I was coming from another meeting just like this one.

I'm here on behalf of the Contra Costa Human Trafficking Task Force. We were here last year as well.

We are a partnership of agencies from law enforcement, government, civil society that

works at the county level and the local level on human trafficking.

And we're delighted that you did this proclamation.

As we said last year, and continue to remind folks, human trafficking is a countywide issue.

Happens everywhere and, you know, needs to be addressed everywhere.

I thought it might be helpful to present a couple examples of work that's been done by

the task force and its partners specific to Walnut Creek over the last year since we saw you last.

So one example that comes to mind is with respect to services to victims. So a victim

reported to the emergency room at John Muir in Walnut Creek with critical injuries inflicted

on her by her trafficker. Walnut Creek police was quick to come to the scene at the request of

hospital staff and called in Community Violence Solutions, which is a member of the task force,

the co-chair, and the 24-hour, 7-day-a-week, 365-days-a-year service provider.

They were able to connect that survivor with services, give her ongoing support,

and really help her start down the pathway of identifying herself as a victim or survivor

of human trafficking. Other efforts that we've undertaken this year, we've worked with Walnut

Creek Police Department to address massage establishments that are

suspected of engaging in human trafficking, human trafficking of their

staff of their masseuses. I believe in the last year we went to six different

establishments in the city with partners from state government, from the police

department, from city code enforcement to ensure that those businesses are

operating legitimately and that if there are survivors there that they're getting

access to services and an opportunity to report what's

happening if that's something that they want to do.

And then the last example I'd give

would be on the level of education and prevention.

So in the last year, we've been working with two

of your local churches to provide prevention programming

specifically targeted to parents about the online threat

of human trafficking, how to keep their kids safe.

It's an ever-evolving, constantly changing cat

mouse game as technology improves and artificial intelligence becomes more and more used and

intelligent. So those are a few of the initiatives that we've undertaken with partners in the city

of Walnut Creek. We look forward to continuing to expand our work with our partners here and

I brought with me and I'll maybe leave with the clerk a packet of information for each of you

that will address what the task force does and provide some useful information about human

trafficking and myths and facts. Thank you very much Katrina. I know it's something that

it's hard to imagine that it does happen here in Walnut Creek because we think of ourselves as

Mayberry RFD but yet the examples that you give are classic examples of how people in this day and

age can fall victim in ways that one would never expect.

Very, very true, and highly mobile.

So in the case that I gave of the individual that was a John Muir, she's a resident of

Walnut Creek.

Most of her trafficking, we believe, took place outside of the county, with the exception

of maybe a couple examples, and that's not uncommon.

There are survivors that are here living in the community.

There are also folks that come to this area and experience their trafficking here.

Walnut Creek, like a lot of our cities in Contra Costa County, are susceptible in part

because we sit right along major thoroughfares.

So the 680 is one of those.

So is Highway 4.

Yeah, it's easy to get in and out for a smash and grab or something much worse.

So thank you.

Thank you very much for the work that you guys do.

Thank you.

We appreciate it.

And we appreciate you coming and talking about this important topic.

Sure.

I'm gonna leave some materials for the public

if they're interested.

Thank you so much.

Okay, now I'm gonna regain my footing

and go back to the consent calendar.

The first item that was pulled is item E,

which is the authorization

to execute a five-year lease agreement with, or no.

Which one do I pull?

Well E.

The Wine Harbor?

E, F, and H.

Why don't we start with F then?

Oh, okay.

I'm just thinking, cause you guys are all here for F,

so let's talk about F.

I was like, expecting that one to be E, and it wasn't,

it was authorization of the wine.

Well, I'm pulling F because we've got about 15 members

of the Walnut Creek Model train railroad side of here,

and I thought maybe one of them would like to come up

and speak and let the audience that's watching as well

know a little bit more about what's happening there,

and then I will be happy to make the motion.

so somebody raise their hand, there we go.

Thanks for that volunteer.

Hi, my name is Woody Hodge, and I am the Chairman

of the League Committee.

The club has been around since 1947.

It was originally in a shed over here

on Southern Pacific right away.

Mr. Hodge, excuse me, thank you for being here.

You just might want to move the mic up a little

so that we can pick you up on the TV.

Does that work?

Yeah.

There you go.

thank you. Uh, originally in the shed over on the southern Pacific right

away, which is no longer there. Uh, it was condemned by these south

Broadway expansion project in 1970, which left us homeless. Um, the city

offered us a piece of property in Lucky Park where we built the building at

our expense and uh, needed it back to the city. We continued to maintain that

building at no expense of the city. Uh, our primary function is a train club.

We are, it's a hobby. Um, and there are a number of members and it's all ages.

Our newest member is 18 and his sister is an associate member and so we are a nondiscriminatory.

All age groups, sexes, and we have some special needs people in our club as well and in addition

of being a hobby we provide an inexpensive family entertainment in through our shows.

The last Friday of every month, and weekend in the first, third, fifth, now seventh, ninth

and eleventh, in November we do a two weekend show.

And a family can go in for under 20 bucks.

Where can you do that?

by a bucket of popcorn for that. We also do other things. We have birthday parties. We

had a fourth grade class on a special visitation. We've had other classes and other birthday

parties and other things. We've had a car club come. Old time cars.

How can people find out more about you?

We do have a website, wcmrs.org and we have a Facebook page, WCMRS.

We do advertise through the city arts and rec department for our shows, they hang banners,

different locations in the city. Heather Farms facing Bancroft, right out here.

Civic facing Broadway, Tice Valley and Lucky Park. So there are ways and

actually the banners have been tremendous in terms of finding people

that, gee I didn't know they were there. And that's the most common comment we

get. We didn't know you were there. Yeah. But it is difficult. Well we're happy to

work in partnership with you and we're happy that we successfully got your

lease ready teed up to renew. Yes if you want to two minute. You mentioned the

last Friday of the month just for members of the public and hearing the

audience what is there a set schedule that the trains are available for public

viewing? Yes, there is. It is available on our website. Okay, we have business cards that I think were passed out. Okay. And the schedule is on the back.

It's every Friday, last Friday of the month, which has been on for a long time. Yeah, got it here. And on the back. Yep. Okay. So thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

sir, just your name and your town. My name is George George's. I'm from Antioch up north,

but I've been with the club since approximately 2010. And I'm a licensed electrician and

I work for City College of San Francisco as well as a theater technician. I do sound design for

them and I've done theater my whole life for 35 years and when I joined the

club I found that it was much like a basically a theater production because

you know we are our sets are the trains and our props are the actual trains that

we run around the the layout but more importantly the everything that in you

know it engages so many of the arts and so many of the talents of people you

You know, all the skills, all the stuff.

And also just in the end, the camaraderie and the group

orient and the sheer welcoming and openness of everyone there.

I mean, if there's somebody there,

and the public just comes and knocks,

usually they can come in for like a little free tour

and do that kind of thing.

And then reality is when we're members, we do the shows

and we do all of that, but also it's our club.

It's, it kind of belongs to each one of us.

You know, we take care of it in that way.

And we really, it really builds a community feeling

and it's a great place to really get,

and we welcome everybody, everybody.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Any other discussion by the council?

Thank you all for coming

and thank you for maintaining it all

and you'll be getting another 10 year lease here.

And with that, I'll make the motion to approve item 2F

along with the changes and red lines

that have been that we have in front of us on the report.

Second.

Roll.

Mayor Pro Tem Wolk?

Aye.

Council Member Silva?

Aye.

Council Member Davini?

Aye.

Council Member Francois?

Aye.

Mayor Darling?

Aye.

Motion carries unanimously.

Congratulations, guys.

And now we'll go to item E.

Council Member Davini.

Do you have a question for staff on that one?

No, it was more of a comment.

When I was reading through the consent calendar,

I was excited to see this item here.

Michael Vecchia has the wine hardware store

that's being renewed for five years,

and this is a very cool store.

So I wanted to give them a shout out.

They customize wine racks, wine refrigerators,

and they have a lot of really neat items in there.

They've got a wooden barrel, like a wine barrel,

that opens up, and you can store things inside.

It doubles as a table.

So a lot of great items in there

and I was glad to see this lease renewed.

Yeah, they are a great partner.

With that, would you like to make the motion to approve?

Yeah, make the motion to approve item E,

extending for five years the lease for wine hardware.

Second.

Call the roll, please.

Councilmember Davini?

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Wilk?

Aye.

Councilmember Francois?

Aye.

Councilmember Silva?

Aye.

Mayor Darling?

Aye.

Motion carried.

I had a question on this one.

I did, thank you very much.

Item two H is the acceptance of our 2024

commission attendance reports

for the various advisory commissions that we appoint.

I wanna thank staff first of all for doing this each year

and collecting the information.

There was one of our advisory commissioners,

committee members at the county level

who has been unable to attend any meetings this last year.

And I think I would ask that we direct staff

to inquire as to the reason for this.

And with that caveat.

So I will make the motion to accept

the 2024 commission attendance reports

with the caveat and the direction to staff

to inquire and determine the reason

for the attendance problem of the one member.

And I will second that motion and just wanna,

and I know all my colleagues share that my view

on thanking all of our commissioners.

Most of the commissioners have not met a single meeting.

So I just want to appreciate and acknowledge

their volunteer service to the community

and in the arts, transportation, planning, design review,

and that we really couldn't do our job without them.

So I enthusiastically second your motion.

Call the roll please.

Aye.

Councilmember Campbell.

Aye.

Councilmember Davini.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Will.

Aye.

And I want to note that the Planning Commission,

those folks make 14 meetings out of the year.

And that's a lot of work.

So I really appreciate everything that they do.

That brings us to the end of the consent calendar.

And now we are going on to,

I've lost my place in my handy spot for the communication.

Next on the agenda is public communications.

This is a portion of the meeting reserve

for comment on items not on the agenda.

Under the Brown Act, the city council cannot act

on the items raised during public communications

but may respond briefly to statements made

or questions posed.

We can request clarification or refer the item to staff.

Consistent with section 9.5 of the city council handbook,

30 minutes will be allocated at this time

for public communication for items not on the agenda.

Additional time for items not on the agenda

will be provided at the end of the medium if necessary.

So anybody that would like to address the council

as part of public communications,

please step forward to the podium,

complete a speaker card and let us know who you are

and your city of residence.

And consistent with policy of the city,

you'll each have two minutes.

Public comment.

Good evening.

I'm Kathy Hemingway,

Walnut Creek Downtown Association,

executive director and place of residence is Lafayette,

but I'm here most of the time.

So good evening, Mayor Darling and City Council members,

City staff, I'm here tonight to share just a few updates

from the Walnut Creek Downtown Association.

I wanted to share that we have finally launched

our vision plan.

So that was a program that was being funded

by the Measure O campaign and funding.

And so we were able to do a soft launch in December

with our facilitator, Kim Miller Hershaun.

We have conducted a SWOT analysis session with our staff and then with the executive

committee from our board of directors.

So next week we'll be holding a session with our board of directors.

And then we'll follow up with member and community outreach via focus groups and a survey.

So more to come on that as we collect data and be able to really hone in on some three

to five-year goals for the organization as well as the downtown.

And then at the end of this week, we'll be announcing our 2025 calendar of events.

So we'll be opening up the registration for booths and participation.

So that will be shared via a newsletter and online through social media and our website.

So stay tuned.

And then in regards to our events, as you may have seen, Walnut Creek on Ice was there

and gone and within 24 hours their staff started breaking

down the ice rink which closed yesterday and so we are excited

about the season that we were able to produce this year

including the slide so we'll be able to come back in March

to provide a full recap but as of right now

that season has ended so that concludes my report.

Thank you.

Anybody have questions for Kathy?

I'm just curious how the ice slide, was it fun?

it looked fun. I cannot afford to be out but I had many family members and

friends and some of my staff members went down so yeah it was a huge hit so

great thank you yeah thank you thank you any other public comment okay we'll go

ahead and close public comment and next on the agenda is council member and

staff announcements reports on activities or requests we'll start off

with closed session announcements. Thank you Madam Mayor there were no

reportable actions from closed session this evening. Okay City Manager reports.

Yeah good evening Dan Buckshi City Manager I do have two updates this

evening. The first I want to acknowledge the wildfires of Southern California

that started a few weeks ago first to offer condolences and support for

everybody there. Obviously an extremely difficult situation and just for the

Publix Benefit, there are a number of units

from Contra Costa Fire Department

that were sent there for mutual aid

as well as other fire departments,

not only from the Bay Area, but throughout the state

to help battle those fires.

Last I had seen, they're close to 90 and 70% containment

at this point, so hopefully they can get those

fully extinguished here soon enough.

And at the same time, I wanted to take a few moments

to share what we do here to try to prepare.

And I can't emphasize that word enough that preparation

and prevention is really the best means

for dealing with something along those lines

because that type of situation with wins that strong

is extremely difficult to react to.

So it's really about preparation on the front end.

Here in Walnut Creek,

similar to many other cities and jurisdictions,

we have an emergency management plan

that guides our operations.

We train on that regularly.

In fact, we have some training scheduled coincidentally tomorrow

and throughout the next couple of months

to train a lot of our new staff on our emergency management

plan.

Additionally, we work with our partners closely.

We do not have a Walnut Creek Fire Department,

nor do we have water districts.

And obviously, water has been a big focal point

as part of the LA Fire.

So we do work closely with the Contra Costa Fire Department,

with the two water purveyors, with Red Cross,

with county emergency services, numerous, numerous

other jurisdictions in the event of an actual emergency

in order to respond in a very coordinated fashion.

Additionally, again, on the prevention side,

we do a lot to maintain our open space, our roadways,

to have defensible space, to cut fire breaks

in the open space, try to ensure that their weeds

or any other growth-long roadways are as best maintained,

particularly in the dry seasons, obviously.

And a particular note, the fire department

has been working on for a while,

what's known as a shaded fuel break

along the southern Walnut Creek border near Rossmore,

as well as Lafayette and parts of Moraga

to put an extensive break,

because there is expansive open space adjacent

to developed areas to help provide that.

And that's always a challenge.

It's a tremendous amount of work to do that.

If anybody's seen that firsthand,

amount of debris and foliage and trees that have been removed in order to make that break.

And there's a trade-off as well as doing that, but it's obviously a safety first mindset.

In addition, just to really encourage folks to manage their own properties as best as possible

with defensible space, maintaining weeds and barriers as well as being mindful of trees and

foliage that may be overhanging properties. And for more information of

how to prepare and also to have emergency kits and to go bags to have

those always on hand in in case an emergency does arise. You can find

information on the city's website at walnut creek ca.gov. That's walnut creek

ca.gov. And more specifically for wildfire there's a website that's very

helpful ReadyForWildfire.org. Once again that's ReadyForWildfire.org and I

would encourage anyone and everyone to review that and be as prepared as

possible at home should something like this occur. So it was the first update, the

second update briefly wanted to mention that since our last meeting the governor

did introduce the state budget on January 10th as is customary. It's a 322

billion total budget about 230 billion general fund some interesting math

there's a 363 million dollar quote surplus which is about 1% give or take

but balancing that the way I say it that way is the governor's proposing to use

about seven billion dollars of reserves to help balance that amount this still

does leave I believe about 15 to 17 billion in reserves for future use so

So really the big takeaway not anticipating dramatic changes in the budget, as you may

know, two years ago there was a record surplus and last year there was nearly a record deficit

at this point in time.

Some wild swings in terms of revenues, which seem to have stabilized a bit for this year.

Of note of some of the programs we deal with, particularly on the housing and homeless front,

which have been front and center, there is continued support for those programs, but

it's still largely almost exclusively one-time in nature.

I know cities and the League of California Cities

in particular for a collective voice have been advocating

for ongoing funding for those programs

because it's hard to build ongoing supportive services

with only one-time funds,

but there is one-time funding for that.

And also of note, there is a proposed new department

of housing, new housing and homeless agency

that is proposed that consolidates a few other departments

as part of the budget.

So we'll see if that goes through it,

if that impacts how the state is managing homeless

and housing services going forward.

Then lastly, just building off of what I just mentioned,

the state budget does include significant resources

and focus on wildfire mitigation

along the prevention lines that I mentioned

in terms of dealing with controlled burns,

other types of debris removal

to try to mitigate wildfire risks.

And that is my update this evening, Mayor.

Thank you very much.

I know the wildfires were top of mind for everybody.

My cousin lost her house in Malibu and heartbreaking.

They didn't have time to get anything out.

Okay, now we'll move on to the City Council members,

maybe 1234, the last time I started this way.

So this time I'll start with Council Member Silva.

Thank you, Mayor.

And thank you everyone for being here with us tonight

and you're hanging in there with us.

So hopefully we're going to give you some reports

that are of interest to you all.

Thank you, city manager, for the report on the wildfires

and the state budget.

I will start with mention that as the liaison

from the council to Rossmore this year,

the community of Rossmore is very concerned about wildfire

and the risk and what they can do to prevent it.

And the community came together

and the emergency preparedness organization together

partnered with the city and the county fire agency

and others to present a two-hour town hall

on fire issues last week.

And it was very, very informative.

I would add to what you mentioned that that go bag,

I thought the most interesting thing was.

And that that go bag that you have ready to go,

you need a go bag for your pets as well.

And you might forget that.

And that one of the things you probably need to do

with your pets if you have them is to be prepared to go

and go quickly is to train them to get in the car

and get in that crate.

Because if you're fighting with a dog or a cat

who's reluctant to do that,

you could lose precious minutes.

So there's just a piece of, one piece of advice.

And I'd like to acknowledge Fran Gibson,

who is the chair of the EPO organization at Rossmore

for all of the work that she does

to make Rossmore prepared and thank Charles,

our assistant city manager for his presentation that day

participating in the event. Of note related to the Recycle Smart Council

Member Francois and I represent this city on the Recycle Smart Board and one

of the things we are doing is looking at a new franchise agreement and we had

included in the proposed contracts for the next 10 to 15 years that zero

emission vehicles would be included at the outset and last week the state in

recognizing what may be changing at the federal level. They didn't set aside but

they delayed the implementation of the zero emission vehicle requirements in

this state so that is changing what we're acquiring in our franchise

agreement. The Association of Bay Area Governments has had a meeting last week

their board and they are releasing priority conservation opportunity

areas for cities to apply for and I want to recognize city staff for getting us

off the wrong we were on the wrong list and we worked with a bag at the last

minute two weeks ago and got us back onto the right list so hopefully that

there's opportunities we will be pursuing those and also last week at our

meeting the board approved the draft plan Bay Area 2050 plus and send it into

environmental review process which will be about another year. Yes we plan every

four years for the next for 25 years out. The new employee event I want to

congratulate and welcome that all of the new employees there were a lot of them

at the event last Wednesday. And I sit on the Housing Committee for the League of

California Cities and we're going to be having some conversations on Thursday. I

know about what has happened with this governor's budget and the establishment

of the new department, just what we need is more bureaucracy.

Hopefully it will streamline things and not just make it harder

and harder to achieve our goals.

I'm also a member of the California Seismic Safety Commission

and we had our recent meeting two weeks ago.

We are part of CAL Officer of Emergency Services and so most

of the staff were actually in Southern California trying

to address the fires that they were tackling.

The interesting thing that the Seismic Safety Commission is very

concerned about is what is called fire-following earthquake.

Very often, fires erupt. If you can think even about the

1989 earthquake, Loma Prieta and San Francisco, fires erupt

when there is a lot of shaking and breaking of infrastructure,

particularly gas infrastructure or electrical lines. And the

availability of water and the ability to move water, if you

don't have power, is very, very hard. So we are looking a lot

at that issue from a policy level and I'm sure there's other things that other

council members can report on. Thank you very much councilmember Francois. Okay

thank you mayor. I'm looking at my list here for anything pertaining to model

railroads. I might find one toward the end but starting off as the council

liaison to Wanna Creek downtown I attended their monthly meeting Kathy

Hemingway the executive director gave a great report in terms of the ice rink

or we're getting a more detailed report in March it sounds like. She also we also

heard about the hospitality bar meeting which Walnut Creek downtown puts on on a

monthly basis with our police department and bar operators and owners so that

there's an open line of communication and hopefully everyone can identify

problems early on and address those so that the downtown remains thriving and

vibrant with not any issues for our public safety officers

to deal with.

There was an update in terms of Broadway Plaza.

A lot of changing, comings and goings

in terms of the comings.

It sounds like original Joe's will open sometime

in the spring at the restaurant that used to be known

as Stanford's near the new Lifetime Fitness.

We're excited about that.

Further on the horizon is RH, Restoration Hardware

has plans to come into the Neiman Marcus building

and actually they would demolish that building,

build a new building with one of their signature restaurants

and so excited to see that come to the downtown area.

The Broadway Plaza also acknowledged

some of the parking challenges that we all encountered.

Not just the normal challenges during the holiday season

with trying to find a parking space

but the parking garage on Main Street

was particularly challenging with lines backed up,

even with parking attendants.

So they're looking at plans to try to route people

to the other garages or around downtown

that don't result in us getting frustrated

and not finding a parking space

and going to Concord to shop or something like that.

Something crazy like that.

Painted pianos are returning on April 13th,

So it'll be fun to see that in live in the downtown area.

And then also, it used to be called first Wednesdays.

I think now it's called Walnut Creek Wednesdays.

And there will be four of them with the first one

starting on May 14.

So a lot of fun things happening in downtown this spring

and into the early summer.

Then on January 16, I filled the mayor's large shoes

because she was on vacation.

and so I attended the chamber board meeting on her behalf

and got a great update in terms of the chambers

heavily involved in updating their annual strategic plan

with focus on workforce development,

advocacy, economic development, and business development

and that's made up of three year, one year action items

and goals and priorities.

We'll all get a bigger briefing and update on that

at the state of the chamber, which will be on April 16,

from 745 to 9.

That, I believe, is open to the public

and will be at Boundary Oak Golf Course in the,

not on the golf course, but in the clubhouse.

Also kind of interesting event that's happening,

and I don't believe this one's opening to the public,

but it is a startup event for people in the technology

industry funders and founders

that will be a networking event

for people starting in that realm space

so they can network with one another

and more importantly with venture capitalists

who might fund their great ideas.

And that's taking place later this month in the Shadelands.

So exciting to see something like that happen

in Walnut Creek.

And then the future of Walnut Creek,

which I'll let the mayor report on that,

will be February 20th.

The 100th anniversary of the chamber will be in 2026.

So we had kind of an interesting conversation

about recognizing our history

and how they could promote that event

and celebrate that event in two years.

And along those lines,

there'll be a civic affairs meeting on March 11th,

which will involve two of our former mayors

will be present.

I believe it's Bill Armstrong and Merle Hall

We'll be leading a panel discussion with Matt Gushard.

I think he's still the board president.

So a lot going on at the chamber,

a lot going on at Walnut Creek downtown.

And then I do serve on the Recycle Smart Board

along with Council Member Silva.

There will be a repair cafe,

and this is where the model railroad could come in,

maybe not, I don't know.

A repair cafe this Saturday from 10 to one at Civic Park

in the assembly hall.

There will be 20 repair coaches available.

Small household appliances, jewelry, clothing,

bike repairs, nothing about model railroads,

but you might wanna take your chance.

It's exciting that to see that, you know,

we're trying to avoid discarding things,

reusing things, and oftentimes we don't have the skills,

I know I don't, to fix things around home.

There are gonna be 20 people volunteering their time

to fix your lamp or to fix a piece of jewelry.

this Saturday, and it's free.

And it's from 10 to one.

So please take advantage of that in Civic Park.

And then finally, I had the honor of attending,

and I'll let Council Member Wilk report on this,

the menorah lighting at Broadway Plaza

with Council Member Wilk and the mayor,

and it was a wonderful event,

and thank you for the invitation.

That's my report.

Thank you.

Council Member Dafini?

Yeah, yeah, I gotta keep my toes, yeah.

Well, we haven't had a chance to meet since the New Year,

so happy New Year to everyone.

I attended the initial scoping meeting

for the Mitchell Town Homes Development in December.

This is the beginning of the EIR under CEQA law.

This meeting was open to the public,

but it didn't have great attendance.

I imagine it wasn't on a lot of people's radar.

The Mitchell Town Homes Development

is a builder's remedy project,

which is proposing high-density residential housing

in the shade lens, which is currently zoned for commercial.

422 units are proposed.

So what is a builder's remedy project?

Well, we're currently in our sixth housing cycle,

it goes from 2023 to 2031.

And during our current cycle, the state housing

and community development department has mandated

approximately 6,000 new units to be built in Walnut Creek.

In order to comply with HCD mandate,

the first step is for the city to submit to the state

our housing element, which is basically the city plan

how we will allow these units to be built. If the city does not comply by

submitting the housing element on time and follow through allowing the units to

be built, it may be subjected to what's called builder's remedy. Invoking

builder's remedy allows builders to bypass city zoning and building

ordinances and build according to state laws which are much more lenient. For

example, if local building laws might only allow five to ten units on a

parcel, or not allow any units at all because it's owned commercial or

single-family, state law might allow 50 units on the same parcel. This past year,

Walnut Creek submitted its housing element on time in January, but the state

delayed and did not approve it until October. This delay made the city

vulnerable to a builder's remedy project, and just a few days before the housing

element was certified, the Mitchell Town Homes project was submitted. So if this

project is of interest, please reach out. The draft environmental, the draft EIR

will be available for public review in the next couple of months, so we'll be revisiting

that.

On the sustainable front, I had a very nice meeting with our sustainable manager, Candice

Mumbi and Charles, our assistant city manager, and we talked about how the Sustainable Action

Plan is being implemented, priorities, and how we can make sure that the public stays

involved and up to date with the process.

a very nice meeting also with our community development director, Erica Vandenbrandt.

We again discussed permit streamlining and ongoing efforts to make Wanna Creek as inviting

as possible for small businesses.

I'm excited about the direction that we are heading.

We are also working to improve the customer experience.

I think the message is we are grateful for the businesses that we have here and welcome

future business.

What can we do to help make your lives easier?

right child if you have suggestions or concerns on this topic. Outdoor dining. I continue

to meet with businesses and there's ongoing exploration at the city level of how to make

the program more affordable and appealing for businesses. I know this is a priority

for the residents of Walnut Creek and the city and the business owners. There are multiple

potential modifications being explored at this time. I attended the Walnut Creek sister

Sister Cities meeting this year, their first meeting of the year.

This program was set up by Dwight Eisenhower, just after World War II, 1956, and it was

to promote peace and person-to-person contact between countries around the world.

I recommend visiting the Sister Cities International website to see a 10-minute speech given by

Dwight Eisenhower, which launched this program.

It was very inspiring.

In the fall we'll be sending 20 lucky eighth graders

to Soifo, Hungary and Nocetto, Italy as youth ambassadors.

Thank you very much.

Now we'll turn to Mayor Pro Tem Wilk.

Thank you.

Well, considering it's been about a month

since our last meeting,

a lot of things have happened in the last month.

The first, and this may be of interest actually

to the railroad society.

I am liaison for the council to County Connection.

I'm the board chair this year there.

And I wanted to give an update on electric buses because I have heard from people here

about where are the electric buses that should be running here.

Well, as I've been explaining over the last few months, we had some issues when we had

one of our provider of the electric buses on the batteries.

There was change in ownership and chaos ensued.

Essentially, we have figured out the problems with the manufacturers.

There are four electric buses right now working on Route 4, that's the downtown area where

it goes between Barton and Broadway Plaza and around there.

The Route 5 bus charger needs a new charging board, and so we're still working to get the

new charging board at BART for that.

That's why those aren't electric buses currently.

The problems are with the manufacturers and obsolescence.

This had a lot of board discussion this last week.

The manufacturers have moved on to their next upgrades of battery packs and chargers and

don't make or service the original lines anymore.

Imagine if you bought a car and five years later GM isn't making the car anymore and

now you can't do any more manufacturing and services.

That's the problem that we're having with County Connection.

That's the problem that every transit company is having in the country right now.

It's a problem in the electric industry, and we're having meetings with federal and state

legislatures about this issue, which impacts our ability to plan for the future and moving

to zero-emission buses, bus fleets.

This is a problem that the entire transit industry is having right now, and a real problem

with what we need to do to move up to zero-emission buses.

So continued watch on this, just astounding to us that electric battery manufacturers

for buses can just stop making that line and not service them anymore.

That's what you get for being on the pilot program.

Mayor Pro Tem, those buses then are charged through a plate on the underneath of the bus.

They're not plugged in like a vehicle.

Correct, correct.

So to give a little bit of a longer explanation there, these can be charged, at least the

the Route 4 ones, can be charged at the bus yard.

That's not the problem right now.

But when they're mobile, like at BART,

because it takes 60% of the battery

just to go from the bus yard and conquered to BART,

because there's an uphill and that

requires a lot of battery juice.

So they need to charge at BART.

If we can't get the chargers to work at BART,

we can't get the buses to work.

So we've got some very pretty buses right now in the bus yard.

And if anybody in the train association

knows how to work on electric buses, let us know.

The other thing I wanted to bring up

that I think might be relevant for potentially our city,

as well as other cities, is we were

alerted that the Mount Diablo School District starts a week

earlier on August 6th this next school year.

For those of us that started school after Labor Day,

that is no longer the case.

It's now really a full month before then.

And County Connections is working

update our bus schedules with the district for that. There'll be more to

follow on that front, but it also led to a discussion about how council, city

councils in the area and boards are going to start going dark in July instead

of in August due to the change in school dates. The reason is because staff is

being impacted more and more now since many vacations are being taken in July

and not in August, so it's something that we as a council may want to discuss at

some point as well. I was asked to, as the as council member Francois mentioned, I

was asked to participate in several menorah sightings during Hanukkah. In

addition to Walnut Creek's, which we've done for many years here, I was also

asked to participate in Pleasant Hill and Clayton's, which incorporated their

first menorah lighting ceremonies as a city lighting ceremony for the first

time in their histories. So I was proud to attend those. Along with several of my

colleagues we attended the supervisor reorg with Candace Anderson who does

represent part of Walnut Creek in taking the board chair for the board of

supervisors and just as we have a new council member Craig Davini the

Contra Costa Board of Supervisors has a new board member Chanel Scales Preston

is now on board for her district. The mayor and I had our finance committee

meeting we'll be reviewing that shortly on the agenda item. I also attended the

Bedford Gallery new opening of stitched which is different mackerman stitching

projects it's really interesting especially with the the inner room area

was my favorite there I one of the things as we become get into the line of

the mayoral rotation here I was able to attend the Eagle Scout of Court of Honor

in Northgate last week where four of our boys graduated and got to become Eagle

Scouts, and that's always a great idea. It's such a festive program. I love that.

I do want to mention and finish my report that January 27th, next Monday, is

recognized as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. And in 2025, this day

holds even greater significance as we mark 80 years since the end of the

Second World War and Holocaust. Preserving this history not only honors

the dignity of those whom the Nazis and their collaborators sought to destroy,

but also serves as a powerful victory against hatred, Holocaust distortion, and

denial, and by remembering, we confront those who seek to perpetuate the legacy

of hatred into the 21st century. And unfortunately, as we know, some of that

hatred has descended upon us here in our very chambers during council meetings.

And that's why I wanted to ensure that Holocaust Remembrance Day was

acknowledged in our meeting today. And that ends my report. Thank you very much.

I enjoyed the menorah lighting and Kevin knows all the words

So I was really impressed with that because I know none of the words, but I got to light one of them that

You know one of the candles whatever those are a couple things going on

Cummings and goings in the city. I got to go to a hundredth birthday party Doris kawakami's father-in-law

Tom had his hundredth birthday this last Saturday and I got to go and

Present him a certificate and we're talking to all of his grandchildren in the room and he goes I made all this

Tom story is

amazing he was

Originally interred into the the camps and then drafted out of the camps during World War two. So it was a pretty amazing story

The mayor pro tem indicated there is a change on the supervisor level. So I went to federal Glover's retirement to celebrate

He was the first

African-american

Board a supervisor in Contra Costa County and it was a great celebration. The man has an amazing memory

Really

Did a great job and looking forward to working with Chanel in his place

other changes

Trinity Center Leslie Gleason has stepped down as the director by thank you guys you guys hung in there far longer than most people do

Leslie Gleason is stepping down at Trinity Center and they are in the process of finding a new

director there and we look forward to working with the interim director during the time being.

We also lost a longtime member of Walnut Creek, Pam Kessler, who was the queen of the Walnut

Creek Magazine. Her kids and mine grew up together so I knew her for every swim meet, every car show,

everything that went on and she cared about the city a lot and we're looking forward to planning a

appropriate memorial for all that she did.

She had her own way of doing things.

For any of you who did anything with Pam Custer,

she let you know when you were doing things her way,

but she really did a lot for this city

and we will all miss her.

Two things coming up on the 11th of February,

the city council will meet in a retreat

and update our priorities

as part of our two year budget cycle.

And that'll be an interesting exercise.

And then on the 20th, February 20th of next month,

or working with the chamber to have the state of the city

and Caitlin Sly, the chair of the board

for the chamber this year

and I will have a little conversation

about how Walnut Creek is going

and all the wonderful things happening here

and she won't ask me any hardball questions at all

is what I've been told.

And our police chief will also give a state of the city

on the crime aspect of Walnut Creek.

The last thing I wanted to talk about,

We heard a lot last year about the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board and nutrients

in San Francisco Bay.

They were coming up with a new set of requirements for nutrients that affects the waste dischargers

around the bay because all of that stuff comes from our poop and our pee, all the nitrogen

that's in the bay.

For many, many years, we assumed that the bay was relatively immune to nitrogen and

algal blooms because it was very turbid.

The bay has changed over time.

It is no longer as turbid as it used to be, and in 22 and 23, we saw massive algal blooms

and fish die-offs.

So the good news is when we were originally hearing about this, we were hearing numbers

like $18 billion worth of work and a 10-year timeframe.

The good news is, it sounds like in the presentation

this morning between the regional board

and the Bay Area Clean Water Agencies,

there's a recognition that solving this problem

is not a 10 year problem, it is a longer problem.

There was also recognition that it might actually

be $18 billion worth of work to get this done Bay Area-wide.

But there was a lot of discussion

about trading nutrient credits, working together

cooperatively to solve problems,

either through more recycled water

or nature-based solutions.

And so it was a much better story than we were hearing

when Central San came to us last year to talk about it.

And I think there are solutions out there.

I did talk to a couple of our water district brethren

about our interest in our sustainability action plan.

We have a requirement for recycled water in Walnut Creek,

which has been a difficult issue.

And this actually could be driving that

towards a slightly higher chance

of actually getting recycled water

because it could be a part of the solution

of putting the nitrogen into the bay

where it could grow algae

or we could put it on the golf course and grow grass.

Did you say turbid or?

Turbid.

Turbid, and what does turbid mean?

Sorry, I got one.

Turbid is turbidity in the water.

It's suspended sediment.

The San Francisco Bay has been going through decades

of change from the time of the hydraulic mining

And a lot of sediment got swept down into the delta

and the bay in the 1800s.

And it's gradually been clearing that out.

The water has gotten significantly clearer

in the last 20 years.

So it's a good news, bad news.

The good news is it doesn't look as bad.

The bad news is more light penetrates.

And if more light penetrates, that makes the plants grow.

You add the nitrogen, you add the plants,

add the sunlight and the algae grows and that's what causes. Briefly, can you summarize how do you

address the nitrogen in the wastewater? There's a couple different ways. There's additional

treatment they can do at the source, actually removing the nitrogen from the water that ends

that being roughly equivalent to going through reverse osmosis, desalination, basically.

And that is an expensive thing to do on wastewater.

You can also take it and land apply it as recycled water.

And you can also take it and apply it into a marsh environment and have the marsh plants

grow instead of the algae.

Basically you're trying to grow plants somewhere other than in the water.

So it's a complicated thing,

but I think there was a recognition

from the Regional Water Quality Control Board

that it is not a 10-minute solution.

So that was really good to hear.

And now, switching from those things

that I could go on forever and ever about,

we will get to our regular consideration items.

And the first one is consideration and acceptance

of the 10-year financial forecast

and a staff presentation.

Good evening, Mayor Darling and Mayor Pro Tem.

Welcome members of City Council,

Kirsten Lacast, Administrative Services Director.

Tonight, I'm going to be providing the update

on our 10-year financial forecast.

So the city, as you know, has a practice

of conducting multi-year forecasts,

and we typically bring them every two years.

And so the forecast tonight does include

updated financial data as well as updated assumptions.

And the last time we brought this to you

was in January of 2023.

So, just waiting for the presentation.

Okay, thank you.

And so what we're requesting from you this evening

is to accept the report.

So tonight I will be talking about our set of assumptions

that we've built into the forecast.

So we have some general assumptions,

which includes the recession assumptions,

revenue expenditure assumptions,

which include personnel costs

and operating and maintenance costs,

as well as presenting two scenarios to you this evening.

And I'm happy to pause throughout for questions

since we will be covering quite a bit of data this evening.

So what I would like to start with is on our financial forecast,

what it is and what it isn't.

And so what it is is a projection of trends based on a set of assumptions that flow

through the entire 10-year forecast.

It's dynamic and is updated based on changing conditions.

So we bring forward, as I mentioned, this forecast to you as things do update.

And then it's a guide for decision-making.

However, we have many tools that we use and so this is only one of them.

So what it is not, is it's not a budget, it's not a guarantee of future financial outcomes

and it's not an exact science.

So for our general assumptions, all the contributions to fund balance or use of fund balance that

you see in these scenarios are shown after fully funding reserves and assuming no budget

balancing actions were taken.

It's important to note that the city is legally required to have a balanced budget, so we'll

be bringing forward a proposed balance budget to you in the spring for fiscal years 26 and

27. This forecast also assumes no use of reserves or the pension trust. As you know, the pension

trust was established by this council back in 2018 with about $20 million investment.

The policy for the use of the trust indicated we would not be using it prior to fiscal year

So in order going forward to help us determine the best timing for the use of the trust based

on our future pension costs, we've engaged consultants to help us with that and to come

back here to Finance Committee in February and then to this council in March to talk

about those assumptions and to receive feedback.

And the balance of the pension trust as of September 30th was actually $28.7 million,

so we are doing well.

Lastly, measure O, the projections for measure O are not included in this forecast.

This is just the general fund.

However, we are assuming that the future cost of $3.8 million of the ongoing measure O cost

will return to the general fund when the measure expires in fiscal year 34.

So the forecast models two recession scenarios, both beginning in fiscal year 27.

This is consistent with previous forecasts where we have used a seven-year recession

cycle.

the last recession occurring in 2020 with the pandemic.

With regards to the recession timing, there are varying opinions about when the next recession

will begin, but the current information out there from the experts is that there's a relatively

low risk of a recession occurring in the immediate future.

So the timing is influenced by several factors, including job market trends, gross domestic

product, growth, and inflation.

Federal Reserve has been somewhat successful so far in achieving a soft landing by balancing

the reduction in rates without pushing the economy into a recession.

The last jobs report, which was in November of 2024, had a, it was still, unemployment

was at a historic low still at 4.2% even though it was slightly higher than fiscal year 23.

The timing of the recession is difficult to predict and generally is not called until

the recession is actually underway.

So today, again, we're presenting two scenarios.

The first is a mild recession, which assumes a downturn in revenue over 12 months and a

recovery over two years.

Comparatively, a moderate recession assumes a downturn in revenue over 18 months and a

recovery of three years.

With regards to the forecasted revenue loss in a mild recession, the percentage loss from

normal growth is what's reflected in this chart. So for property tax that would be 1%,

sales tax and TOT 5% and other revenues 4%. And I'll provide an example of what this means.

In a moderate recession the percentage loss from normal growth is 2% for property tax,

6.25% for sales tax and transient occupancy tax, and 5% for all other revenues. So the

way this is applied is if property tax for example if it normally grows at a

2% rate in a mild recession it will only grow at 1% so it's 1% off of the

normal growth rate and that's for the 12 months of the downturn. In a moderate

recession the property tax revenues would remain flat or grow at 0% during

that downturn. So we're modeling these different recession strengths just to

help demonstrate what the impacts of a recession could be on this on city

revenues. So next we want to just talk a little, oh sorry. Sure. I didn't think of

this question until you brought up the the slide so if you don't have the

answer that's fine but compared to 2020 where would that fit? Would that have

been a severe recession with a faster recovery? Actually our next slide talks

about the previous recession so thank you for that segue. So in we have two

recessions here previous we have the Great Recession the COVID-19 recession

so in the Great Recession in 2008 city revenues experience declines from normal

growth between 2008 and 2010 so it took about two to three years for revenues to

recover so you can see what the percentage loss over the normal growth

was back then so it was four percent for property tax sales percent was more

significant I'm sorry sales tax at 11% from normal growth and other revenues

experienced about a 3% annualized loss from normal growth. For 2020 the

recession from the COVID-19 pandemic had a very short downturn so that was less

than six months and then most revenue sources recovered within a year. So

property tax revenues were not affected by the pandemic where sales tax had an

annualized loss from normal growth of 11%. Other revenue streams it was more

severe, it was a decline of 19% from normal growth and those included arts

and rec based on the shuttered programs and events as well as our transient

occupancy tax, both which took longer than that year to recover. So each

recession that has occurred has looked different and so while we can't predict

them as I mentioned we can broadly model what might happen and while the

The assumptions about the timing for our moderate recession are similar to the timing of the

Great Recession.

The impact to the revenues that we're using in the forecast are actually less severe.

So we're conservative on our moderate recession assumptions.

So before I go into our revenue assumptions, any questions?

Sure.