Walnut Creek City Council: 3/18/25 - Walnut Creek Meetings

Transcript

Warning: This transcript is automatically generated by machine and may contain errors, including misheard words, misattributed speakers, and omitted passages. Always listen to the audio or video recording before assuming the transcript correctly reflects what was said. Do not rely on the transcript alone for quotation, reporting, or any other purpose where accuracy matters.

Alright. Hello everyone. Good evening. I'm Cindy Darling, mayor of Walnut Creek and

welcome to the Tuesday, March 18th, 2025 regular meeting of the Walnut Creek

City Council. The City Council is conducting the meeting for the from the

City Council chambers and this meeting is being video streamed and can be

viewed later or live. I am. You guys not hearing this? I'll just glare over the

The AV guy the meeting is being streamed and can be viewed late live or later on the city's websites as

Some attendees may be participating in their first Walnut Creek City Council meeting

I wanted to welcome everyone and talk briefly about the agenda and 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 on an item

That is on the agenda this evening. Please hold your comments until the council considers that item

Additionally we have a section on the agenda titled public communication, which is for public comments on items not on the agenda

any comments during public communications should not relate to an item that's on the agenda this evening and

Consistent with section nine point five of the City Council handbook thirty minutes will be initially allocated for public communication for 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 if you

Sorry, I just got back from vacation. My brain is still

functional if you desire to provide a public comment

Please compete this complete a speaker identification card and line up behind the lectern at the appropriate time wait your turn

And then when you approach the lectern state your name and city of residence and you'll have two minutes to address the council

Now please keep in mind that this is a city business meeting the City Council has adopted rules of decorum to ensure that the 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 otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of the council meeting

Again, everybody's going to have their two minutes to make their remarks and written

comments have been submitted that were submitted and received up to two hours before the meeting

have been posted to the city's website for public review and are included in the meeting

record but will not be read separately into the record.

So that's the disclaimer part.

And with that, please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you.

City Clerk Martinez, could you please call the roll?

Council Member Davini.

Here.

Council Member Francois.

there you go here here councilmember FranC'ois here councilmember Silva here

Mayor Pro Tem Wilt here Mayor Darlene here okay next on the agenda is

proclamation declaring March 31st as International Transgender Day of

Visibility and this is a one that I wanted to make sure we had this year

International Transgender Day of Visibility was founded in 2009 and it's

It's celebrated as a way to celebrate the accomplishments

and the victories of transgender

and gender nonconforming people

while raising awareness of the work

that is still needed to address

the discrimination they face

and the safe, basically safe transgender lives.

And I think that's something

that we all support here on the council.

We all wanna make sure Walnut Creek is a place

where everybody feels welcome

and everybody can see themselves in our city

and feel safe and comfortable and can prosper here.

So, I see we have a very large contingent here

from the Rossmore LGBTQ Plus Alliance,

and I'm gonna invite Alex Pacaro to come up

and help me with this proclamation.

Oh, who's doing the picture?

Oh.

You're doing a picture?

I forgot to tell Matt that he's gonna get a picture.

Behind us, they're all doing a picture.

Oh, they're doing their picture.

Anyway, I just wanted to present this to you guys and thank you for all of the work you

do out at Rossmore and for everything you do for our community.

And if you wanted to say a couple words.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I'm really honored to be here.

My name is Alex Picaro and I am a proud transgender man.

I'm 69 years old, and I came out as transgender at the age of 65.

And I lived my life as a lesbian since I was in my 20s.

I asked a friend of mine to come today.

This is Sue Gragas.

And the reason I asked Sue is because she was married for 55 years to another proud

transgender man.

They started their life together as a lesbian couple.

But in 1981, he transitioned, which was very early.

And she brought his picture because, unfortunately, John

can't be here today because he passed away six weeks ago.

And he was a really wonderful guy.

Their relationship says so much about love and commitment

to one another, has due so many of the lives of transgender

people across this country, across this world,

And, of course, all of our LGBT brothers and sisters.

And I would like to accept this, not just for me,

but for John and me, and for all transgender people

in this world, and for all of the LGBT people

in the Rossmore community.

And we have several allies that are here

that came to celebrate this day.

And I'd like you all to stand up and be recognized.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, and thank you so much

for everybody coming out today.

Does anybody else wanna weigh in on this one?

I think we're good.

Thank you guys so much, and thank you for everything

that you do out at Rossmore.

You may excuse yourself, there's a nice cocktail

down the road, thank you so much.

No, you may not, you must stay here.

Next on the agenda is the consent calendar.

Does any council member wish to pull any item

discussion oh we have another presentation item I am so sorry I'm

still on Fiji time okay where are we bottom of the front page presentation

city city communications update I've got it now all right thank you mayor Dan

buckshite city manager and I'll introduce this item and invite Liz

Payne up here in just a moment but as you noted we have a presentation about

the city's communication program and activities. We have a fairly extensive

program in place in which we try to keep a strong connection with all of our

residents and visitors. As you know, Betsy Burkhart oversees our communications

program which includes the quarterly in a nutshell, a hard copy publication that

is mailed out, electronic newsletters, multiple newsletters on a variety of

topics, and also works with the media who cover Walnut Creek and she deals a lot

with resident inquiries as well.

I think you're all very familiar with our two other members

of our team, one being Matt Bolander,

who is behind the magic door there, who keeps this meeting

as well as many of our video productions going.

And we have Liz Payne, who come on up, Liz,

and have you take over here in just a second,

who manages many of our digital services

and digital activities.

She also oversees our social media and website,

And she's here to share what we've been up to really

over the last couple of years

as there's been a significant focus on digital services

since the pandemic,

since more folks are accessing services remotely.

With that, welcome Liz and take it away.

All right, well, thank you, Dan, for the introduction.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the city council,

members of the community and staff.

I'm Liz Payne, the city's digital services manager.

And as Dan mentioned, I help oversee the city's websites,

main city social media channels,

and help with outreach campaigns.

And today I'm here to give you an update

on the 2024 website redesign one year later.

Talk about how our approach to digital services has evolved

and share some exciting initiatives

that we have for the future.

And let's see, yep, okay.

And give me just a second to bring up our slides right here.

Here we go.

All right.

Traditionally, the city's communications

has focused on informing and engaging residents

through updates.

But today, residents expect more access

to services and information online at any time.

In response, we've enhanced our websites

to help residents find what they need

and complete tasks more efficiently.

And we've also prioritized customer feedback

to continuously improve outreach and the customer experience.

One of our core responsibilities

is ensuring that customers stay informed.

For digital communications,

we achieve this by meeting them where they are,

their email, and social media.

The city maintains a strong newsletter distribution list,

allowing customers to describe to the updates

that they choose.

This may include the city manager's update,

meeting agendas and project specific updates.

The city has over 24,000 subscribers

who annually open over 126,000 emails,

demonstrating a strong community engagement

to our updates.

Our social media presence continues to expand.

This slide shows our platforms ranked by their growth rate.

Instagram and YouTube are leading the way with a 17%

growth annually.

It's reflecting a strong trend towards video content.

And thanks to the creativity of our social media teams

across police, city, and arts and rec,

we're seeing short-form video content

making a significant impact.

Individual videos are sometimes reaching,

organically, audiences of up to 50 or 100,000 viewers,

and that's covering content, everything from public safety,

to city events, to public art.

Collectively, the city's social media channels

have over 194,000 followers, and they show active engagement

across all the channels, accumulating with over 3,000

views per year.

But we're doing more than just keeping our residents

and customers informed.

We're creating an online presence

that empowers customers with tools

they need to access services and information effectively.

With that goal in mind, in 2024, we set out

to redesign four of the city's key websites.

This included the main city website,

police, arts and rec, and economic development.

When we started, as you can see here,

each site had a slightly different user experience.

This sometimes led to a disconnected

and inconsistent journeys for our customers.

While the sites were performing adequately,

there was room for improvement in usability and reliability

of the content.

This slide shows major benchmarks

from our site improve analytics platform.

Quality assurance refers to the accuracy of our content.

The accessibility score reflects how accessible

the design of the website is for audiences of diverse needs.

And SEO reflects how well the content

is being ranked in search engines.

For the redesign, we took a customer-centered

and data-driven approach.

We looked at content analytics.

We did user testing.

We looked at user journeys to tell us how and what paths

our customers were taking to find their content.

And then finally, we spoke to staff

to ask them, how are the sites working for you,

and what are you hearing directly from our customers?

The goal was to create a more intuitive experience

across all our sites.

And in 2024, we launched our four redesign sites

built with customers in mind to deliver a more cohesive

and customer-friendly experience.

So improvements that were made to all our sites

included a streamlined navigation.

We surfaced the most commonly requested tasks

as called to action buttons on our front page.

And we also added an accessibility and expanded

translation widget to make our content more

accessible to all users.

And we also worked to simplify the content

on the interior of the site to make government information

easier to understand.

This is one example from our housing division.

And after simplifying their content

and increasing their search engine optimization,

the housing division saw a 38% increase in visitors

accessing information and services for housing.

We also streamlined the customer experience

by replacing PDFs with online forms.

For more complex processes,

such as Community Development's ADU Rebate Program,

we implemented automated notifications

that keep customers informed about every step of the process.

Also, staff now has access to a centralized database

that helps them track every step,

rather than manually entering information into spreadsheets.

The impact of these improvements has been significant.

After one year after the redesign, website traffic has increased by 26%.

Today, the total reach of all city websites averages 2.7 million views a year.

More people are engaging in our services, and they're finding what they need more efficiently.

Our work doesn't stop here.

We continue to innovate and improve

to meet the evolving needs of our customers.

And coming up next, we're looking

to continue to enhance the mobile experience.

Two out of three of our visitors are coming to our sites

on their mobile devices.

And we're going to be expanding the use of online forms

to make our interactions more seamless.

We've also launched a digital accessibility initiative

with a focus on making reports and PDFs more accessible

to screen readers so that everybody can access

the information they need.

And information technology will be implementing a chatbot.

This will help improve response times

and enhance customer support.

A year after the redesign, I'm happy to report

that our commitment to continuous improvement

has paid off.

The numbers at the top show where we started

and the numbers below reflect where we are now.

The circles with the check marks

note the government benchmark scores,

which you can see that we're exceeding

in all three categories.

Our work in digital services

is more than just about numbers.

It's about informing, empowering,

and improving the way we connect with our community.

As we move forward,

focus remains on innovation inclusivity and customer service design.

And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Excellent.

And looks like you guys have done some great work this year.

Questions on the part of the council?

Craig?

Yeah.

Councilmember Definney.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

That was very informative.

I was wondering, I noticed that with the redesign, the quality assurance went from 79 to 97.

97, what do you because you described that as being the

Like the factual contents of the site what during the process led to such an I think if I'm correct in that

What would lead to such an improvement in that category? That's really impressive to go that far

well, one of the main things that the

analytics measures for quality assurance is

Links on the site. So verifying that information is linking correctly

and so what we have in place now is we're able to much more closely monitor

that and our teams are updating regularly so that is improving the

experience and accuracy of what people are reading. So it's the accuracy of what

they're reading and where they're being directed to it wasn't necessarily

accuracy of the content prior. Correct it's more ensuring that where they're

being directed to and then of course you know our content contributors are

reviewing the content regularly to make sure that that is accurate and up-to-date.

Other questions? Councilmember Silva. Thank you very much and the numbers are

truly impressive and having run a couple of websites with thousands of

pages it's really hard to keep that those linkages and that content

accurate and pointing in the right direction so bravo that is excellent.

What's next?

Well, I think next is our commitment to expanding accessibility and really also looking, as

I mentioned, finding those tools where we can sort of automate self-service.

So the chatbot will hopefully find, it's another way of people being able to search.

It'll help people find content that they want more easily.

It'll also be another tool to help staff flag

if something needs to be updated.

So I think keeping in mind our commitment to accessibility,

streamlining the experience for the customer,

and giving staff the tools they need to keep

the site in good shape.

And congratulations on convincing the subject matter

experts that long narrative paragraphs are not necessarily

the best way to present information.

Thank you.

And I just want to say thank you

for the work on accessibility.

I know I had heard that from one of the,

actually City Council candidates a while ago

and she pointed out to me some of the ways

that our old website was not that,

was not as accessible for people

who see information in different ways.

So I really appreciate the work you guys have done

on that accessibility part of the puzzle.

That's great to hear.

Thank you.

Anything else?

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thanks for the update.

Now, I want the consent calendar.

Does any council member wish to pull an item

for discussion or staff?

Yes, please.

I would like to pull items two E and two F for a comment.

Okay, anybody else?

Two C.

And I'm gonna pull two G just because Heather's here.

So I wanted to recognize her when we get to that one.

So that leaves A, B, D, H, and I.

So, move to adopt the consent calendar.

I was gonna do the public comment thing for you.

Is there any public comment on A, B, D, H, or I?

This is not the general public comment.

This is just on the consent count,

those items on the consent count.

Sorry for all the confusion.

Anyway, seeing no public comment,

I will close that and bring it back here

for Council Member Silva to make a motion.

Move to approve consent calendar items to A, B, D, H, and I.

Second.

Roll call vote please.

Council Member Silva.

Aye.

Council Member Davini.

Aye.

Council Member Francois.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Wilk.

Aye.

Mayor Darling.

Aye.

All right, we'll go to item two C,

the adoption of the flood control storm water utility

area fee.

So I thought this, the information on the,

this program is quite complex,

the cost, the funding mechanisms.

I think it might warrant or my suggestion would be

to have this on the open agenda,

have a presentation from the city on this topic

and sometime in the future.

Did you have questions today for staff?

No questions today, no.

Okay, the city manager and I will work on this

to find an appropriate point.

So 2C, any public comment on 2C stormwater fees?

I'll look for a motion.

A motion to approve 2C?

Yeah.

But if we're approving it,

that means it wouldn't appear in a...

I just want to understand what we're doing here.

So I had questions about it

and I brought it to the city manager's attention

and the timeline with the county is such that we should go

ahead, in my opinion, and approve it today.

but I thought the content was sufficiently complex

that we would benefit from hearing about the subject

in more detail at some point in the future.

Yes, and I had heard that from the city manager.

We will work to find a time in the council calendar

where it's appropriate to look at.

There's a lot of complexity,

there is a lot of complexity to the issue.

We don't really have a substantive matter ahead

in front of us today,

but there will be a lot of work happening.

And as that work happens,

we will look to bring it back to the council.

And so we are just-

With that, I will make the motion to approve.

Second.

All right, roll call vote, please.

Mayor Pro Tem Wilk.

Aye.

Council Member Silva.

Aye.

Council Member Davini.

Aye.

Council Member Francois.

Aye.

Mayor Darlene.

Aye.

Okay, to E and F, do you wanna do those together?

Yes, I can do them together.

Thank you very much, Mayor.

To E is an item where we're accepting

the completion of a contract by Public Works

on the Downtown Fiber Optic Network phase two,

which was specifically the Civic Park buildings,

and then 2F is the acceptance of the contract completion

of the 2024 Slurry Seal Roadway Project.

And I just wanted to thank our public work staff

for doing all of this,

what seemingly seems rote work on time and under budget.

Thank you.

All right, anybody else have anything else on 2E and F?

With that, would you like public comments?

No, Council Member Silva, do you wanna make the motion?

Move to approve items two E and F

from the consent calendar.

Second.

Roll call vote, please.

Council Member Silva.

Aye.

Council Member Francois.

Aye.

Council Member Davini.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem, well.

Aye.

Mayor Darling.

Aye.

And last but not least is 2G.

And this is the appointment of Heather Lervy

to take over as the full-time Library Commission person.

I both wanna welcome Heather to that full-time position.

thank you for taking up the efforts

and thank Jason Molinari for his work through the years

and welcome you to the commission.

And if there's nobody here that wants

to publicly comment upon it,

I will move that we appoint Heather Lervie

as the city's primary representative

on the County Library Commission.

Second, and I just wanna thank Heather

for her dedicated service,

taking the alternate role very seriously

attending all the meetings last year and at some point either by email or

however I'd love to get some book recommendations from you for this year.

Mayor Darlene? Aye. Councilmember Francois? Aye. Councilmember Davini? Aye. Councilmember Silva? Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Wilk? Aye and thank you very much and I guess we'll see you at the

author's gala. Thank you very much and now I'm working I'm getting there. Next

on the agenda, this is the public communications

and this is the portion of the meeting

that 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.

We could 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 communications for 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.

So now those of you that wish to can please step forward

to the podium and line up along the wall

with your speaker cards in your hand.

Once you're up, please introduce yourself

to city of residence for the record

and we'll give everybody the two minutes for their remarks

and two written comments submitted have been posted

to the city's website for public review

and are included in the meeting record

but are not separately read.

At this time I note that the time is 6 27.

So we will go for 30 minutes

and welcome our first commenter.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm M.D. Rose.

I'm from Rossmoor, Walnut Creek and I need your help.

Deed was recorded and you will be getting

that in a little packet that changes

and clouds the open space boundaries in Rossmoor.

For almost 50 years, we have had this map,

which is a ordinance that has the land use plan.

And there's three characterizations of that land use.

One down here, it says the clubhouse area.

There's regular open space and there's residential.

Within that ordinance, there's very specific language

saying you must do this, this, this,

if you do anything to change those boundaries.

Okay, there is an application for a Rossmore for pickleball, $4 million, 600 pickleball

people, over 9,000 pickleball that are non-pickleball.

So these are seniors that have $4 million at stake, and it could be considered elder

financial abuse if proper procedures aren't followed.

This deed was recorded, and you'll see it in your packet, without a public hearing,

with no Brown Act notice.

There's another law in your city ordinances that says the city engineer, if he's going

to record something and it has significant impact or something along that line, he needs

to go to the Planning Commission.

That did not happen.

And no going after the fact, please.

We need a public hearing, three-carat.

So our zoning map is in danger.

Also in here is you have what's called the general plan, which is super important.

And there's a map in there.

Our open space is a golf course.

Well, we can't climb Lime Ridge, or we can't climb, you know, the other places.

But we can use our open space.

Uh-oh.

Thank you very much.

I will have this staff look at this and be in touch with you if they need additional

information.

Can I make one more comment?

No, I'm sorry.

I'm talking to our...

We have to stick to our two minutes.

Thank you very much for coming.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening.

And please, somebody help us.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Darling and City Council members and staff.

My name is Ellen Osminson.

I live in Walnut Creek.

I came before you last November introducing to you about

a Walnut Creek Village that I was working on.

Today we are renamed, we have been renamed

Mount Diablo Village because there was another project

in Baltimore, Ohio with the exact same name,

Walnut Creek Village, and because they are established

and we didn't want to step on their toes.

So Mount Diablo Village, if you look at this chart,

it will tell you that it is a table supported by

socialization, learning, exercising,

and supporting our seniors.

This is a non-profit organization for seniors.

And I also wanna thank those City Council members

who have given us the word of encouragement, support,

and even attended some of our events in the past.

And we are very energized, and back then,

all the programs and events were primitive,

And now we are getting very close to launching,

and we even have a brochure.

And so as we continue to launch,

and I would be, and maybe, reaching out to all of you

to come speak before us about what the city programs

are like, are like, because we want our seniors

to continue to learn and continue to be engaged members,

engaging members in the community.

And so what is a village?

A village is part of a nationwide movement

of more than 260 other villages in this country.

And in the Bay Area alone, there are 30 villages

and Mount Diablo Village is only one of the 30

that we are putting together.

And as I said, Mount Diablo Village

offer programs that include learning, socializing,

exercising, and supporting.

And we know in our brains that socialization is a very important component.

So we want to continue to develop that.

Thank you, Ellen.

Hi, my name is Keith Firing.

Probably you're a little bit taller than Ellen, so there you go.

OK, now start.

OK, my name's Keith Firing, and I have lived in Walnut Creek for 45 years.

I had a store, downtown Walnut Creek, for some of the older people here.

It was called Price Right Cheese.

I built it up, I sold it.

I was an English teacher in the Mount Diablo school district,

and I bought my little house in Bancroft Village

when I was 37 years old in 1984.

Hard to believe, I am 77 right now.

And I and my wife, we love Walnut Creek.

I am here following up with Ellen

regarding the village movement

and what we're working at creating here in Walnut Creek,

the same as La Marinda has, Clayton has,

Marin has, San Francisco has,

Petaluma and other places have.

What it is, it's a community of volunteers

helping seniors to be able to remain in our homes,

which is something that I wanna do.

And I don't want to, I can't move to a Rossmoor

into a community like that or do some other things.

I am a member of the Walnut Creek master swim team,

the Benetikva, I forget a few other things too,

but they're great.

But this village provides a support of volunteers,

of seniors helping others, let's say younger seniors,

helping older seniors and people volunteering

work with each other and that's what I just hope to make you aware of it

because it's I want to stay here and I don't want to have to move into some

place we love living in Bankroll Village we love Walnut Creek so nice seeing

everyone here and you as well. Thank you very much. I think it's interesting to

hear about the change from Walnut Creek Village to Mount Diablo if anybody is

is concerned about confusing names being the same.

It's gotta be Baltimore, Ohio.

So I'm sure they appreciate that.

Thank you.

Next.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, councilmen, members.

My name is Jack Dudem,

and I'm the property owner of 1515 North Main Street,

which is the location of my son and my restaurant

at the same address of 1515.

I'm here to address the letter we received

regarding our patio.

We had a 10 year lease given to us

by the city of Walnut Creek 10 years ago,

excuse me, 18 years ago,

and it expired eight years ago.

And we never heard a word concerning a letter

that has to do with the charge for the patio.

The letter is requesting us to pay $3,600 a year

for the use of the patio,

which is the only way you get through our front door.

Since we need the patio to get to our front door entrance,

it also allows us more seating area,

which we appreciate the help in our business.

We saw fit to enhance it and keep it in good shape.

We spent over $200,000 when we had the lease

over a 10-year period, and we put cement.

We did cement work, fencing, electrical.

We did drainage work.

We did fireplace, gate enclosure,

along with cleaning a daily.

The reason we got the lease for 10 years

had no charge from the city of Walnut Creek

was because we kept it clean.

That was the request upon the city,

keep it clean, you have the lease.

We recently spent another $50,000 in the patio for furniture,

safe cleaning, updated work done on the fireplace,

and this helped during the COVID time.

We were given no warning about our previous conversation

or notice about the upcoming requirements to have a permit

and the expenses to keep on the patio.

Our patio was enjoyed by a bunch of customers, and especially for our lunch and our late

dinners when people come after a performance at Lesher Theatre, 1515 is the only restaurant

that serves dinner up to 12 midnight in the city of Walnut Creek.

We're enjoying watching sports throughout the day.

We also have permission to serve alcohol until 1 a.m. inside the restaurants.

Thank you very much, Mr. Dubuque.

I know this is a difficult issue, and I think we'll expect you to continue to work with

staff on it.

Thank you very much.

anyone else at this time thought I saw somebody else trust okay thank you all

for coming tonight and we'll go ahead and is there anything that any of buddy

feels inclined to say after that we will move on then next on the agenda is

councilmember and staff announcements reports on activities or requests and

and city attorney, any closed session?

Madam Mayor, no closed session announcements.

We'll move to the city manager report.

I do not have an update this evening.

You do not, okay.

We will go to city council member reports

on AB 1234 activities.

I think I will start on my right with Mayor Pro Tem.

Wilk.

Wilk, I am learning.

You'll be back on track, I'm sure.

Great, thank you, Mayor.

The first is that I now am a liaison to Transpac as well,

which is part of the transportation arena.

And at our last meeting we talked about

what the Transpac mission was,

which is basically moving vehicles along

through the 2050 countywide transportation plan.

We received a report on safe streets and recent studies show

and I'm sure that our own transportation,

or I should say former transportation engineer

would appreciate these as well.

But the 23 miles an hour, if there's a collision,

means it's 90% survivable in that collision.

At 42 miles an hour, it's a 50% survivable.

And at 50 miles an hour, it's only 25%.

So the whole idea is what we can do

to move traffic efficiently, but also safely.

And that is the entire TransPak mission.

We also received an update on

Street Smart's Diablo Walk and Roll program.

Now we don't have this program in Walnut Creek,

but we all were interested in it.

It's essentially a school trip reduction initiative designed to promote active transportation

among families in Contra Costa County by promoting families to walk, bike, or carpool to school,

thereby reducing traffic congestion and improving air quality.

So for more information, or if a school or a principal hears this, or a parent faculty

club, please contact the CCTA, the Contra Costa Transportation Authority.

They would love to get you involved.

I also had a tour with the Contra Costa Animal, the Animal, oh my gosh, now I'm forgetting

what it's called, the, thank you, Animal Control Tour with Supervisor Ken Carlson, essentially

being able to see how the county handles the animals and prepare for adoptions.

It's really fascinating.

They have so much work with so many of the cities in Contra Costa.

It's the second time that I've been there over my tenure and I recommend that if any

councilmember hasn't had a tour of that facility yet, work through Supervisor

Carlson's office, they'll set you up with the tours. It's fascinating to hear

about and just for those interested, Joy Bound, formerly ARF here, they get the

first pick of the cats and dogs that are up for adoption so they go first and

and but the county still does a lot of adoption so check it out, go through

Supervisor Carlson's office. I also attended the East Bay leadership

program with Rob Bonta, where we heard him speak about having a special hate crimes unit

within the state. I certainly was interested to hear that throughout all local areas in

the state. He talked about also having a state having its own retail crime task force, which

our chief may be familiar with, to help local jurisdictions combat the organized retail

thefts that have occurred in communities. So he was very, very proactive in discussing

this and really wanted to make sure that this got out to all the communities. I

attended the Chamber Civic Affairs on the history of Walnut Creek. We had the

mayor talking about the future of Walnut Creek. This was the history of

Walnut Creek with three former elected officials including two mayors and

former chairperson. That's on the city website and last but absolutely not least

I attended the Walnut Creek employee recognition event and that is just

terrific to see. We've got just about 300 staff that work in Walnut Creek

Creek, keeping everybody not just safe,

but enjoying Walnut Creek to work, to live, to play.

And we had recognitions from people that celebrated

their five year, ten year, 25 year,

30 year anniversary with the city.

And I do want to call out specifically Vanessa Sendejas

from the Arts and Rec Department,

who was named the Rosie Cohen Employee of the Year

for the city, from all the very deserving nominees,

and the building maintenance team,

headed by our own Rich Payne, one for team of the year.

And so what I think is wonderful about Walnut Creek

is that everybody expects our buildings

and our city to be in great shape.

And that's because we have a terrific team

that's dedicated to making sure

that everybody feels that way.

That's not the case in every city.

And we hold our team to a high standard.

More importantly, they hold their own selves

to high standards.

and I can validate this by one of the first things

that I did when I was first on council in 2016,

I went on ride alongs with several different departments.

And what impressed me over and over and over again

is everybody from those departments who I talked to,

they loved Walnut Creek.

They wanted to make sure that Walnut Creek

was the best city possible for anybody

that lived here or came here to visit.

Even a lot of these staff

didn't necessarily live in this city.

They might have lived nearby.

They really were dedicated

making sure Walnut Creek was the best place

to live, work, and play.

And so thank you to all of our staff

and congratulations to those who were recognized

for truly above and beyond as well.

That's my report.

Thank you.

Council Member Dafini.

Thank you.

So I had the pleasure of attending

the National League of Cities Conference

in Washington, D.C. this past week

with Council Member Silva.

was a really great experience.

I'll try to just touch on a few of the highlights

and some of the issues that we talked about.

It was primarily advocacy-oriented,

so it was taking issues that are important to the city

and advocating for those policies at a national level.

We met with a number of our local congressmen and senators.

So one of the things that was eye-opening to me

was the housing crisis that we talk about here in California

really is the number one issue for most cities

around the country.

I thought perhaps we, with our higher home values,

were experiencing something maybe more unique

than some other states, but it turns out

that's really the number one issue

around the country right now.

And it was interesting to hear from other city leaders

about how they're solving or how they're tackling,

trying to tackle those problems in their area.

For example, someone, a representative from Washington State,

talked about incentivizing affordable building

by waiving property taxes.

In Alaska, they're using land trusts.

But one of the issues that's come up

is with the cuts that are going on right now

at the federal government, we may not

see the same investment in affordable housing

that we've seen in the past from private developers.

And part of that is due to the uncertainty

of federal funds at this time.

And so with that uncertainty, the interest or the appetite

for private investors to invest in projects

that require funding from so many different areas.

We're concerned about that.

On the workforce front, it was interesting to hear

that the Pell Grants that are passed out

to those who are of high academic achievement

and high need may be extended to trade schools.

On the tech front, we've heard about

our fiber optic plans here at the city.

There was a discussion about why fiber optic,

what about satellite, and we discussed the benefits

of fiber in that it's more dependable,

and over the long term, cheaper.

The satellites don't have the longest lifespan,

need to be replaced, and there's signal degradation

that takes place with satellites, with increased usage,

or weather patterns, things like that.

So that was interesting discussion.

Municipal bonds, another big one.

Council member Silva brought that up

at one of our last meetings.

And that's municipal bonds are tax free.

They go back to 1913 during our first tax code.

And what they do is they make financing

for large scale projects financially feasible

for smaller governments.

Allowing cities to issue bonds where the profit

that those who invest is interest free,

or tax free interest.

There's an estimated three trillion dollars

going into infrastructure projects financed

by tax-free municipal bonds by the year 2031,

so over these next six years.

And it was estimated that about three quarters

of the infrastructure in the country

has been built by municipal bonds.

If the municipal bond tax-free status was revoked,

it would save the federal government.

It's estimated about $300 billion over the next 10 years.

but it would cost the cities about $820 billion

to then borrow and finance that same amount.

So that winds up being a $6,500 per person charge

for that move.

And that would have an immediate impact

if we didn't have that tax-free status to cities

around the country.

And it may even impact our ability

to finance projects here in Walnut Creek,

and we've got some big projects coming out.

And then we talked about Medicaid funding.

That's also an area of concern.

I know as an ER doctor, when we cut Medicaid

and we cut poor folks' opportunity

to seek medical care in the community through clinics,

it does not save the community money.

In addition to depriving the poorest among us

from accessing medical care, it drives them to the ERs

and it drives them into the hospitals.

And it actually costs us a lot more

to provide the same care.

So that was the experience there.

It was also great to see the government and work.

In addition, I had the pleasure of attending a film that

was put on by the Contra Costa JCC Jewish Community

Center at the Lafayette Library.

The film was Blind Spot.

It was a documentary about anti-Semitism

on college campuses, both before and after the attacks

of October 7.

And then they had students there who have experienced,

have had those experience.

And they spoke about what's going on.

and it was a very powerful experience.

I met with a new business here in town

called Behavioral Fitness.

It is located over by, it's on Ignacio Valley

near the hospital.

It's run by Dr. Alison Mayo and nurse Terry della Montaña.

And what they're focusing on is what the NIH describes

as the eight mutually interdependent dimensions

of wellness.

So physical, intellectual, emotional, social,

spiritual, vocational, financial, and environmental.

The concept that attention must be given

to all of the dimensions, and if we neglect

one of those areas, it impacts the others.

In addition, yesterday I was online

for a legislative update at the state level,

and I wanna remind everyone that tomorrow

is taste and toast downtown.

It's being put on, I believe it's a collaboration

between our Walnut Creek Education Foundation

and the Downtown Association.

So that should be a fun event

and I hope that you will all be able to attend.

Starts at, I think, 5.30.

Thank you.

Council Member Silva.

Thank you very much, Mayor, and welcome back.

I'm glad you had a nice time on your holiday.

Back to work, right?

Recycle Smart, which Council Member Francois and I

represent the city on the Recycle Smart network,

which handles trash, recycling and organics reduction.

We met on our legislative committee yesterday

and we reviewed nine bills, all designed.

These are state of California bills

that are proposed to help reduce,

reuse and recycle materials.

And the committee made recommendations to the full board,

but among the bills that I think universally we can support.

So just flag these two, AB 337.

This is related to food waste reduction and recovery

and edible food, such as what is being provided,

the services being provided by White Pony Express

in partnership with Recycle Smart.

Up to this point in time, it's been unclear

that the state has a grant program

to help support that work.

And it has been unclear if transportation costs

and software costs are included.

And then this bill, if approved by the legislature

and signed by the governor, would clarify

that those funds are available.

transportation, if you're going to pick up edible food from restaurants and grocery

stores and other establishments around a community, your transportation costs are going to be

very high, particularly if the trucks have to be refrigerated, which many of them do.

So that's one we might want to lean in and support.

Also Senate Bill 45, and I brought a prop.

So in California right now, these plastic bottles are made of one different material

from the plastic cap, but both the cap and the bottle are recyclable.

The unfortunate thing is we have a tendency to try to recycle the cap separately from

the bottle, and these caps end up in the landfill or they end up in storm drains because they

float and they don't go through the equipment, so there is a bill proposed in the legislature

that would align California's beverage container manufacturing industry to align with what's

happening in Europe, wherein the cap is attached to the bottle, so it can't it

basically stays with it. I'm not sure if this will go forward, Recycle Smart, the

proposal is that Recycle Smart support it, but I will say this, in the

meantime, as long as these caps are separated, put the cap back on the bottle

before you put it in the recycle bin. If I can just say, I love that idea, I can't

believe we haven't done it before, considering that what 30, 40 years ago we had the cans,

remember the old pull tab cans, that was more about waste and just throwing those away,

but it's obviously possible to do easily. I can't believe we haven't done it already.

It just is a good excuse to bring a bottle in.

Well, as it may be, I like the idea.

I also visit, we're continuing to a waste characterization study, which is basically

were collecting samples of people's black, green, and blue bins and doing sample studies

of what's in which bins and went out to watch it being done.

Fortunately, the transfer station is not as smelly as one might think it is, but we'll

be looking forward to finding out what are the results and where we can help to communicate,

you know, keep the cap on,

where how we can help communicate

things like that with the public.

The webinar yesterday, sponsored by Cal Cities,

was about legislative key bills in the legislature

and they went through 60 bills in about an hour

in about 90 minutes and it was like the speed of light,

but I'll give you some highlights.

There were about nine or 10 bills

that are before the state legislature

related to wildfires in this state

and this is particularly important,

I fell into a number of categories.

One is CEQA streamlining where for certain things

such as vegetation management,

CEQA would be exempt from CEQA

for those types of activities,

undergrounding of power lines, things like that.

Fire insurance was up there, disaster response,

including the proposal to create a state fund

for individual assistance for those homeowners

and businesses that experience disasters.

The way the federal emergency management system

and formulas work across the nation is you have a threshold

that you, a minimum threshold you have to meet

in a community before you can secure FEMA assistance

and that formula is based on your economic wealth.

And so in the state of California,

Southern California, LA Basin, and Silicon Valley drive up the base level and the formula

so that small communities like Rio del, which has about 1,500 people in it, they can lose

a third of their housing stock from an earthquake and it will, there's no assistance from FEMA.

They can't declare a natural, a FEMA disaster.

So while we work on it at the federal level, this would create an individual assistance

program.

important. In the arts arena Senate Bill 456 and I didn't pass this on to the

city manager, it turns out that this is related to murals. It turns out that

under the contractors building construction building code contractors

building regs, so this isn't state regs it's the builders. A muralist has to have

have a contractor's license, not a permit, a license, which is an expensive proposition

and requires passing a test in order to paint a mural.

So art murals are getting shut down, projects across the state.

The deadline for letters is March 31.

Particularly we want to emphasize that those murals are not affecting the constructability

or the construction integrity.

they're just paint over paint, so go figure.

Housing Assembly Bill 650 is about the,

it's a reform bill on the arena process,

the regional housing needs assessment process.

It's being sponsored by Cal Cities.

The sponsor carrying the bill is Assembly Member Gina Pappan,

long time supervisor in San Mateo County.

And what this, if adopted by the legislature,

and we're gonna have to probably argue

pretty vociferously about this,

it would allow cities to start earlier,

so basically it would push the process back

so that we have more time to answer

and create our housing elements.

It would give us credit for a good faith effort.

If we're making good faith progress,

then we would be protected from penalties.

And the third element is that if adopted,

it would be requiring the Housing Community

and Economic Development Department,

or HCD Housing Community Development Department

to be clear and specific the first try at its feedback

and not keep moving the goalposts.

And so if we have every city that has an example

of watching the goalposts move

the last cycle is asked to provide information on that and another item

that I thought was interesting this is SB 346 it would require short term rental

platforms to provide information to local government on who in their

jurisdiction is in on their platform currently that is not required and it's

not necessarily confidential information but if we had that information we could

then assess whether there is an advantage

to actually pushing on a TOT ordinance

to expand our TOT base

for those who are on short-term rentals.

And there's a bit of an urgency across the state

because of Olympics, World Cup and other big activities

and events coming soon to a theater near you.

And as Council Member Davini mentioned,

I also was at the National League of Cities Conference.

It is really an opportunity every year in March

for cities to come together and advocate with one message,

not their own individual messages,

but one message that is consistent across

all cities across the nation.

There were 3,000 people at the conference.

It was primarily an advocacy conference.

I think the, I'm on the vice chair

of the National League of Cities housing,

community and economic development policy committee.

And during that meeting,

we had a lot of information on housing,

but three representatives of the Canadian government came in.

They flew in from Canada to tell us

how tariffs were going to affect housing.

And Canada is all about where we get most of our lumber.

And so the expectation is that if we,

these tariffs go through and how they work,

it could increase the cost to build these houses,

the housing we need significantly.

And then they talked about autos,

the price of food, pharmaceuticals,

and the electricity, the stability of the electrical grid.

We also talked about the impact

of the loss of tax exempt unity bonds.

And also the impact to our community development

block grant funding and what is about to happen.

There is a pressure point to basically shutter 85%

of the regional and local offices

of the Department of Housing and Urban Development,

which is where our information and funds come through

is those local agencies.

And finally, while we were there,

the House did pass the continuing resolution

and the Senate on Friday adopted it.

it looks like our funds will stay flat at the 2024 levels

whereas ordinarily they would go up at least

by the 3% CPI.

I will finally close by saying

that evidently according to the vice president

who came to speak to us on Monday afternoon,

the solution to our housing problem we can all get behind

is the deportation of 20 million illegal immigrants.

Thank you for that entertaining report.

What do you got for me?

Well, Madam Mayor, I am going to look like a slacker

in comparison because I was on spring break

with my son and his friends, King and Tahoe last week.

But I'm making up for it in the next two days.

I have four city meetings that I will report on

at our next council meeting.

Thank you for all that you've done representing our city.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, and I too was a slacker.

So I have very little to report in the rear view mirror,

other than I did talk to the TK at Buena Vista,

I read to them for Read Across America,

and unlike Mayor Pro Tem Wilkes' experience

with the fourth graders,

they didn't wanna ask me questions,

they just wanted to tell me what the rules are in TK.

And so I know not to spit, not to push in line,

and to not jump the line.

So that was really useful.

Two things coming up, it is the start of poppy season.

I did talk to Supervisor Carlson,

and the city and the county have worked together

with the neighbors along the Sutherland area

to try to modify some of the parking conflicts

that we had last year.

And so we are hoping that all works

and so people can enjoy the poppies

without overwhelming the neighborhood.

And then when we approved the stormwater fee today,

one of the things in that report that notes,

it's the community cleanup crew that is a huge part

of our ability to meet the standards

that we have to on trash collection.

And there is a chance to clean up this Saturday morning

at 8.30, come to the park and ride at Red Gear.

You don't even need to bring your own picker.

There'll be vests and pickers,

and you too can have that strangely satisfying experience

of picking up garbage around Walnut Creek.

And that is it for my report.

I will have more as council member Francois next time,

because I really do have four more meetings this week.

So next on the agenda is a consideration item titled

the approval of assessment report and annual levy

of assessments for the Downtown Walnut Creek

Business Improvement District

and Downtown Walnut Creek South Business Improvement District

for FY2425 and setting the public hearings.

So I invite the staff to come forward

and provide the staff presentation.

And I will note that we have received an addendum

since the distribution in the agenda report.

Good evening, Mayor.

I'm gonna kick things off here.

Again, Dan Buckshi, city manager,

and I'm gonna kick it off a little unconventionally

in that we received an unsolicited email

from some visitors to the area just on Friday evening

that'll be coming forward into the mayor

and council members inbox.

And I thought it was really highlighted, Walnut Creek.

And the beginning part,

I'm going to make a little more generic

and then I will read verbatim.

It says, my wife and I recently visited the Bay Area

And we were very disturbed by what we saw near the airport

in which we flew into and a shopping district

in a nearby very large city in which they went shopping.

And that they were really taken aback

by the amount of crime, the number of vacant stores,

and the general conditions of the city.

And then I will now read more specifically

about their trip here.

On the last day of our trip,

we visited Fleming's in your city, in Walnut Creek.

After our lunch, we walked around shopping

and enjoying the sunshine.

We were both in shock at how beautiful and safe your city is.

It really shows the leadership team you oversee

cares about their citizens, business owners, visitors,

and workers.

Please keep up your great efforts.

Walnut Creek is a wonderful town thanks to public servants

like you.

As you know, it's not very often that we

receive unsolicited positive feedback from the community.

And while many of us spend a lot of time focusing on ways

to make our city better, and we highlight the areas

in which we can improve.

I think it's important once in a while to take a step back

at just how nice Walnut Creek is, and that is a result

of not just the work that the city government is doing,

but the many partnerships we have with not-for-profits,

with other businesses and organizations,

one of which is Walnut Creek downtown

who we're going to hear from tonight.

So with that, I would like to introduce

our relatively new Economic Development Manager,

Mike Nieman, who's going to kick us off.

Welcome, Mike.

Thank you, City Manager Bakshi.

I'm Mike Nieman.

I am your Economic Development Manager.

Hello, Mayor.

Hello, Pro Tem and City Council members.

Today, we will be talking about the annual assessments

for the Business Improvement District.

And as you know, our downtown is unique.

It really is the heart of the community

and it's ground zero for economic development

that starts in the city.

There is a unique ecosystem of businesses.

We have nearly 700 businesses in downtown.

And the city was visionary in 2005

when it was first formed the business improvement district.

And subsequently in 2010 it formed

a south business improvement district

that I will refer to as BID and as BID.

These improvement districts are a common tool

for assessments across the state to generate revenue for districts to do various promotional

marketing, tourism attraction activities that ultimately enhance their performance and the

quality of life in communities that they exist in.

So it's our downtown, both the Business Improvement District and the South Business Improvement

district are managed by Walnut Creek downtown WCD which is our the city's

partner. In 2002 Council authorized an annual increase of three percent to

assessments that have been levied since and the presentation tonight in front of

you is of the annual assessment report by WCD and it's part of the two-step

process that requires an annual renew. The first step today will be to set the

public hearing date which would be on April 1st and then we will have the

April 1st public hearing with the goal that should there be any protests to

the assessments that are being levied. We will be sending out the forms tomorrow

for these businesses in downtown and they will have until the council hearing

on April 1st to submit their protests and if there is a threshold of 51 percent being

reached then there could be some challenges and historically this has not happened here

in Walnut Creek.

With this I would like to introduce Kathy Hemingway who is the executive director of

WCD and she will present the subsequent slides.

Good evening

Thank you very much for the kind words for kicking it off on a positive note to the manager bucks I appreciate that

So good evening mayor darling city council members and city staff

I'm Kathy Hemingway executive director with the Walnut Creek downtown Association, and I'm here this evening to share a

Recap of the past year and then also share the the year ahead as we go through the presentation

And I just want to share a quick reminder

that our fiscal year does run April 1 through March 31.

So we have a couple more weeks left

in our current fiscal year.

So the Walnut Creek Downtown Association

is comprised of over 680 businesses,

and we operate both a nonprofit C6 and C3,

newly added C3 organization.

And the bid boundary itself encompasses 29 blocks

representing those 680 businesses

within the downtown district.

The new C3 entity, the community partnership

for Walnut Creek Downtown,

joined the organization in 2024.

And acting as an advocate for our organization

and the downtown businesses,

WCD supports these initiatives

through beautification projects,

special events, marketing efforts, and professional development for our business members.

We currently operate two board of directors for WCD and the C3.

And the new C3 board includes eight board of directors.

And then we also have the same treasurer, Gary Skrull, that is the treasurer for the

C3 as we offer consistency or to offer consistency to the new C3 entity as we

bring that online this year. We currently operate with three full-time

staff members and three part-time staff members and we've added a part-time

marketing assistant to bring graphic design, weekly newsletters, website and

overall marketing in-house and our newest employee is an event assistant

and that we'll be managing our utility box program,

the pain of pianos, and the increased calendar

of public events.

The team manages a variety of boards and committees,

excuse me, a variety of committees,

as we strive to become a stronger working board

and also involve more community volunteers

and business members to join those committees and alliances.

We've also managed a lot of internal change

within our organization to streamline

our administrative work by consolidating

and elevating some of the software programs we've used.

We are slowly moving out of those Excel spreadsheets

and moving into the 21st century.

So we are excited about the efficiencies

that these new programs will bring.

Member advocacy is at the core of our efforts

And we're conducting a membership outreach campaign

that is new to us this year.

We are foregoing a social event that we've had

over the last couple of years.

Instead, we're focusing on an opportunity

to have more touch points with our members.

We're creating a packet that will share membership benefits

and a new window cling that will have our logo

to go on all of our member window business storefronts.

and be able to just set up meetings so that we can have some one-on-one conversations.

So we're looking forward to a lot of more brand awareness and also opportunities to

learn more about our businesses.

The vision plan kicked off in 2024 with a facilitator that conducted a SWOT analysis

with our executive board committee as well as our WCD staff.

And then we're moving into in-person conversations with additional board members as well as surveys

for business members, community partners, and residents.

So the vision plan itself will provide a three to five year roadmap for the organization

and the downtown district.

The downtown construction, we are pleased to say that the Locust Street project is completed.

And so our team helped assist with Public Works and East Bay MUD and Central San by

providing access to our businesses, conducting Zoom meetings and e-newsletters and website

updates, and then hosted reception at the end of the project to celebrate that two-year

project.

Then on the state and national level, as members of the California Downtown Association and

the International Downtown Association, our team participates in conferences and webinars

and to develop stronger programs.

This last week, three of our staff members attended the CDA West Coast Urban District

Forum in San Francisco, along with Mike and Kisaba from the Economic Development Department,

And we joined over 300 executives and bid partners, vendors and city staff at that conference.

And then last spring attended a couple of lobby days on behalf of the downtown businesses

meeting with our representatives and a committee session on the downtown recovery that is being

led by Assemblyman Matt Haney.

And then we also had a couple of meetings with Congressman Desongye and Mayor, or at

at that time, Mayor Haskew and Mayor Pro Tem Darling

to move around or exactly visit some of the restaurants

with Congress and Mark Desolnier.

Moving into our programs, our summer arts program

launched a summer three month program in June of 24.

We collaborated through the Arts Alliance Organization

Arts Elias Task Force with 15 organizations, including the city of Walnut Creek, creating

15 programs and events, and encouraging the culinary and visual and performing arts within

the downtown.

Those large-scale events brought thousands of people through the downtown, through festivals

and concerts and festival cultural opera and movie nights.

So we're looking forward to hosting that again this upcoming summer.

Painted Pianos was back for the sixth season.

We had over 90 volunteers that were downtown on Earth Day painting those pianos for folks

to be able to enjoy throughout the downtown.

And then our holiday decorations, we were able to expand the program on its second year

by adding banners to the Mount Diablo corridor and then also additional lamppost snowflakes

throughout the south bed.

The downtown stages, there's three that are located within the downtown at the Cypress

Mini Plaza, Waterlight Public Plaza and Plaza Escuela.

We coordinated a variety of live entertainment with some of our partners to promote their

programs as well as utilize some of the space for our own events.

And then we're excited to move into completing the Big Belly art rap project that we've been

working on with public arts manager, Bedford Gallery and Public Works and Recycle Smart.

We selected artists or artwork from 36 artists and then we hope to make those installations

within this month.

So we're marketing efforts. This is just a little snapshot of our highlights

our website itself

had over

74,000 visitors and we're very proud to continue the

Success of the weekly e-newsletter for our members as well as the public

50.7 open rate percent open rate, which is hugely

It's a great improvement of versus the industry average at 30%

And that proves to be a very important benefit to help promote our businesses brands and to our over

6,000 subscribers

And just a little highlight in regards to tick-tock we added tick-tock to Walnut Creek downtown's social media platform

through the ice rink this year

and

We brought in 1.9 million views

Mostly through around the ice rink, so we are excited to be able to to grow that platform itself

Walnut Creek downtown also assisted with the production of what head west marketplace on North Main Street

And this was a pilot program that was in response to those businesses

Requesting more activity on their blocks to increase much-needed foot traffic

We're working with head west and city staff to explore

Options to bring them back for May July September and December of this year and then our annual uncorked event brought

750 visitors to the downtown

We started at Redney Plaza and guests were able to enjoy

And step into 39 businesses throughout the downtown

on that particular evening

We continue to have one of our main fundraisers as being this

providing beverage service for the summer Broadway Plaza summer concert series and

our first Wednesday event

expanded from

One event the previous year to two and we also expanded the footprint on to Locust Street

With about three to five thousand visitors attending each evening

first and then the holiday tree lighting

event continues to grow this was the second year back after a bit of a hiatus and

We enjoyed hot cocoa and visits from frosty and friends and mayor darling flipping the switch for the holiday

season and then there was Oktoberfest we moved into a

Two-day event so we were able to launch an evening Friday evening

Program and then all day on Saturday our increase our guest increase went from

12,500 to over 20,000 attendees this past year and

we were thrilled to be able to accommodate as a very long day with long weekend, but with a lot of

Many ages and a lot of smiling faces within the East Civic Park

We also featured a new community stage that had a lot of our local entertainers

being that and schools that participated on that stage and

Then the Broadway Plaza parade of lights

we were able to

offer a concession stand and also coordinated the

Zamboni from Walnut Creek on ice to help promote that event and

The 19th season of Walnut Creek on ice kicked off

for seven and a half weeks season,

three weeks longer than the previous year.

This year's Festive Experience

featured a three lane ice slide