Alright, good evening. I am Cindy Darling, the mayor of Walnut Creek, and welcome to the Tuesday, May 6th concurrent regular meetings of the Walnut Creek City Council and the Parking Authority.
The City Council is conducting this meeting from the City Council Chamber. This meeting is being video streamed and can be viewed live or later on the City's website.
As some attendees may be participating in their first Walnut Creek City Council meeting, I wanted to welcome everyone and talk briefly about the public comment process.
for each agenda item there will be an opportunity for public comment on the item. Thus if you desire
to speak on an item that's on our agenda this evening please hold your comments until the city
council gets to that agenda item. Additionally we have a section on the agenda titled public
communication which is for public comments on items that are not on the agenda. Any comments
during the public communication should not relate to an item that is on the agenda this evening.
Consistent with section 9.5 of the City Council Handbook, we will allocate 30 minutes for
public comment at the beginning of the meeting for items not on the agenda and we will have
additional time for public communication for items not on the agenda. They'll be provided at
the end of the open session portion of the meeting if necessary. If you desire to provide a public
comment, please complete a speaker identification card and line up behind the lectern at the
appropriate time. I'll call you up for the each item. Wait your turn and then
when you approach the lecture and please state your name, city of residence for
the record and you'll have two minutes to address the City Council. 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 officially 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 chamber and can be found on our website. All remarks should be
addressed to the City Council. Please do not use threatening, profane or abusive
language which disrupts, disturbs or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of
the council meeting. Again each speaker will have two minutes to make their
remarks and written comments 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.
And this is the last time I'm gonna have to read all that because it's gonna be videotaped next time so
Right now go ahead and please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance
Okay, roll call please.
City Clerk, Susie Martinez.
Council Member Davini.
Here.
Council Member Francois.
Here.
Mayor Pro Tem Wilk.
Here.
Mayor Darlene.
I am here.
And Council Member Silva is absent due to a planned vacation.
Okay, and at this time I invite Deborah Aarons,
the Executive Director of the Contra Costa Midracha
to accept a proclamation.
Just come up here and I will introduce the proclamation
then I'll meet you over there.
Since our earliest days Jewish Americans have been an important part of the American story
and have greatly contributed to all areas of American life and culture.
On April 20th, 2006, the federal government proclaimed May as Jewish American Heritage
Month stating as a nation of immigrants the United States is better and stronger because
Jewish people from all over the world have chosen to become American citizens.
And so we have many generations coming here to our country and that diversity is part
of what makes our country so strong.
In recent years, we even here at this Council have experienced acts of anti-Semitism, and
these are unconscionable and terrifying echoes of some of the worst chapters of human history.
But I choose to look at the light and the brightness and recognize that the diversity
in our community makes us all stronger.
And today we have invited Deborah to come and speak with us, and I will come over here
and present this and let you do your thing. Thank you. I bring with me tonight Seth Raphael,
who's one of our teen members of our community. Thank you so much. Thank you Mayor Darling.
Thank you to the City of Walnut Creek, to each council member, to Mayor Darling
for this proclamation honoring Jewish American Heritage Month. I am the Executive Director of
Contra Costa Midrashaw, which is a role I've held for 18 years and we're honored to be here with you.
Hey everyone I'm Seth Raphael and as mentioned I'm a member of that Contra
Costa Mittershaw program as well as a longtime resident of the city of Walnut
Creek and as some of you know a member of the Youth Commission on the Walnut
Creek City Council. Mittershaw for some references a Jewish youth program that
we've had here in Walnut Creek for as she said the last 38 years which is
crazy and I've had the privilege of being part of it for the last five years.
Thank you Seth. We are proud to have been a part of the community for 38 years
and we're grateful and proud to be part of this vibrant community. Yeah and I am
so fortunate to live in a city like Walnut Creek where I don't feel
threatened in my Jewish identity and I feel free to practice the religion that
I choose. Contra Costa Midrashah aims to create community and connection for our
teens and our team of educators and we also work to give back to our community
through our intergenerational program with senior citizens many of whom live
of Walnut Creek, including Councilman Wilkes' mother,
as part of that program, and also our service projects
and our philanthropic work throughout the community.
So for all those reasons, we wanna thank you for honoring us
and the whole Jewish community of Walnut Creek
with this proclamation.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Can you get a picture?
Can you get a picture?
Hey, Matt, can you come out and do a picture?
And, Deborah, I just wanna say thank you so much
for the involvement that you've had in all of this.
Both of my kids went through Midrashah.
One of them just got married this last weekend,
if you can believe that.
And both of our mitzvah at Temple of Aitikvah,
I was bar mitzvah cross-country,
but very proud to be able to have this proclamation,
have you be able to accept it
on behalf of the Jewish community.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, let's go up here.
Okay, great.
If everybody wants to.
Come on.
It is Asian-American and Pacific Islander heritage
month and accepting the proclamation today will be the various student
organizations from Northgate High School, including the Taiwanese Student
Association, the South Asian Student Association, and the Korean Culture Club.
Originally the Polynesian Heritage Club was hoping to be here too and
then they ended up not being able to make it because it is the crazy time of
year in high school. So Asian American Pacific Islanders have played an
essential role in our history from serving our nation,
advocating for civil rights. In 1978, they passed a resolution
through the House and Senate declaring it Asian Pacific
Heritage Week. And in 1990, they expanded it and made it full
month because there's so much to celebrate here. We offer our
thanks to everybody here for their bringing their culture to
us, and the contributions, the rich heritage of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
It's a diverse population as recognized by the number of clubs I found out at Northgate.
Many distinct ethnicities, many different dialects, many different cultures,
and some really great food. So that's all to the good. And we're trying to redouble our efforts
to be welcoming. There was a surge during COVID of anti-Asian hate and that was very unfortunate
and we hope that people can continue to learn to live together and enjoy each other's company,
enjoy each other, and see the humanity in one or the other. So I will meet you guys over here
and I will let you guys introduce yourselves and then we'll do the proclamation and we'll do a
picture. So, you're first. Here's the front. Here you go. There's your confirmation. Go ahead and introduce yourself and say what club you're in. Hi, I'm Vivianne Bothra. I'm Mira Shunker, and we're part of the South Asian Student Association on North Gate. We just want to say thank you mayor, darling, city clerk Martinez, and the other members of city council.
for this honor. This proclamation means a great deal to the South Asian Student
Association and it highlights our message to spread our culture and
recognize it along alongside our community. Your support means a lot to us
and we look forward to keep promoting cultural diversity and fostering a
supportive community both in and out of school. So thank you so much again for
recognizing us.
Hi everyone my name is Sarah Yu and I'm president of Korean Culture Club at
Northgate. Hi I'm Claire Soul I'm vice president of Korean Culture Club at
Northgate. And we're very proud to represent Korean Culture Club today. We
founded this club at the start of this school year in order to share and
celebrate the history and traditions of Korean culture.
Every meeting, we have a new topic that we focus on,
whether it be language or food or culture.
And our goal overall is just to teach people
about the richness of our culture
while we foster a educated student body on our campus.
Thank you for recognizing Asian-American Pacific Island
Month.
And thank you so much for the proclamation.
We are very grateful to be part of tonight's celebration.
Thank you.
Good evening, everyone. I'm Katie Hoang.
Oh, and I'm Penelope Chang.
We're presidents of the Taiwanese Student Union at North Gate High School,
and we like to help people connect and share our culture.
We're also partnered with the East Bay Taiwanese Association to help connect our club to the bigger Taiwanese community.
There may not be a large amount of Taiwanese students at North Gate,
but our club is open to anybody who wants to learn.
Thank you very much for this proclamation
and for recognizing our club and giving us this opportunity.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
It's a big round for everybody.
Thank you.
Come on over here.
And you can watch it on replay on Walnut Creek TV tomorrow
and share it to your Facebook, so.
And now, last but not least, it is National Police Week.
And at this time, I'd invite Walnut Creek POA President Shane
blats to accept the proclamation. In 1962 John F. Kennedy designated May 15th as
Peace Officers Memorial Day and which is in the middle of National Police Week
and there's more than 800,000 law enforcement officers serving in
communities across across the United States including the dedicated members
of Walnut Creek Police Department. Since the first recorded death in 1786 there
are currently more than 24,000 law enforcement officers in the incited
States who have made the ultimate sacrifice
and have been killed in the line of duty.
My daughter's best friend, her husband, was killed last year.
And she came to the wedding this weekend and brought the baby.
And it was hard to see somebody who was just 28 years old who
is now raising a child on her own.
But she has tremendous support from her community.
And that's all I'm going to be able to say on that.
But there is a vigil, a candlelight vigil,
memorializing this, and we just all wanted to stop
and take a chance to say thank you for all the officers
and everything that they do for our community
to help keep us safe.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Kind of beat me to my punch.
So I just have a short little speech here.
Thank you for the proclamation.
So National Police Week is a time for our country
to recognize in solitude and the ultimate sacrifice
sworn law enforcement officers have have made for its fellow citizens. This year
in our nation's capital 232 men and women who have sacrificed their lives
will be honored for National Police Week and have their names etched into the
law enforcement memorial. I want to take a moment to recognize a couple of
Wanna Creek natives who have recently tragically killed in the line of duty
Tobin Bolter and Andrew Duarte both men grew up in our city and graduated from
Berrien Christian High School. Deputy Bolter and Officer Duarte were both young
men into their careers in the early phases of their adult lives. They leave
behind loved ones, friends, and futures only one could imagine. They like all of
us, chose this profession to be public servants knowing the risk could cost
their lives. I'd like to take a moment to silence remembrance of their service
and sacrifice. Thank you. Okay now I'm gonna suck all the tears back in and
keep going. So it's all good. Next on the agenda is the consent calendar. Does any
council member wish to pull any item for discussion or any staff member wish to
pull an item for discussion? Mayor Pro Tem? Yes I wanted to pull item 2E to
F to I and then to Jay to Jay okay does anybody in the audience wish to make a
comment on items to a B C D G H seeing none is there a motion move to approve
consent calendar items 2a through d g and h. Second. We'll call please. Councilmember
Francois? Aye. Councilmember Devaney? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Wilk? Aye. Mayor Darling? Aye.
All right now we'll go to 2e. Okay 2e this is regarding the Master Consultant
Services Agreement and I just really wanted to ask if it's a city manager or
or Director of Public Works a little bit more about
what the need for the eight consulting firms services
over the next five years,
and just a little more detail on that.
Yeah, let's have our Public Works Director,
Rich Payne, come on up.
Good evening.
Rich Payne, Public Works Director.
In terms of the Master consultant agreements,
We have eight consultants part of this agreement to create
flexibility as we're going out for engineering services.
One of these companies might be busy.
It gives us flexibility and enables
us to have multiple engineers, consultants on site to help us
with a variety of different projects.
And what was your other question?
Sorry.
No, it was really just understanding
a little bit more in detail.
And I think you provided that, but it was.
So at $300,000, this is for each,
but this is over the entire amount of five years.
And is it up to $300,000 each?
So up to $300,000, a total of two, if you do the math,
8 times 3 is 2.4.
Now, just to clarify, this funding is usually associated with a project.
So if you have a project that you need consultant services, that would be included.
And depending on the amount, if it reaches those limits that it would need to come back
to counsel at that point, you would be able to approve the total amount of the project,
including those consultant services in many cases.
Okay, and is this because, is this, have we done this in the past then over the course
of the last five years?
So in the last probably couple years, we've changed it a little bit in that a lot of these
consultant services agreements have been on the books for quite a long time.
Because of some changes in our procurement policies, things that better align with that
procurement policy. We've been trying to meet those commitments that we've made in that
procurement policy, and some of those restrictions are outlined in this new way of contracting
out consultant services.
Great. Thanks, Rich.
Okay.
Any other questions? I'll make a move to then approve item 2E.
there's any public comment? Nope okay go ahead. Second. A roll call please. Mayor Pro Tem
Welk? Aye. Councilmember Davini? Aye. Councilmember Francois? Aye. Mayor Darling? Aye. Thank you guys.
2F. 2F all right on continuing on the revenue front. So maybe the most misunderstood
questions that I get on a consistent basis have to do with police citation or traffic citations,
not not moving vehicle but parking citations specifically and because
Walnut Creek is rich why we could be making so much money or we're making too
much money so my questions a little bit more is what does the city see when it
comes as a citation revenue chief and where does it go I was already to talk
about traffic sites too we can talk about parking sites so good evening
Madam Mayor, members of the City Council, Jamie Knox, Chief of Police.
So we write about 45,000 parking citations annually, give or take.
And essentially what comes back to the city is about $32 on average.
And it just depends on whether there's a partial payment, if a refund is given, there's, you
know, various processing fees that apply that should be listed in the report.
occasionally we have well more than more than occasionally if people contest the
citation there's a process for that as well. Does that money go in the general
fund or is it going? It there is so the parking fund is considered an enterprise
market that goes back to that fund and it does fund various positions to
support the overall parking program. So 45,000 tickets parking citations and we
you got about $32 per.
That, yes, that's about it.
Okay.
I thought you were gonna make me have to do math in my head.
No, that's all right, I won't have the,
I got my calculators for that myself.
Those are my questions.
Mayor, if I could just to add brief,
I just want to clarify since we're talking about parking
and you mentioned money and generation,
the city charges for parking not to make money,
but to manage parking in order to make it more available
by influencing behavior about how long people park
in certain areas, where they park,
whether it's the green meters that are more
in the core downtown, the purple meters
that are a little bit extended, or in the parking garages.
That's the purpose of charging for parking,
then obviously there's the enforcement arm
in order to effectuate it.
Otherwise, obviously it may not be complied with.
Oh, and not a question, but it was something
I was gonna bring up later during our finance,
But to that point, I think we only wind up
with a surplus of a few hundred thousand each year
despite the millions of dollars in parking revenue
that comes in because we support infrastructure projects
like our parking garages, staff, other items.
So again, to the point I don't think
that we're charging people parking tickets
as just trying to get more money from the residents.
It goes all, it goes back into the fund
that maintains our parking infrastructure.
Yes, that's correct.
Our population more than doubles in size during most days,
especially Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.
You see a lot of influx of people.
Everybody wants to be able to park in a convenient location,
that there's a lot of logistics behind that,
and the idea is to make it equitable
for anybody who wanted to visit Walnut Creek
to be able to pay something that was affordable
to have a convenient parking spot.
All right, anybody wanna comment upon parking tickets?
Because you love them so much, so go ahead.
I'll make a motion to approve item 2F.
Second.
All right, roll call, please.
Mayor Pro Tem, well?
Aye.
Council Member Davini?
Aye.
Council Member Francois?
Aye.
Mayor Darling?
Aye.
All right, 2I.
Just working down the list here.
Okay, this is really no questions,
I just wanted to really express thanks
to the Art and Rec department
completing the Boundary Oak Golf Course driving range.
If anybody had used it before,
you would have noticed that it needed some improvements.
The improvements have been done.
They look great.
I was actually down there this last week.
It's grass.
There are advanced in computer and technology
of ball trackers and you can play different courses.
It looks terrific.
So I really wanted to give a pat on the back
the city for being able to complete that. I did have one quick question, actually, and
that is, previously there was an overhang over about a dozen or so different – different
driving range teas, and there aren't any overhangs now. Is that going to be something
that we're going to look at in the future?
Short answer is yes. We're looking at various options, some that may be more temporary in
nature and some that would be longer term.
Great. Thanks. Protect against skin cancer. Move to approve.
Okay, anybody public comment? Seeing none. Second. Roll call please. Mayor Pro Tem Wilk. Aye. Council
member Francois. Aye. Council member Davini. Aye. Mayor Darling. Aye. And the last one is
the proclamation of May 2025 is Mental Health Awareness Month. And I just wanted to really
recognize this. I have, my brother suffered from a mental health illness and I know that several of
of us have had family members that have as well,
members of the community.
And so there were a lot of proclamations tonight.
I just wanted to make sure that this had the recognition
that we are recognizing this with the proclamation.
I wanted to thank the mayor for being able to include this
and very proud that Walnut Creek recognizes this annually.
Yes, it's an important issue,
especially in this day and age.
So move to approve.
Second.
Mayor Pro Tem Wilk.
Aye.
Mayor Darling.
Aye.
Councilmember Francois. All right so we have made it through the consent calendar
and now we are at public communication. This portion of the meeting is reserved
for comment on items not on the agenda. Under the Brown Act the council cannot
act on items raised during public communications but may respond briefly
to statements made or questions posed. 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 communications for items not
on the agenda. Additional time for public communication for items not on the
agenda will be provided at the end of the meeting as necessary. So please step
forward if you wish to provide public comment, complete a speaker card. Cards
are available on the counter near the entrance. Once at the podium introduce
yourself, your city of residence for the record and consistent with city policies
related to public comments. Each speaker will have two minutes to make your
remarks, and we will start now at 6.30 and go till no later than 7. So please step forward.
Thank you Mayor and Council members and city staff. My name is Mary Holder Negley. I'm a
resident of Walnut Creek on Naranha Drive, just down the street from Foothill Middle School.
I'm concerned, and I'm sure you've heard this concern before, I'm going to reiterate it on
behalf of my neighbors. I'm concerned about the sloppy, speedy, and at times dangerous driving
habits of young people on e-bikes and scooters, not only down our street but throughout Walnut Creek.
When we moved into this neighborhood of Walnut Creek, we've been residents for almost 30 years,
but we moved to this street a year ago. I was aware we were on a major approach to a middle school
and I absolutely love the fact that kids are riding their bikes to school. That is not the issue.
But what is alarming to me now is the way that they are driving motorized vehicles,
e-bikes and scooters way too fast, not following rules of the road, in particular riding on the
wrong side of the street and sometimes without helmets. But the situation has expanded, I believe,
beyond our school zone. Just last week in downtown Walnut Creek, I saw three kids
zooming through and almost mowing down a pedestrian on a crosswalk. I've been riding
a bicycle in this area for almost 30 years and I know the adult biking community has been working
hard to maintain good behavior on trails, streets, and in the open spaces. Bicyclists are required
to follow rules of the road common to automobiles, but middle schoolers have
not taken driver's training, not passed a written test, and it is showing. Before
someone gets hit and injured, is there any way the city could sponsor an
educational campaign for e-bike users pitched to kids under the age of 16? I
know Foothill has some sort of bike safety program. We need to do that more
after Christmas when kids get their bikes. Thank you thank you so much we do
have programs going on but I like you I think many of us have noticed an uptick
in the kids so thank you. Hello my name is Barbara Guinness I've been a
resident of Walnut Creek since 1996. In the December 2024 and April 2025 pros
meeting the city staff outlined plans to convert a very narrow single track
trail in that's called the Lime Ridge Quarry social trail to an official multi-use trail.
Staff's plans include allowing all users, widening the trail, adding two staircases,
adding safety barriers, adding stepping stones, placing the bike trail right next to a pedestrian
trail, and the city staff says this will occur without new construction. This quarry trail is
very narrow, primarily 20 to 24 inches wide, filled with native plants, very near sightings
of whip snakes, horned lizards, king snakes, jack rabbits, and according to the city and
municipal codes, bikes are only supposed to be on eight foot wide trails. The Lime Ridge
master plan states approximately 97% of the land shall be an open space preserve for Lime
And the master plan goals are to retain, protect, and rehabilitate the natural environment.
And the recreational value is supposed to be for passive uses such as hiking, horseback
riding, picnicking, and history in nature study.
The quarry should be treated, and this is according to the master plan, should be treated
as a nature preserve as it has lots of different native plants.
So how does converting the Lime Ridge Quarry Trail from an official trail unofficial trail
to an official trail meet the policy standards of the Lime Ridge Master Plan?
And how does it meet the municipal code stating bikes are only permitted on 8 foot wide trails?
The Lime Ridge open space is a nature preserve.
City staff cannot overrule the policies included in the Lime Ridge Master Plan.
And they cannot ignore the municipal codes.
Thank you for all you do for the city.
Next.
Good evening, City Council and Mayor Darling.
My name is Renee Zimer.
I live in Moraga.
I am a former employee of the city of Walnut Creek.
I was the Youth and Family Services Coordinator.
And I am also a former board member
of Contra Costa Midrashaw.
So I was really excited to hear that you were giving
proclamation in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month and in that spirit I
would just like to call to your intention an educational venture that
occurred between a 19 1912 and a 1932 between a Jewish businessman Julius
Rosenwald, and Booker T. Washington, a notable African American educator, together they constructed
and operated a network of more than 5,000 what came to be known as Rosenwald schools
in the south.
And they began to educate young African American children, improving the learning environments
incredible learning outcomes. Some of the notables that are graduates of the
Rosenwald schools are Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes,
John Lewis, and many many more. Education is foundational to Jewish Americans and
and in that spirit I wanted to come and share this and I would be remiss if I
didn't mention that there is a special election going on today to improve the
learning environments of our schools. Measure T, the Akalani's Union High
School District parcel tax measure. You have a few more hours to mail in your
ballot and and please support our schools. Thank you. Thank you, Renee.
Good evening members of the City Council. My name is Dr. Jane Wong and I live in
Walnut Creek. I am a prosthodontist at the Dental Implant Center at Walnut Creek
and we are in the brick building on the intersection of Civic Drive in Ignacio
Valley Road. Our building association donates our parking lot for the city to
use during awesome city events like Oktoberfest. We are an office of three
specialists with a support team of seven. Our founding doctor Dr. Scott Keith has
served the Walnut Creek community for over 25 years. Dr. Quincy Gibbs has
served the community for eight years and I have been in the community for one
year. This year marks our 25th anniversary and we are celebrating with
an open house. We would like to invite the members of this city council to stop
by. The open house will be on Thursday May 29th from 5 to 7 p.m. Our SVPs will
be appreciated if you are able to attend. I will leave the flyer and our cards
with the clerk. Thank you for your time and we look forward to seeing you. Thank
Thank you.
And welcome to Walnut Creek.
Thank you.
Sounds like you made your first year here.
So thank you.
Good evening, Mayor Darlene.
So to council members, I'm Kathy Hemingway, the executive director with your Walnut Creek
Downtown Association.
I wanted to just share a couple of updates from our organization since I was last here
in March.
We have a new board of director leadership.
So we have recently elected President Tracy Deetline from Broadway Plaza, Vice President
Jennifer Perry from the Ballet School of Performing Arts, Rola Gabin as Secretary, who is owner
of LEEDA, Broderick and World Famous Hot Boys, Treasurer Gary Skrull from SOMAS, and
past President Brian Hirahara from BH Development.
So those are our board leadership, our leaders at this time.
So Walnut Creek Downtown launched a new website about two weeks ago.
So we'd love for everyone to visit the site at walnutcreekdowntown.com.
It features new improved merchant directories with content that can be uploaded directly
from our downtown businesses, interactive maps, event calendars and curated visitor
itineraries to the downtown.
So we're excited for that improved site to be live.
On April 20th, we launched the Painted Piano Program, so we have seven pianos that are
dotted throughout the downtown.
We had over 50 volunteers that came to paint the pianos, and one of the pianos was painted
by the residents at the Kensington retirement community.
So they spent the day painting the piano, and then we delivered it to the Kaiser Walnut
Creek campus.
So they're enjoying that over on Newell.
And a list of the piano locations is also available on our website.
And we're grateful to the sponsors that made that program possible for its fifth season.
And the pianos will be out through October.
Next week we launched the Locust Street Festival, so formerly known as the first Wednesday.
And we have 70 booths on May 14th.
And then each of the proceeding events will take place through August.
So we're excited to bring a big party to the downtown on Locust Street.
And then lastly, I'll end with some good news about new businesses that have joined the
downtown business community.
Mr. Dewey's Cashew Ice Cream, Sweet Maple, Poppy Bank, Viore, High Line Jewelry across
the street just opened four days ago and JP Morgan so thank you thank you
thanks I look forward to the first first Wednesdays whatever they're called now
be fun your darling members of the council Bob Lynch I for the Chamber of
Commerce and Visitor Bureau sorry about the gravel girdy voice here tonight I
come here for two reasons number one is to acknowledge that the graduating class
of leadership Contra Costa that met in this building on May 1st the topic of
housing and transportation. Mayor Darling was part of our panel on housing and I
want to acknowledge Manar Boardman who was one of the day chairs that the
group toured the transit center on the second floor. Felt like they could
control the the traffic, which is an interesting thought.
The Housing and Transportation Day is probably the most sought-after
day as far as our class members are concerned, and I just
wanted to mention that the City Clerk passed out the
yearbook for today's group. It also lists the alumni, which is best we could estimate there may be 60 to 70
city staffers that have gone through the program in a period of time, and that's probably underestimating.
So I just want to thank the city for
allowing us to have the session up on the third floor.
Last thing I want to mention is the Art & Wine Festival, which also have a little flyer.
Also want to thank the city for
not only police engagement, but also traffic engineers on how to get people in and out of downtown during this session.
the weekend of May 31st and June 1st,
and we're very excited about moving it.
We loved Heather Farm, but we think this is gonna be
a great boon for our businesses downtown.
So, thanks again.
Thank you very much.
I really enjoyed coming in and talking about housing,
and it was, sometimes it seems like a topic
that could be just as dry as toast,
but the people in the leadership program
really paid attention, asked good questions,
and seem like they really understood
what we were talking about
in all the different convoluted glory
that is housing in California.
So thank you for doing that.
And that brings us to the end of public comment.
So now, next on the agenda is council member
and staff announcement,
reports on activities or requests.
Is city attorney, is there anything
to report out from closed session?
Madam Mayor, the council did meet this evening
for real property negotiations
and did provide direction to your real property negotiators.
That's the only report of election.
Thank you, city manager.
Yeah, good evening, Dan Buckshi, city manager.
Just one update this evening,
a reminder and a call out to folks
who may be interested in serving
on one of the city's advisory commissions.
The deadline is a week from yesterday, so May 12th.
We have openings on our planning commission,
design review commission,
building appeals board and library commissions.
So anyone who wants to get more involved in the community
and help serve the city and their fellow residents,
go to walnutcreekca.gov and apply soon.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Council Member Francois.
Okay, I thought you might go this direction.
I'm Mike.
Thank you, Mayor.
So last time we met was a few weeks ago.
I know we had a retreat between then,
So I have a few items to report on.
Let's see, going back to what was I think the weekend
we celebrated Earth Day here in Walnut Creek.
I participated along with the mayor
in the community cleanup crew,
a great organization led by Karen Mariner
on a bunch of well-meaning big hearted community volunteers.
Thanks to our city staff for partnering with them.
I led a crew that worked from the BART station
around Target to downtown.
and I know the mayor had another crew that she was on,
and great to see a great turnout,
Kathy Hemingway from Walnut Creek downtown joined me,
and we also had some young people
from a group called Pledge for Humanity,
which I had not heard of before,
but it was nice to see other opportunities for youth,
volunteerism, and joining us and making the Walnut,
making downtown look even better than it already does.
Then, along with Council Member Silva,
I serve on the City Council Housing
and Community Development Committee.
We met on April 21st.
We had two items on our agenda.
The first was to make recommendations to this body
on expenditures of affordable housing funds,
and we selected, we made recommendations for selection
of two applicants, Habitat for Humanity and RCD,
the Civic Crossing Project here at Ignacio and Civic,
an all affordable project,
and the Habitat for Humanity Project
is something along 40 or 50 units
near the Pleasant Hill Barts Station.
So that'll be coming to the council
for a future action item.
And then we also were provided an update
on the one Bay Area grant transportation funding,
which our city relies on to the tune of millions of dollars
each budget and funding cycle.
And the rules have changed a bit
and become a little more strict
that they want to see certain density numbers
reached or within a half mile radius of the BART stations
in order to be eligible for these grant funds.
So it's not so much an issue with our Walnut Creek station
because we meet those density numbers,
but we don't meet them necessarily
for the Pleasant Hill Bart station,
which includes a swath of Walnut Creek
and some of it's under an interchange
and there's a lot of low density residential in that area.
So we're working through that in addition to our staff,
as I should say, in addition to some of these
affordable housing production and preservation policies,
because you have to show not only that you meet
the density numbers, but that you have programs in place
your housing element to meet some of these other policies.
So that's still a work in progress and I know Councilmember Silva is working hard in
talking to the folks that she knows at MTC and elsewhere to try to get greater clarity
on the density numbers so that we can be competitive and not lose out on these very significant
transportation funds.
the pleasure of meeting with the Youth Leadership Commission.
I think that was also on April 17th.
Always impressed.
Just a great group of young people
that several of them have served for more than one year now,
and some are at the beginning of their service.
And a few of them are siblings of I remember that last name.
And so it's good to get updates on their siblings,
but also to hear kind of their impressive stories,
including a lot of the seniors who are going
to really great schools and have bright futures.
So I'm proud of their service to our community
and enjoyed visiting with them.
Along with all of you,
I attended the State of the Chamber Conference.
That was right after our last council meeting,
I think on April 16th.
And it was nice to hear from Caitlin Sly,
who's the incoming chair of the chamber,
and also the president and CEO of the Contra Costa Food Bank.
And so I pledged to her that we would all roll up our sleeves
and do some volunteer work for her.
So we'll have to get a date on the calendar
to put some food packets together.
And I also serve on the Recycle Smart Board,
as I've reported on before.
I'm on an ad hoc committee that we're
meeting to make recommendations to the full board on the selection of our next collection contract.
We received two proposals. They're from providers that currently provide services to us, so they're
not new names, Republic Services and MDR, but we went through a competitive process and we thought
that was important given the increased costs that we've seen. We have seen have some issues
with service, not so much in Walnut Creek, but in Arinda, Lafayette, some of the hillier harder
areas for the big garbage trucks to service on a regular basis. So we're going through that
process now and I think we're close to finalizing a recommendation that'll go before the full board
in July. And then this last Saturday I had the pleasure of attending, am I going to get cut off
off pretty soon. No, you're fine. Okay. The Lindsay Wildlife Experience's 70th
anniversary, as many of you know their home is here in Walnut Creek over in the
Larky Park area. Used to live, my wife and I lived a few blocks away from there
and when the kids were little and we were there almost on a weekly basis. It's
just such a great community asset. I also saw Kathy Hemingway there who's on
board so we were spending a lot of time together over the last few weeks and got
to get to meet her but I got to see Atsa the bald eagle who's just a remarkable
bird creature that they have on display at the Lindsay and some really cute
guinea pigs and visit with Karen de Shays and just tell them how how proud
we were of having the Lindsay in our city what an asset they provide to our
residents especially if there's injured animals, childhood education, just a great
feel-good event. I saw a lot of families and young children. Supervisor Carlson
was there as well and I was able to point out that that building that the
Lindsay's in is actually a city building so we view this as very much a
partnership. The city has entered into a long-term lease with Lindsay and we want
to see them succeed and are just proud and happy to have them here. And then
And finally, I would just like to wish the mayor
and all the mothers in the audience here and out there
a very happy Mother's Day this weekend.
Thank you for all you do to make our worlds a better place.
That's my report.
Thank you.
Council member Definney.
Yeah, so it's been a few weeks since our last meeting.
So a few things have happened during that time.
I also attended or we all did the state of the chamber
and that was a very nice event.
I think council member Francois has already spoken to that.
But there was the Challenger baseball event,
which was an opportunity to spend time with kids
with disabilities that are playing baseball
through the Little League program.
And it was a regional event that's been hosted here
in Walnut Creek for the last 15 years.
So it was really great to participate in that
and see all the hard work that's going on
to put that program together.
So a very, very, very cool program.
We had the Author's Gala over the weekend
and that was an opportunity to support
the Walnut Creek Library Foundation.
It's a very nice event held in the library.
So if you haven't attended that, it's open to the public.
So obviously, maybe purchase tickets for next year.
had two events with the Walnut Creek Police Department.
They had the walkout ceremony for Captain Brown,
who just retired.
And that was very touching to see everyone out there
on the front steps clapping for him and shaking hands.
And some nice words were spoken
and I was honored to be a part of that.
And then also attending the Walnut Creek Police Department
honors and awards ceremony that was in the Lesher
just a few days ago, also very nice event.
It was nice to see folks there with their families
and Chief Knox had some very nice personal touches
that he added to everybody's awards.
And so I was honored to be there for that event.
So it was very nice.
Finally, the city leaders summit,
liaison to League of Cities and they had a three-day event up in Sacramento that
I attended with Mayor Pro Tem Wilk and Mayor Darling. That was a really cool
event. We had an opportunity to advocate. We spent today going to our local
assembly member and advocating for some positions that the city is supporting.
and then there were some educational material, educational talks. One of the
ones that I thought was very interesting was he started off the lecture
saying you know there's this this elementary school that was found on a
toxic waste dump and they discovered it because there was like black ooze
bubbling up through the dirt and then there was and he said you know but that
raised the cancer rates in some of these kids and then he compared that to what
like to be socially isolated in the increased morbidity and mortality associated with social
isolation. And he said, so if I had my choice between, you know, putting my kids in a place
that was socially isolated versus sending them to school on a toxic waste dump, he's like,
I picked the toxic waste dump. But the point was how to plan a city and how to look at opportunities
to promote social connectivity through planning. And we will be updating our general plan. So it
So it'll be interesting to look at how we can promote social connectivity in the city
during that process.
You're on.
I'm on, all right.
Well, over the last few weeks, we did have a finance committee meeting.
I'm not going to go into that very much because we were going to be doing that all the rest
of the meeting tonight on the budget.
As the liaison representative to County Connection, did have some good news to report that the
federal grant approval for the hydrogen fuel cell station infrastructure is going through,
which is great news, buses will not be manufactured
until at least 2028, not as great news
because the two bus manufacturers in the country
are not currently going to be manufacturing
any zero emission buses due to uncertainty
about what will be approved in the federal administration.
Put it that way.
Today is transit day though in the Bay Area nationwide.
In fact, I have my sticker on.
County Connection was a participant
in the regional press conference today
at the Ferry Building in San Francisco
with all the major transit agencies.
And as the chair for County Connection,
we announced its Youth Ride program
that'll be running for two summer months in June and July,
June 1st through July 31st.
Marketing staff has developed a marketing
and outreach program that'll begin immediately.
We should all be seeing this for any families out there
or parents with kids that are under 18.
This initial pilot would not require youth
to show identification or a pass,
which we believe have been a deterrent
for youth to use transit.
This is really a great way to start getting people,
kids using the buses more.
So, we're going to be seeing this a lot
throughout the media in the next couple of days
because we want people to get out of their cars.
We have the mayor and the chair,
Mayor Pro Tem Chair Quarterly Meeting
with all of our commissioners a couple of weeks ago
that it's always great to be able to share that kind of information and as we
heard the city manager talk about some of the vacancies in the commissions
please do apply we want residents to really be involved in the city
it's that great sharing that makes Walnut Creek the great city that it is.
As council member Davini mentioned we were able to attend the Cal Cities
Leadership Conference in Sacramento. I wanted to give just a little bit more
details when we have these meetings with advocacy meetings with our state
Assembly members and state senators, we're talking about the issues that are
of most importance to the city, the citizens in Walnut Creek. All of our
residents, this includes disaster prevention, insurance, housing, and
homelessness. So these are the things that we know are really impacting our
cities and this is what we're having these really fruitful discussions about
over those couple of days. So when we're out at these conferences, this is not
something where we're just out there chatting and greeting and having
or that is not the case. We are truly working to share in collaborative efforts with our
regional cities and elected officials from across the state. I was honored to emcee the
author's gala. This is huge because it's the biggest library fundraiser of the year. If
you love your libraries and you want to see more e-books and you want to see more utilization
in our libraries, both the downtown one and the Ignacio Valley one, then by all means
support your libraries and I know several of us here have
are hoping and hoping in the future to be able to have even Sundays available in the libraries
and they're actually the pilot program going on in the county right now so please do support your
libraries and all of that I mentioned is really important and yet it takes a backseat to the most
important thing for me over the last few weeks was that my son got married over the weekend so
I'll leave it at that. Mazel tov.
Yes, those things.
So everybody, it's been a busy couple of weeks.
So people have hit most of the other things.
A couple of things that have not gotten hit.
Sister cities, we had the youth contingent
from Sea of Oak and Naceto here.
And we got to meet them here in city council.
Then we let them wander around the city
and take pictures and enjoy themselves.
It's always fun to, yeah, I practice my Hungarian
And I'm really bad at it.
As I told Bob Lynch, I really enjoyed
talking to the leadership Contra Costa.
And if anybody is interested in learning more
about how your community works, I strongly recommend
you sign up for that program.
It gives you, you go all over the place.
You look at courts, you look at water,
you look at wastewater, you look at cities,
and this and that.
And you can learn so much about your community from that.
Art and wine, you can go and drink there,
but you can also go and work there.
And I think the last time I looked at the sign up genius,
they're still looking for volunteers on Sunday
to help sell tickets.
And a couple of us are already signed up.
I think most of us are already signed up for a ship there,
but it's a good chance to help out.
And then MCE, I said on MCE,
which used to be we're in clean energy now,
we just call it MCE.
And some interesting things going on there
with this federal funding, now you see it, now you don't.
It does sound like we are going to get the federal funding
that was to go towards battery storage projects.
The program is looking at trying to get
one battery storage project in each of the counties
where they serve people.
And I think I need to get the info
and get that over to the city manager
because I think there's opportunities here in Walnut Creek
to include battery storage in some of our projects,
including the new community center.
The other big items that MCE is working on,
it is cheaper to buy power from MCE than it is to buy it from PG&E.
But PG&E has this little surcharge they get to put onto a community choice aggregate power,
and that is controlled by the California Public Utilities Commission.
we have been working to get it updated. This is the 15th anniversary of MCE and
that charge was to help PG&E with contracts that they had signed before
the customers left them but it's been 15 years. I know they miss us but we're not
going back so we're working on that trying to get that and that will
actually make the recycle or the renewable energy that comes from MCE
cheaper than PG&E across the board. The other thing that is going on, and this
has been a subjective discussion for a while, is California right now operates
its energy market through KISO, which is the California
Independent System Operator. We don't have good connections to the other states
that are around us. There is some ability to sell back and forth, but it's pretty
restricted other energy markets in the US including the Southwest Power Pool are
trying to pull other Western states into them which would make it even harder
for us to buy power or sell power out of state. So we are working through the
legislative processes here on something called the pathways initiative that
would broaden the energy market for California to include the Western
states around us, ultimately northern Baja and the two Canadian provinces along the Pacific
Ocean could be involved in this, but we're not going international right now, we're just
trying to get the western states hooked together.
And it offers a lot of opportunity for us.
Right now, this time of year, since we're not using a lot of power for air conditioning,
there is enough power to supply California's demand at 110% of the current demand just
from solar in California.
There's no place to send it.
If we could interconnect with some of the other Western states, they have power needs
this time of year, and it would help our projects become, they lose a lot of money when they're
generating power and nobody can use it.
So we're working on the Pathways Initiative.
There's a piece of legislation going through and a lot of discussions and trying to work
that one out.
And that is it for here.
And now the next item is a consideration item.
It is the FY26, FY27 proposed budget overview
and we will have a staff member.
Come on down, Wendy, provide the presentation.
All right, hold on, I have to adjust because I'm short.
Good evening, Mayor Darling, Mayor Pro Tem Wilk
and members of the council, I'm Wendy Azzavito,
Budget and Procurement Manager for the city.
And today I'm gonna be giving you an overview
of the FY26 and 27 budget.
We also have Kirsten Lacasse here,
administrative services director as well as other staff to help answer any questions that you may have
So today's discussion is a high-level first glance at the FY 26 and 27 budget
I'm going to start with some background and a timeline and then we're going to go into the general fund overview
Which will include budget balancing strategies and potential
proposed budget balancing actions
Then we'll look at some other funds which include measure
O, the parking fund and the boundary oak fund and then we'll talk about reserves.
So the action that's requested tonight is that you provide input and feedback regarding
the development of the balanced budget for FY26 and 27.
All right.
So on this slide is a snapshot of the FY26 and 27 budget development calendar.
This process actually started back in December.
And we've been working as staff for the last several months to put together a draft proposed
budget for you all on
On April 16th, we took the proposed budget to finance committee and today is council's first look
We'll be returning to finance committee on May 15th to incorporate any any
Feedback from you all as well as the master fee schedule and then in June will be coming twice to council
With final adoption scheduled for June 17th
So for a little bit of background
And I'm going to start off with a brief overview of city funds and departments to help contextualize
how the city's funds are structured as well as how these funds are used.
On this slide is the main types of funds that are held by the city and some examples of
each.
The general fund is the city's main operating fund.
Revenue from Measure O, while considered part of that general funds category, is held separately
in the Measure O fund.
We also have enterprise funds.
these operate similar to a business and they include downtown parking and
enhancement and the boundary of golf course fund and these are self
sustaining funds. Special revenue funds are self or are restricted or committed
to a specific purpose and an example that we'll talk about later is the
general plan update fund which collects fees from development projects to be
used for updating the city's general plan. We also have internal service funds
such as the I T fund and vehicle equipment and replacement fund and these charge out
to other city funds on a cost reimbursement basis for providing those services.
Capital investment program expenditures which include infrastructure related work are held
in the capital fund. You're going to hear a lot more about that in the next item.
The city has seven operating departments which each fulfill different roles in the city,
sometimes overlapping. And some departments like ASD or administrative services which
I'm a part of, and human resources provide primarily internal services while others provide
primarily external services to the community.
So administrative services provides fiscal control over the city's financial activities,
assist departments in preparation and implementation of the budget, and houses the city's IT division.
Arts and Recreation, which includes aquatics, Center for Community Arts, and Walnut Creek
Recreation.
to give you a little bit of, like, sense of scale for the services that the city provides.
They hosted over 23,000 participants and held 430 classes in the last fiscal year.
Lesher Center for the Arts and Center Rep is also part of Arts and Recreation, and Lesher
sold over 114,000 tickets last year.
There's also the Bedford Gallery in Public Art and a Boundary Oak Golf Course, which
which we talked about a little bit earlier,
who had 69,000 paid golf rounds.
In community development department,
there's housing development services,
which includes building and planning,
as well as code enforcement.
And so some stats for them,
they processed over 7,000 permit applications
and issued those permits,
and conducted over 16,000 inspections last year.
General government is the administrative hub
for city operations and overseas activities
of the different departments and also helps implement
the policies that are set by the council.
So that includes the city manager's office,
city clerk and city attorney's office,
communications and outreach, economic development,
risk and emergency management and sustainability.
And you'll recognize a lot of those
from our council priorities.
Other, so the human resources, so recruits and administrates
to the city's 386 full-time employees
and roughly 400 seasonal and hourly employees.
There's also the police department,
which has an administrative side
which includes investigation, support services
like records, property and evidence,
and the operations side which includes patrol, traffic,
and special operations like SWAT and the bomb squad.
Just like a fraction of what they do,
they responded to over 38,000 calls for service
and 96,000 dispatch calls for service last year.
Public Works, another city department,
provides a variety of services
including engineering, parks, and open space,
and operating the clean water program,
and maintaining the city's infrastructure and facilities,
which includes 69 buildings, 22 parks,
over 2,700 acres of open space,
and 218 centerline miles of streets.
So all that is to say that when we're putting together
a budget, which is a two year spending plan
which allocates resources and programs,
two programs and services and projects,
that is what this money is intended to support.
And for our listeners, if there are,
just a couple quick terms.
So when we talk about appropriation,
that is the official permission that's given
by the city council to spend money on specific things.
And it's important to note that only the city council
can appropriate funds.
We'll also be talking about different funds
and you'll hear me refer to fund balance,
which is that leftover money
after all of the expenses have been paid.
And that's a little bit different than reserves,
which are really held separately
for purposes like financial emergencies
or maintaining facilities.
So when we're putting together the budget,
staff used the city council's adopted budget goals,
adopted budget policies, and the council priorities
to help guide budget development.
So accordingly, the budget aims
to further the city's mission, vision, and values
to establish a financial plan for the next two years
and to strike that balance
between maintaining fiscal health
and continuing to provide programs and services
to the city's many customers.
City Council's budget policies, as adopted,
provide for the following guidance,
that the city's budget shall be balanced,
that again, mission, vision, and values
guides our budget development process,
that budget balancing strategies should address
both short and long-term gaps.
That one-time funding should be used
for one-time expenditures,
that we fully fund our reserves,
and that the city consider judicious use of debt
for funding one-time capital projects.
Earlier this year, the council adopted their FY26 and 27
council priorities and staff also considered these
when adopting the budget.
They include economic development and downtown vitality,
environmental sustainability and climate action,
the general plan update, park and recreation facilities,
and public safety and social wellness.
To at the very start of developing the process,
we go through a long process to develop the budget.
And when we start, we first create what's called a baseline.
To get there, we take the operations and maintenance budget
for the departments in FY 25,
which is the year we're in right now.
We then add expected or known increases,
things like insurance, utilities,
and other unavoidable costs.
And then we add personnel and CalPERS costs
based on our latest labor agreements,
as well as CalPERS funding requirements.
And then we update revenues based on information
provided from our city's consultants
as well as by the departments.
And those things together get us to that baseline budget.
So that was already a lot.
I just wanna say I'm gonna be stopping for questions
throughout this presentation.
So if you have any now on what I've shown so far,
I'm happy to take them before we jump into the actual budget overview.
Any questions?
Okay.
You're not losing them yet, Renee.
That's good.
Okay.
It also gives me an opportunity to take a few sips of water if you have a question.
So now jumping into the general fund budget.
So when we developed the budget, we've considered recent local, state, and federal and global
economic trends, including slowed economic growth and some of the reduced consumer spending.
I also want to acknowledge there is considerable uncertainty around changing federal policies,
recently implemented tariffs and market reactions to these.
Staff is continuing to monitor for those impacts, and this budget is prepared using the information
that we have today.
So as you can see on this slide, the baseline revenue and expenditures shown here would
result in a projected deficit in both fiscal year 26 and 27. And this is primarily driven
by slower revenue growth and increases in costs, which we'll go into detail on these
later in the presentation. Additionally, during the budget development process, staff also
identified potential budget augmentations that were recommending of 520,000 in fiscal
year 26 and 650,000 in fiscal year 27. These augmentations or additions to the budget are
proposed to support council and department priorities and help maintain existing service
levels and we'll also discuss those in more detail.
So in total, the projected ongoing deficit in fiscal year 26 is before any budget balancing
actions are taken and before one-time costs are added and without contributions to reserves
would be 4.97 million in fiscal year 26 and 6.33 million in fiscal year 27.
So we talked about that kind of before we take any of these budget balancing actions.
The numbers that you see now kind of going forward as we talk about revenues and expenditures
are going to be the numbers that we're proposing at the end of the day after accounting for
all of the proposed budget balancing actions and changes that are included in this budget.
So on the revenue side, general fund revenues are currently projected in fiscal year 25
as of the second quarter budget update to be 102.58 million.
In fiscal year 26 and 27, staff has projected modest revenue increases of 4.7% and 3.5%
each year.
So after including that projected revenue growth, proposed fee increases and transfers
in from reserves. General fund revenues are projected to be $107.35 million in fiscal
year 26 and $111.14 million in fiscal year 27. So the table on the left details the different
types of revenues that are collected by the city. Nearly three quarters of the city's
revenues are general revenues. And that includes property tax, sales tax, and transient occupancy
funds, department revenues which make up about a quarter, include fees for services or include
fees for services and then transfers in that category includes transfers from other funds
that support staff for staff support provided in the general fund as well as proposed use
of reserves which we're going to discuss in more detail later.
One second.
So on the next couple of slides I'll talk more about our general revenue sources.
On each of these charts the green line is the actual expenditures and the blue line
represents the budget.
Property tax revenue flattened in fiscal year 25 and is projected to grow more slowly compared
with recent years.
These projections are based on the most recent information from the city's sales tax consultant
and the recent assessed valuations calculated by the county.
The slowdown is property tax revenues is largely due to commercial property vacancies, which
are negatively affecting valuations, and that is largely a result of remote work.
In fiscal year 26, we're projecting 2.3% growth when compared with the second quarter
FY25 projection, and in fiscal year 27, we're projecting 4% growth over fiscal year 26.
On the sales tax side, the most recent forecast that was provided by the city sales tax consultant
is projecting sales tax revenues to be 31.77 million in fiscal year 26 and 32.74 million
in fiscal year 27.
And these forecasts are based on the October to December 2024 quarter, which is the last
quarter that we have that includes the true up that we do, so this lags a little bit.
It also does not include any revenue that's received under Measure O.
Sales tax in fiscal year 25 has remained relatively flat and is projected to remain flat in fiscal
year 26 with only 0.7% growth.
Spending habits have slowed and that's possibly a result of inflation, but growth is expected
to return to fiscal year 27 at 3.1%.
And again, this is, I want to acknowledge there is uncertainty around this.
This is the latest information that we have available to us.
On the transient occupancy tax, you can see on this chart that revenue was slow to recover
from the pandemic but is expected to be slightly over budget at the end of fiscal year 25 when
looking at that second quarter projection.
As the markets become more saturated, TOT revenue for fiscal year 26 and 27 is conservatively
held flat in our proposed budget.
The changes to department revenues include increases in related to programming and facility
rental revenue.
For example, arts and recreation is projecting revenue grains from greater rental availability
following completion of the Heather Farm, synthetic turf projects and the Tice Sportsfield
Lighting projects which will allow for more rental time.
They're also projecting class and camp registrations to increase and increase ticket sales at the
Lesher Center for the Arts and Center for Rep Performances.
activity as a whole has slowed in the city however several significant
development projects are expected in fiscal year 26 and 27 based on submitted
applications accordingly community development is projecting an increase in
revenues of approximately 391 thousand compared with quarter to a fiscal year
25 in public works meanwhile they were expecting a reduction in inspection and
plan check fee revenues but those reductions are offset by rental revenue
from current leases of city-owned properties. Staff are also proposing revenue increases
to address rising costs, which includes fee increases. And we'll talk a little bit more
about revenue changes related to budget balancing in later slides. Any questions on revenues?
Questions? I'm just all sad. Okay. I'm going to jump into expenditures then. So general
fund expenditures are currently projected to be 102.18 million in fiscal year 25. And
again, that's based on the Q2 projection for fiscal year 25. After including the nondiscretionary
budget increases proposed ongoing and one-time budget augmentations and budget balancing
actions, general fund expenditures are projected to be 106.99 million in fiscal year 26 and
110.9 million in fiscal year 27. And again, that's at the end of the day after including
everything we're proposing here today. So the majority on the expenditure increases
are being driven by nondiscretionary costs, which includes utilities, insurance, premiums
and legal services. Contract and subscription services, CalPERS and normal and unfunded
accrued liability costs, as well as adjustments based on labor agreements and minimum wage
increases that departments aren't able to absorb without service-level impacts.
So just for a sense of scale, UAL has gone up about 75% since 2018 and is projected to
go up another million dollars over this next two-year budget cycle.
Insurance has gone up the past couple of years, around 15 to 20% each year.
Animal services has averaged about 15% increases each year, too.
So just a sample of some of these cost drivers.
Additionally, staff are proposing budget augmentations to add one-time and ongoing funding to support
council and department priorities and help maintain existing services.
And these include funding for the general plan update, as we talked about before.
So that would be professional and legal services.
And this amount in the general fund is in addition to the amount in the general plan
update fund, which we'll talk about later, and I'll mention kind of the cost as a whole.
There's also proposed changes to support department priorities, so funding for a lien consultant
to help support development services activities, improvements, as well as increasing a part-time
office assistant position to full-time in the city clerk's office to support public
records requests and contract administration and a new office assistant to position in
public works to support additional administrative reporting and regulatory requirements.
There is a senior plan check engineer position that's been added as well to focus on complex
projects while serving as team lead for the plan check engineers and this position is
fully offset by a reduction in professional services.
The proposal also adds funding for City Council support and funding for communications and
a community survey.
And there are some budget augmentations over on the right which are proposed to address
inflationary cost increases to materials and program costs such as software, subscription
costs.
And these increases are not net new.
They would help maintain existing service levels.
So this table includes all expenditures and transfers out by department including budget
including proposed budget augmentations and the budget balancing actions.
On the right, the pie chart shows the percentage of expenditures attributable to each department.
And one thing to note that I wanted to point out on this slide is the city's larger public
facing service departments, public works, arts and recreation and the police department
account for just under three-quarters of department expenditures.
There are two main categories of expenditures for city departments.
One is operations and maintenance, which includes all of the non-personnel costs, ranging from
office supplies and utilities to contracts for professional services.
Personnel expenses, on the other hand, include cost of salary and benefits for regular employees,
including pension, overtime, and hourly staffing.
The two charts on this page help visualize the split between those two categories.
Both on a citywide and a department specific level.
So citywide personnel makes up about 68% of the city's general fund expenditures and operations
maintenance makes up about 32%.
This ratio varies by department though as a result of differing department functions
and costs.
And next I'm going to go into budget balancing and strategies and proposed action.
if you have any questions about expenditures,
I can answer those.
Councilmember Defeney.
Can you go back one or two slides?
One more, oh yeah, that one, okay.
The communications and community survey,
what's the community survey that we're,
is that for something that we're doing for?
So every couple of years,
the city has conducted a community survey
to learn more about what our residents think
about how the city's doing and what's important to them.
And, Dan, if you have anything to add?
The regularly scheduled thing.
Speak to that in just a bit more detail.
Yeah, the city's done this for, I would say,
it's four or five times now going back upwards
of 10 to 15 years.
It is a national survey that's used by other cities,
so it does allow us to benchmark how we're performing
relative to other cities in the state or in the country,
and having done it now for a while,
we would have some longitudinal data within Walnut Creek
to see how our residents are perceiving
the services provided by the city.
Thank you.
Oh, Council Member Francois.
While we're on that slide,
curious what a lean consultant might do
and what City Council support entails.
Sure.
On the City Council support side,
so this includes funding for the City Council
to be able to attend conferences and training,
some of the things that you already do.
And Susie, I don't know if there's any,
or Charles, anything else that you'd like to highlight?
I can speak to that at a high level,
and if you want more detail.
This also supports some of our regional,
trying to think of the word, not subscriptions,
memberships rather, such as ABAG is an example.
Also the League of Cities,
National League of Cities memberships are included.
Really what we're doing,
There is an increase in this.
It's largely to right-size the city council budget.
A lot of this was reduced during COVID
when we couldn't really travel much
and participate in regional activities.
Everything was over Zoom.
Now that that's back up and running,
we're right-sizing to recognize
that we are actually traveling once again
to some of these meetings.
And Erica, could I call you up
to talk about the link consultant, please?
Let me add one little extra question.
So this is that exercise
that as we right-size it in looking at each one of us
to right-size our own travel
so that we're not overspending, we're not all doing it.
That's correct.
We will have to manage how many,
whether it's conferences or regional meetings
each of you attend.
Obviously we're looking in the aggregate.
Some of you may go to more than others
and we can offset that, but generally speaking,
there'd be a target amount
for each council member, that's correct.
And it's getting back to the baseline pre-COVID,
not adding kind of new subscriptions or organizations?
Effectively recognizing there have been, you know,
inflationary increases, but more or less it's similar
to what we were doing pre-COVID.
Okay.
Erica, Van, and Bran.
Yeah, I'm dying to know what a lean consultant does.
Hello, I'm Erica Van and Bran,
Community Development Director.
I'm very tempted to talk about Ozumpik,
but I'm not going to.
So in terms of, I guess, let me frame this a little bit.
So that there are actually three departments
that are responsible for development services in the city.
There's community development,
but then there's also economic development
in the city manager's office,
and then also the public works department.
A lean consultant is a consultant that would come in
and help us with process improvements,
process journey mapping, customer service,
looking through the eyes of the customer,
and trying to help us become much more customer friendly
and then to streamline our processes.
And this is intended to speak to the council's priority
under economic development.
So it sounds like more of an internal person,
because I know we had talked about like an ombudsman
that perhaps applicants or developers
could go to with issues,
but this would be more internal to the organization?
This would be both internal and external,
because the intention is to look through the eyes of the customer so that we don't have
to get to that point where there's that ombuds having to intervene and that it's much more
transparent, that it is easier to navigate the system and the essentially that we've
made it a lot easier on our customers to do business and we're much more customer friendly.
Okay.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Just add to that something that you might all relate to.
The county, Contra Costa County, the health agency there has used the LEAN process relative
to a lot of its medical operations and more specifically with the A3 crisis response program,
the LEAN methodology was used.
LEAN seems a little misleading so it makes it sound like it's all just about, you know,
it is about efficiency ultimately, but it's really about processes and how you structure
processes.
That lean approach was used to create the A3 program soliciting input from numerous
stakeholders working that input through with the staff and the legal requirements to try
to make it as lean as possible moving forward.
Okay, so staff undertook a thorough and really thoughtful process when proposing developing
these proposed budget balancing measures.
And we started with developing some budget balancing strategies that we used.
So first is that the City Council's adopted budget goals and policies would continue to
guide our work.
Staff were also directed to prioritize implementation of City Council priorities and legal mandates.
And were asked to evaluate programs and services thinking creatively about how to minimize
impacts to essential services, the community and staff.
Additionally, each department was asked to make meaningful contributions towards balancing
the budget so that we're all working together towards this goal.
to think both near term and long term when making proposals.
So as a reminder, the ongoing budget deficit after budget augmentations but before budget
balancing solutions was $4.97 million in fiscal year 26 and $6.33 million in fiscal year 27.
To help close this deficit, staff is proposing revenue increases of $180,000 in fiscal year
26 and $640,000 in fiscal year 27.
Part of that is related to increases in fees and we'll be talking about those proposed
fees when we come back in June.
But part of it is also dependent on proposed budget augmentations.
Additionally, staff have proposed operations and maintenance reductions of just over 2
million each year and personnel reductions of about 1.3 million each year.
To close the remainder of the deficit and to help strike a balance between fiscal health
and service impacts, staff is proposing to use short-term budget balancing solutions
of 1.58 million in fiscal year 26 and 2.6 million in fiscal year 27, which I'll discuss
in later slides.
So on this slide, this is a summary of the different categories of proposed budget balancing
actions and their level of implementation difficulty.
And while some are low and some are medium or high, all of these do have an impact.
But low difficulty reductions have a lesser impact on service delivery and staff, while
medium and high difficulty reductions represent a deeper reduction that is more impactful
to staff and service delivery.
You'll also see that operations and maintenance costs span a couple of these categories.
I wanted to point out that the travel training and conferences and memberships, while pulled
out separately, is part of that O&M bucket.
So you'll hear us talking about that or me talking about that.
So over the next two slides we'll discuss proposed budget balancing actions related
to operations and maintenance or O&M and the potential impacts.
In general, staff would prioritize essential services and strategically use existing resources
to minimize service level disruptions.
Reductions to budgets for office equipment, technology and uniforms would require extending
the useful life of these items. And overall, there would be a minimal ability to expand
service levels and response times could increase. The proposed actions also include a reduction
in plan maintenance and repairs. So staff would be more reactively responding to facility
needs rather than being proactive. One example is that we would be top dressing the fields
with sand on a less frequent basis. As a result, there could be additional wear and tear on
facilities and equipment that aren't being maintained at the same level as they are currently.
We would also be reducing custodial services by one day each week where appropriate.
Operationally proposed actions would bring some of the contracted services that are currently
done by outside folks in-house and would reduce professional services funding citywide.
So for example, proposals include using in-house trucking and using current staff to service
downtown recycling stations. As a result staff would have less capacity for other
tasks and there could be additional wear and tear on city equipment. Proposed
reductions also include adjustments to citywide programming. While most
programming would continue there would be less funding available for marketing
and advertising, supplies and contracts related to those programs. Additionally,
in order to absorb a portion of their inflation driven cost increases,
Center rep is proposing to hold five shows instead of six in their season.
And finally, employee training and support funding would also be reduced.
Essential trainings would continue, but there would be less opportunity for staff to attend
trainings and conferences, and employee wellness programs would continue, but only with the
most impactful offerings.
In total, the proposed operations and maintenance budget reductions total just over $2 million,
with the majority coming from professional services,
travel and training, and services and supplies.
Staff are also proposing budget reductions
related to personnel, which includes eliminating
or reclassifying positions, reducing overtime,
and reducing budgets for hourly staff.
For regular personnel, staff have proposed changes
equivalent to a reduction of 3.75 full-time equivalent,
or FTE positions, as we call them.
In arts and recreation,
there are two senior program assistant positions
that would be reduced.
One position is vacant, that's that .75.
The other is filled and would be reduced by .25 FTE.
This is a result of California's
universal transitional kindergarten program,
which has expanded eligibility for TK
in the current school year.
So as a result,
enrollment for the older age group preschool class
has declined and will likely continue to do so
as the program is fully phased in.
Based on these changes,
is proposing to eliminate the afternoon class offering at Heather Farm Park and
would reduce the positions by that combined 1FTE. Public Works is also
proposing to eliminate two vacant positions, a traffic maintenance worker
and a landscape maintenance worker. Eliminating these positions would
increase wait times and result in slower city response times and potential
project delays. And so some examples are, you know, park maintenance and graffiti
response times. Arts and Recreation is proposing to eliminate a vacant
halftime office specialist position that has not been filled in recent years and
the information ASD is proposing to reduce information systems analyst to
position from 0.75 to 0.5. While this latter position is filled this is
budgetary only as the current incumbent is already a halftime employee and would
not experience any change so those last two should have minimal impact. Staff are
also proposing to reclassify two currently vacant positions which would
result in budgetary savings. The first is a business analyst position and
administrative services. This position would be changed to an office specialist
confidential which would support implementation of the city's
procurement policy. In general government the vacant deputy city manager position
would be reclassified to a lower level assistant to the city manager position which would reduce
the department's ability to support complex cross departmental initiatives although most
of their work would continue. Other proposed actions include reductions in overtime and
non-seasonal hourly staffing. The city's overtime budget is approximately 1.62 million in fiscal
year 25 and the budget balancing actions proposed to reduce overtime by about 477,000 with
majority or 450,000 coming from the police department. Police department
overtime is historically used to offset vacancies and fill shifts, respond to
unplanned disruptions, to enhance special investigations as needed.
Therefore reducing overtime could slow investigations, increase processing time
in records, and may result in overspending or if there are a
significant number or a higher number of significant events. Salary savings from
vacant positions is expected to offset normal backfilling of positions that
overtime is sometimes used for. Staff are also proposing to reduce funding for
non seasonal hourly staffing with the majority of the reductions coming from
the Arts and Recreation Department. That reduction is approximately 3.9 percent.
This could result in reduced hours for the existing staff and longer wait times
for customer service, and regular staff may need to fill gaps in coverage.
In all, the proposed budget balancing actions for personnel in overtime total $1.27 million.
In line with the strategy for all departments to contribute meaningfully toward balancing
the budget, impacts to departments as a percentage are between 2.39 and 4%, and this table does
not include budget augmentations that are adding budget back into some of these departments.
As mentioned previously, staff is also proposing to use short-term budget balancing solutions
to help close the budget deficit while balancing fiscal sustainability and maintaining services.
That includes the vacancy rate, which approximates normal staff turnover and the timing of recruitments.
In the baseline budget when we developed that, we used a 5% vacancy rate.
However, in recent years, our actual vacancy rate has been between 9 and 11 percent.
So raising the budgeted vacancy rate to 6 percent would result in approximately 580,000
in budgetary savings each year.
This is intended to be a short-term measure, though, and would be reevaluated in the next
cycle.
And I want to point out, too, that the goal as it relates to hiring would be to eventually
return to a more normalized vacancy rate of 5 to 6 percent.
On March 18th council adopted the pension trust and reserve use policy which allows the pension resources to be used to offset rising
rising cost increases related to the pension
Staff is recommending to use 1 million of these pension resources and fiscal year 26 and 2 million in fiscal year 27
And so to give you a sense our total UAL including the prepayment option
would be
13 just over 13 million in fiscal year 26 and 14 million in fiscal year 27
Okay, so talking about one-time budget balancing
so the proposed one-time budget augmentations total 1.82 million in fiscal year 26 and
290,000 in fiscal year 27 and in order to fund these one-time costs staff has identified the following actions
First off is to delay hiring. So we would delay hiring an aquatics program coordinator
Till spring which would still allow the position to be filled in time for summer
Would also delay hiring and of an assistant CDD director and principal planner for six months
Which would likely slow processing of projects and would require existing staff to fill their job duties
We would delay hiring
The economic development program manager position for six months, which would delay progress on some items in the ED action plan
although existing staff would continue to implement the plan in the meantime.
And then staff is also proposing to reduce the contribution to the capital
fund by $300,000 each year. However, as you'll hear later, the Public Works
Department has identified projects that could be closed to offset these impacts
so that the total is still the same. Staff is proposing to use the $1.23
million in fiscal year 26 to support the general fund portion of costs related to the general
plan update. And that's of the general fund contingency.
So that was a lot. This table summarizes what we've talked about so far. So baseline revenues
and expenditures resulted in a deficit largely due to those slowed revenues, slowed revenue
growth and increased costs for existing services. Additionally, staff have proposed budget augmentations
to support department and council priorities
and maintain existing service levels.
And then to close that ongoing deficit,
staff have proposed revenue increases,
expenditure reductions,
and use of short-term budget balancing options
such as the pension trust and pension resources.
Additionally, staff have proposed
one-time budget augmentations,
which would support the general plan update,
and support department priorities
offset by one-time budget balancing solutions,
Including use of the general fund contingency and with all of that together
Including the increases and reductions the net contribution to fund balance would be three hundred and seventy thousand in fiscal year twenty-six and two hundred and fifty thousand
In fiscal year twenty-seven this small contribution to fund balance
provides an opportunity for council to consider a couple of options one would be to leave it as it is to help mitigate any
unforeseen circumstances given the
certainty. Council could also consider funding other priorities or reserves or potentially
lessen the budget impacts of the budget balancing actions. But I do want to point out that in
fiscal year 26 all but 90,000 of this contribution to fund balance would be one time in nature
so it would not be an ongoing availability. And I'm going to pause here for any questions
related to budget balancing strategies. Questions? Councilmember Francois? Okay
thanks, Rindy. Just if you can summarize, the deputy city manager position, is that
being eliminated or reassigned to economic development? It's not being
eliminated nor reassigned, it's just changing the classification of that job
position. So instead of being a deputy city manager, it would be an assistant to
the city manager which costs less. Okay with with same general job description
and duties a little bit different I mean it would it's a you know a job that's a
little more condensed in scope so some of the duties that would be done would
be picked up by our assistant city manager or myself or other staff to help
distribute some of them. I guess just bigger picture stepping back it it
It seemed like a fair number of holding off on hiring in community development and city
manager offices and is there any concern among staff that holding off on filling those positions
might implicate or make it more difficult to implement some of the council priorities
and if so, which ones might be impacted?
certainly there is that concern. We think it's a manageable concern you know
really what we're looking at is deferring the filling of a couple
positions in community development and in city managers office. Part of that
will be a real impact part of its budgetary and so what I mean by that is
even if we were to open up recruitments for those some of those positions today
it would take us several months to fill that after we go through the recruitment
at the interviewing, the background check,
somebody gives notice, they get on here.
We're usually looking at at least three to four
to five months, depending upon the position,
sometimes less than that,
but it's usually in that timeframe.
So we are recognizing some of the savings
that would be associated with those positions being vacant.
In addition, it would be vacant a little bit longer
than what we would prefer.
So there are some impacts.
We think they're manageable.
We think the big ticket items will continue to move forward,
but some of the things that are a little less visible
to the community that go on behind the scenes
are what would likely be tabled a bit more.
And then just a question too,
about the vacancy assumptions,
cause that seems a little more art than science, right?
If we're at nine to 11% and have been since COVID,
let's say, I mean, there does seem
a little bit of wiggle room there that we're going from,
we're assuming going from five to six,
But presumably we could go even higher than that
and monitor it.
We certainly could, a couple of things.
One, the goal is to get to five to six percent.
So that's what we're working towards.
And we have been making progress.
You may recall, I think we hit a high of 15 or 16%
during COVID, we're down.
We've been floating somewhere between the seven to nine
to 11%, it bounces around.
I think Rindy gave you the averages.
The challenge with bumping it up too high is when you do then dip below that over time,
you have to get that money from somewhere else, which means you're cutting budget elsewhere
unless the revenue growth grows at a rate to offset that reduction in vacancy savings.
So we're cautious about going too much higher because of the impact down the road of having
to find that money to pay for those positions.
As opposed to by underestimating, then that becomes a surplus if the vacancy is higher
than we're estimating it.
It does.
And in fact, the last couple of years, the main driver of the year-end surplus that we've
had that you've used to allocate to put into reserves or to other programs came from that
salary savings.
That's correct.
And then just last question, can you remind me?
We're using 1.23, I think you said, of the general fund contingency.
the balance of that? The general fund contingency sorry I don't remember off
the top of my head. The balance is three million currently prior to using that
funding. Thank you. All right so I'm just talking about reserve levels when you
talk about the general fund contribution to the capital budget being reduced and
then being backfilled that's backfilled being backfilled not by canceling
projects but by projects that are completed that still have funds
remaining in their budget? They'll be speaking more to those during a capital
budget item. Okay and then on the reserve levels we were talking about the
general fund reserve and that is distinct from the catastrophic reserve.
Yes it is distinct and I have a slide later on in the presentation that shows
the reserve balances for our different reserves. Okay we'll get into reserves
then later. Any other questions at this point? How much longer do you think you
You've got to go on here.
Oh, ways.
Oh, ways.
Everybody good to go?
OK.
OK.
All right, so going over to the other funds,
the measure O, as we all know, is the half cent, 10-year half
cent sales tax, transaction and use tax that
was passed by the Walnut Creek voters
to provide funding to help maintain and enhance
the city's services and facilities.
Revenues are trending higher than we had originally budgeted in fiscal year 25, and looks to
continue in fiscal year 26 and 27.
So the projected contribution to fund balance is about 550,000 in fiscal year 26 and just
over a million in fiscal year 27.
These tables detail expenditures by category.
FY26 and 27 include 700,000 increase for homeless services category to support core services.
That's our coordinated outreach and referral services.
And the cost of extra library hours will also increase by 52,000 in fiscal year 26 and 83,000
in fiscal year 27.
I did want to point out that the second quarter projection includes a carry forward that was
due to delayed billing from fiscal year 24 from the county, and so it's a little bit
higher than it would appear. So those are not going down, it is going up.
Staff is proposing to include $250,000 in a one-time contribution to capital to support
the Clark Pool and Poolhouse Repurposing Master Plan. And both years also include
the $9 million contribution to the reserves for the Heather Farm Aquatics and Community Center
facility. Excluding the contribution to the Heather Farm Reserve, these two
charts visually represent the expenditures by category and expenditures
by department. I know there was a public comment about public safety, so you can
see they make up about half of these expenditures. Just for clarification on
that one, Rindy, that's current expenditures, right? Yes, yeah, so this
excludes that 9 million dollars set aside each year for the reserve.
Okay and then I noticed that public comment too and is it a way to position
that all those the five downtown officers to be funded by measure or
those complete positions completely full I believe so we could have the chief
speak to that but there are assigned positions relative to measure oh yes
they're generally filled I don't know that they are a hundred percent of the
time as we have staff come and go at times good evening yes all five of those
positions are filled. So we actually actually have names and bodies
associated to that funding. Excellent. Thank you. You're welcome. And to
administrative as well, right? That's correct. Okay so moving over to the
general plan update fund. This fund as I said before accumulates fees from
development projects to be used for updating the city's general plan and
that was one of the council's priorities. This is a multi-year process and the
The total estimated cost for the update is $3.5 million, and that includes the entire
project, both that part that's in the general fund as well as the amount that's in the general
plan update fund.
And this is a one-time cost that covers professional services, legal services, and a limited duration
assistant planner to support the project.
To fund the update, staff proposes to use the general plan update fund's revenue, which
is approximately three hundred and ten thousand dollars per year as well as one
point nine five million of the general plan update funds fund balance and one
point two three million from the general fund contingency for that general fund
portion. That one's completely almost seems like it's mostly completely
funded is that? Yeah so we're proposing to basically fund the whole project now
So that those funds can be we know we have them as we get through the process that is a multi-year process
We have a general plan update fund and a general of the general fund contingencies two separate funds
Yes, I was also getting tripped up over that earlier
And that's predicated on everybody agreeing on the drafts as we go along and not
Adding a bunch more dress of course. Of course. We're doing that. We would never do anything else. Got it
Okay
Downtown parking and enhancement. So this fund supports parking operations as well as the downtown enhancements a
Wide variety of things including our downtown trolley
and Route 5
There is no significant changes that are proposed to the fiscal year 26 and 27 budget when compared with fiscal year 25
Two PSO positions that are in this fund would remain frozen and the fund would send approximately
$50,000 each year to the capital fund to support parking garage improvements and repairs
with those included the projected contribution to fund balance would be
380,000 in fiscal year 26 and
210,000 in fiscal year 27 and and this was sort of what I was talking about earlier with the
Parking tickets and the revenue the whole
The whole thing is sort of net almost neutral, right?
Yeah, it is an enterprise fund. So it is self-supporting
so the Boundary Oak Golf Course
Operates as another self-supporting city enterprise fund and revenues are generated by golf food and beverage sales
And are projected to increase in part due to the reopening of that driving range facility
Expenditures are also expected to increase based on many of the same drivers that we are experiencing in other funds including increases to labor insurance
Facility and equipment costs as well as the repayment of the general fund loan for driving range improvements
the net contribution to fund balance is projected to be
120,000 in fiscal year 26 and
260,000 in fiscal year 27
Any questions on boundary oak?
okay
so in light of the reductions to
Required to balance the general fund budget staff is recommending no contributions to reserves as part of this budget
Instead the catastrophic emergency reserve contribution, which would total about eight hundred and seventy thousand over two years
Could be funded using the fiscal year 25
available fund balance at year-end
Based on our current projections the city's fiscal emergency reserve balance exceeds the policy requirements. So no additional
Contribution is required and as discussed previously staff is recommending to use the general fund contingency in fiscal year
26 to support the general plan update and use of the pension resources
Which totals 3 million over the two years?
To offset increases to you. I all this is in line with the council's adopted pension trust and use policy
So so no contributions to reserves over either of the two years
Correct. So we would still contribute to the reserves to be fully funded, but we're proposing to use the fiscal year 25
Year-end fund balance instead of adding it to this budget, which is how we would more typically do so. And what is the
projected FY 25 end-of-the-year fund balance an allocated fund balance?
At least that amount. At least...
It does vary considerably. Yeah, we proposed, we included a range when we took our Q2 update.
Yeah, so as of the second quarter update, we're anticipating about a million to a million and a half and we're looking at something similar
Based on the Q3. Okay, and that's enough to
All right. Yeah, the two year or the cost for the reserves over the two years is eight hundred and seventy thousand
And then then percentage wise by the end of fiscal year
27 we're at the right percentages in terms of having healthy reserves
Yes
So for measure O as of June 30th
2027
Staff is projecting a measure O fund balance of three point nine million dollars and this assumes that reserves for the new aquatic and community
Center at Heather Farm Park would be fully spent as of that June 30th
okay, so
The next couple slides just to have a high level summary of our
FTE changes for all funds and
When proposing the FTE changes
Staff considered current city priorities and operational needs. So while some positions are being reduced and others are being added
The recommendations were made independently to best meet the needs of the city
So these are not we're not taking one to kind of replace it with another these are was an independent decision-making process
in
Fiscal year 25 today. We have
381.25
authorized FTE staff is proposing to reduce those FTE by 3.75 and then add
2.5 so the FY 26 and 27
Proposal would have 380 FTE total and thank you for this table. It really it worked finally like oh, okay
No, I got it. Wanna yeah. Thanks. So all of these reductions and I'll click to the next slides
So this also has arts and recs and general governments on here. These are all the regular
FTE changes that we discussed earlier
This slide has the limited duration FTE proposed changes
so what limited duration positions they're authorized for up to two years at a time, but can be extended and
changes
This chart or this table has the limited duration positions across all funds
So the only changes are in community development where we're reducing an office assistant to
Position and then adding that assistant plan or position for the general plan update
Any questions on FTE?
Okay, when we took this to finance committee
Finance committee requested that additional FTE change which we incorporated and they also asked the council consider adding unappropriated fund balance and measure
Oh to the Heather Farm Aquatic and Community Center Reserve at year-end
In closing, staff will incorporate any feedback from today and bring an updated budget and
master fee schedule to finance committee on May 15th before returning in June to the City Council.
And your requested action is to provide input and feedback regarding the development of
this balanced budget.
And with that, I am finally done and we can have any additional questions.
All right.
I think we'll take a five-minute break and give ourselves all to shake and get this.
we're back for questions. We'll start. Councilmember Francois. Yeah, I think just for now I know
one of the other, I don't see Smidar, oh there she is. We had a fair number of public comments
about pedestrian safety and kind of, I know I don't want to, I'm trying to ask the question
in a way that doesn't get too into the weeds of the budget. But can, what assurances can
Can we provide the public that, even with the current budget cuts, we're still adequately
planning for and funding planned pedestrian safety improvements, particularly in regard
to the Larky area and kind of the Walnut Knolls area?
Before some more answers, is that, and I was wondering, but is that more operational or
capital budget?
Because it seemed like it was more capital budget.
The answer is yes.
Right.
Sure, so some of our boardmen, city engineer,
yeah, so it's kind of both,
and we're gonna touch on it a bit more
in the next presentation, speaking to the CIP
and the capital budget, too.
But based on what's being proposed tonight,
the change in the allocation for how much funding
would come from the general fund
towards those types of improvements
isn't changing, because we're looking at closing out
and deferring some of the projects
that Wendy had mentioned earlier from previous capital budget
cycles to make up that difference at $600,000.
The other piece, though, is that a majority of our funding,
actually, for those types of pedestrian improvements
actually come from traffic impact fees,
and they come from grant funds.
And so there's not a large contribution
from the general fund itself.
Sometimes we use Measure J or gas tax funds,
again, not general fund,
to pay for a portion of those sidewalk gap closures.
That's helpful.
Explanation, all the different funds.
Thank you.
Sure.
Any questions?
Mayor Pro Tem?
I think I'm gonna hold off on questions
that we hear from public comments as well.
But, yeah.
Council Member Definni?
I can hold this well for now.
Okay.
I guess my only questions,
I have a, let's see, we hit the reserve levels
and general fund contribution.
As far as where this general fund budget
is vulnerable to changes in the overall economic outlet,
especially the federal funding side,
and, you know, what's our sense on that?
I know it's absolutely unknowable at this point,
but where are the particular vulnerabilities that we have?
One vulnerability just off the top of my head,
potentially with sales tax,
responding to different tariffs, it's unclear
how tariffs would affect our sales tax revenue
at this point.
Most of our federal grants are held in other funds
and so wouldn't necessarily,
or they are held in other funds,
wouldn't have a general fund impact. So when it comes to general fund it's
really just whether or not if we have a recession or if tariffs reduce sales
tax that those two funding sources will be primarily unless yeah I would agree
I think that's the biggest risk that we're aware of at this point in terms of
direct federal funding we don't receive that much we do receive some and it
could be at risk in terms of on a percentage basis it's not that
significant. That said, as you'll hear in the capital budget next, we do receive a
considerable amount of federal funding for capital projects, infrastructure,
transportation, either directly from the federal government or indirectly through
state or regional government and entities, and should there be significant
cuts in those areas, there could be major impacts to the capital budget. I
guess the other thing that I would add is even though our some of that federal
support is held in other funds were that to go away there and some of those costs
might need to come back to the general fund and then there could be an impact
in that way as well. Okay and then so it's so if housing declines those fees
that are associated that people pay when they pull their permits those are your
but it sounded like you're anticipating a couple of the big projects are far
enough along that when it comes to traffic impact fees or park fees or
things like that that those fees are in decent shape. Yeah so we the information
that we included in the budget is based on submitted applications and projects
that we kind of know where they are in the in the cycle again those could
change if developers and if you have more detailed questions I could ask
Eric? No, I think that's all right. So I do have one question regarding the arts
rec department. So I'll and I'll combine it with one of the questions that was
asked by our comments that made by our treasurer at the finance committee
meeting and that is so we're looking at center at being one less show yet it
shows that we have a increased revenues for the next fiscal year, but with one
last show. And would you help to explain that for me?
Sure. Carolyn Jackson, Interim Director for Arts and Recreation. So when we
looked at Center Rep's budget as a whole, to achieve even more revenues than
what's proposed here would require having that sixth show, but that would
require general fund support for that production. There is support for all
center rep productions from the general fund in addition to ticket sales and
when we looked at the broad context of the entire budget and the the needs that
we were facing citywide that seemed like the reasonable decision to make in terms
of what the net cost ultimately was or the net you know loss in revenue given
also the other variables across Arts and Rec. Okay makes sense so the question
that was asked by our treasurer, and I'll repeat it here, was obviously, as we've seen
from a variety of studies when it came from Arts & Rec and Walnut Creek downtown, when
there are shows, especially with maybe a two or three week show, that brings more foot
traffic downtown, more spending at restaurants, more spending in downtown, and is there a
concern for one less show and how that would potentially impact our downtown and tax revenues?
So it's a bit unpredictable because it would mean that the theater would be available for
other rentals.
And what we can't predict is whether those other rentals would be as successful in terms
of audience numbers as a center rep production, not having any real history of having that
wide of a window open in the Margaret Lusher theater.
We know it's a high demand space.
we feel confident that there will be interest in booking,
but we can't entirely predict if it will be
an equivalent number of nights and performances
as a center rep production.
And again, it could be one off productions
that they're fully sold out, right?
Whereas a center rep production might have some seats
that are unfilled, it's very hard to tell
given that we don't have a lot of track record,
but we do know that we turn away a lot of rental requests
for that space because it's so highly utilized.
Okay, thank you
A follow-up question on that one
What what is the like profitability or sort of the net on those shows do you I thought it during a previous council meeting?
We discussed one that was projected to be profitable overall. So are they?
So it's highly variable and what we were looking at in the previous council meeting was specifically a production budget
So the expenses that are directly related to that show and the revenues directly related to that show in addition
There are ongoing staff
Expenses there are utility costs. There are other components that are not
Calculated when we look just on a production by production basis
So even that production does still include some general fund support because it's supporting the overhead of all of center rep
Okay, are we ready for the capital budget?
Or what's next or public? Well are these separate items tonight? Okay, so this is separate item
So anybody in the public want to comment on the general fund measure? Oh part of the budget
step on it
I'm Bob Wedi and I I actually kind of went through the budget document for both the
capital as well as the operating so my comments kind of you know relate to both so
Briefly, I think what makes Walnut Creek a great place to live
were highlighted on several things here and hearing them I wanted to just touch
on them briefly. Number one is Chief Knox and the the Walnut Creek Police
Department right and 128 people that help keep our city safe and citizens
safe and secure and number two the Lindsay Museum same thing my kids raised
there they love nature now. The golf course I haven't cured my slice yet but
the new top tracer technology is wonderful it's a great place. So just a
quick plug. I spent my career in finance accounting and auditing so when I get to look at a budget
document it's like a kid at Christmas who gets a new bike under the Christmas tree, you know.
And so I dug into that. I put together some comments and thoughts that are hopefully helpful
that I provided and I hope that you have a chance to look at those. I will just make one point from
that that I think is key in that and you've touched on kind of the risks and
uncertainties that kind of face us in the city and elsewhere economically
because of the new environment I think it's really important with this new big
project the aquatic and center and the community center and the associated
financing that all the scenario analysis is being done now by the finance team be
distilled and shared with the public in a way that you know we can then look
back and say if things don't go well, you know, we provided some proactive way of talking
about those risks and uncertainties.
And then we'll avoid the issue of like second guessing and being criticized for, you know,
doing too much or too little or whatever.
So that's an easy thing to do.
The other things in my letter maybe are a little bit harder, but I encourage you to
look at those and consider them.
So thank you for your time and for taking my comments.
Thank you. We love a good budget nerd here because you're not alone. There's other people
in the audience don't normally attend these things. Any more question? Any more public
comment? Do you want us to act on this one or hold off until we get through the general?
I would recommend giving any direction you have on this one and then go to the Capitol.
Any direction? Yeah. Yeah. We're doing comments in direction. Do you want to kick it off? Councilmember
So I'm curious about the Measure O funding for the Police Department. We've
got the five sworn and two administrative positions that are funded
by Measure O. What is the vacancy rate amongst our sworn staff pre and
post Measure O and and is there any like just sort of use of Measure O funding
to offset sort of the general police budget? Like how would you describe that?
Is there less pressure to hire since we've got these new five officers that
have filled spots? Thank you again Jamie Knox, Chief of Police. No there's
actually more pressure now because now I have nine vacancies in our sworn ranks
and we're just not seeing the lateral applicant interests that we've seen in
the past and we're not seeing the quality candidates for entry levels that
we've seen in the past so it's usually about a 50% washout rate once we get to
the background investigation phase so it's a little slow-going right now people
I think people are nervous about going to a new city when a lot of cities are
having sort of financial minor difficulties,
balancing their budgets.
So why would you go to a new city
if you're gonna be the least in seniority
and if there's real financial trouble
you could potentially be laid off.
So that could be a factor contributing to that.
But prior to receiving the five officers
we were kind of in the throes of COVID.
We saw a mass exodus in law enforcement.
So we're hovering anywhere from five to seven vacancies
in our sworn ranks.
When we got the five new positions,
obviously our vacancy rate went up,
but we had a really good run of recruiting people
and hiring a lot of new people.
What we did initially with Measure O dollars
was used it for overtime.
And then as we hired new officers,
we allocated those positions to the Measure O funding.
Okay, thanks.
We've gone from what we had five to seven though,
vacancies and now we've got nine.
I just had three retirements over the last,
essentially two weeks.
Okay, all right.
And then, while you're up there,
so the idea is that when we use the overtime funding
and put that back into the pool,
what we were spending on overtime for the police,
I think like 450,000 that's being reallocated
to the general fund.
My understanding is the logic there is that
the vacancy rates are,
since we have less vacancies and we've hired more,
that we don't need as much over time.
But I'm not really hearing that we have less vacancies.
So do we truly not need that over time anymore?
Well, we were using it for a special purpose.
So we were using it as sort of a blitz downtown, if you will,
kind of a showing of force.
It was high visibility policing.
To put that into perspective with man hours is about,
or person hours, it was about 4,300 hours in 2024
that was specifically dedicated to downtown.
Now it's just essentially being cut.
So we've canceled all of those overtime assignments
and we're just gonna try to manage it
with the bodies that we have.
And is it that it's being cut because there's no longer
that need or is it being cut because we just no longer
have that funding?
It was being cut because we no longer have the money.
Okay.
All right, well, I mean, I guess then I do have some concern
about us cutting overtime, you know, if that's the case.
Well, it was generally a larger overtime budget
for an agency this size, but we are pretty unique.
We have a lot of protests here
and sometimes that require special attention.
There's a lot of special events related to
whether it's the Downtown Business Association
or the Walnut Festival.
We try to staff that with reserves when we can,
but we also have Downtown Nightlife
that requires a lot of resources sometimes.
So depending on what's going on,
we will create over time shifts as needed.
The good thing about a vacancy rate is sometimes we have,
you know, we have good salary savings
and we can use overtime dollars to shore up those,
the holes that we might have in patrol
and backfill some of those spots.
But what we were doing with the $450,000
is adding on top of that downtown assignments
to really, you know, send a strong message
that if you come here to commit crime,
you're gonna go to jail.
Yeah, I like that message.
So do I.
Okay.
I'll actually continue as long as you're up there, chief.
So it seems to me, and from what we've heard in the past,
the vacancy rate, it's a challenge
to recruit police officers up and down the state right now.
Nobody's moving into state.
We're all competing for the same resources.
And so we've been relying on some lateral moves in there,
but that's challenging because there's,
for the reasons that you just mentioned,
that may not always be the case.
So it stands to reason that we need to help bring in
potential new candidates for police officers and help to support them with
that they can three kids because frankly we could say hey let's hire 10 more
officers and and we'll push the the amount of full-time employees up we're
still gonna have the vacancies because we still have to we're still recruiting
in other words we're not slowing that down that's correct and we're not on an
island by any stretch of the imagination a lot of cities are going through the
same thing the difference with us is we have very high standards we're not gonna
lower our standards because of our vacancy rates going up. So we're very
picky about who we hire. We've had a really good success rate over the last
few years and we've definitely invested in recruiting with programs like Epic. We
do have a recruiting team, we send them up and down the state to various job
fairs. We're not getting a lot of steam from those types of events that we've
we've had in the past, so we're just trying to creatively think about new
strategic ways to attract candidates. Great. Keep up the good work? Okay. Thank you.
Okay, stay right there. I just want to go back through the history of the five
additional positions just because I want to make sure everybody understands those.
So when we originally used the federal funding to fund those positions, they
were in addition to the current level of force. That is correct. At the time we
had 80 sworn positions. I asked the council for five additional positions. We
used ARPA money to fund that but it was a really a limited money and we knew
that there were legacy costs and we'd have to figure out some other way to
pay for those five positions. So they were not permanently funded at that time.
Yeah so when we brought them in with ARPA that was 2020-2021. And so then
when we passed Measure O in 2022, those five additional positions that we'd added in 21,
we used the Measure O to continue funding those longer term than they would have been funded with
just the federal funding. Yes, and technically that was a new ask to permanently fund those
positions. But it's basically the same five positions. It started here and because it takes
so long to create a fully formed officer when we did that original allocation of ARPA funds
in 2021, the expectation was that we would use over time until we got the bodies on the
street.
Couldn't have said it better than myself.
That's exactly what we did.
And then as we brought the new bodies on.
And so our number of sworn officers, although it fluctuates because they come and they go
and they hurt themselves and all those things, we were here and we're now at a
higher level than we were prior to 2021. That's a higher vacancy rate, that's
correct. Yeah, but an overall number of officers on the beat on the average, is
that higher? Well, our deployment strength is really low right now just
because I do have unfortunately staff that are injured and it does happen. Would
you take better care of your people? Well, we're working on it. I know. No, I know.
No, we're we're slowly getting them back but you know
I'm committed to make sure that we you know, we keep the city safe and especially the downtown area. So we're finding creative ways to
address that and
You'll see some high visibility enforcement still we're just I had nowhere else to cut
So that was an area that we I thought we could probably cut and figure out a creative way to address the needs
Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay, mayor if I could just add a couple of things one
And just to clarify, at Chief's last comment,
there are many other options to cut.
This was the least impactful area to cut
within the police department.
Secondly, regarding vacancy,
I wanna clarify the challenge you're hearing
about recruiting, to some extent,
is similar to what's citywide.
The vacancy rate for our sworn officers
is very comparable to our citywide vacancy rate.
It is not significantly above,
so the same challenges are being encountered
by all of our city departments.
Okay.
Thank you.
We're done with you now.
Okay.
I think.
So, Wendy, I have some questions for you.
And this gets to how we talk about the funding
for the pool and the community center.
Because it, what ends up happening,
and this is a suggestion on something we could think about
as we go forward, it ends up being in two places,
like you see the $9 million here in Measure O
getting put aside during the two years.
And so perhaps it would be useful with that project
to have something that just shows the entire cost
of the project and the funding stack for that.
It has the $3 million for the Aquatics Foundation,
the money from Measure O, and the general fund money
that we had in reserve to go to this project.
So that might be a good thing to have,
just as an overall way of helping people envision
where the money is coming from for this project.
Because it's in different bits and pieces.
And then the other aspect of it is over time,
like to date, through FY25, we spent a lot of money
on the planning and the preparation.
Between 25 and the end of 27,
we will finish the construction.
And then the cost from 28 to 32
will be the paying off of the bonds.
And so helping people understand
how that money flows over time
would probably be a useful thing.
Just because we're trying to tell the story
that it's not just measure O,
it's the users are funding,
the general fund set aside years ago,
and then how it plays out over time.
So that's just a thought that I was having.
I appreciate that, that makes a lot of sense.
Thank you.
Council Member Daphne?
I just had another comment or question.
And it was really dovetailing off of council member
Francois' concern I expressed earlier about,
we've had a permanent streamlining
and economic development as a priority.
And I know that it looks like two of the positions
that we're replacing the full-time equivalent positions.
And I just wanted, we're bringing in the lean method
where is it counterproductive at all
to have this like lean method going on
while we're sort of temporarily short-staffed
on a couple of positions, is that, how do we view that?
I think we sort of spoke to it, but maybe you could.
I don't have insight on the timing.
So if Erika Vandenbrand wanted to come up.
Thank you very much for your question.
So city manager Dan Buxay really got to the heart of it
in terms of, even if we were to start hiring today,
it would still be four or five months.
And so it's just a little bit longer during the holiday season.
So the impact would not be as substantial.
Now that having been said, the existing staff
has the ability to help bridge, because we
have a highly talented staff that's there.
But you can't do this permanently.
And so when we considered all the different impacts
implications. This is really the best approach to it. And also, you know, you'd
mentioned going through that Lean Six Sigma process. Having that in place as
new people come on would be able to offer clarity for what these processes
are. And so it actually would be a benefit. That's a nice way of looking at
it. Councilmember Francois? Still questions? Questions and comments? Okay. We're blending in.
So maybe for the assistant city manager or city manager just I know part of this
first of all I want to I'll ask a question first and then I'll thank say
what a great job we've all done. You balanced a lot of things in this budget
that was clear to me and it was difficult kind of drawing from certain
funds making other cuts and very commendable and I see general plan there.
one area that I'd like to ask a little bit about are kind of our economic
development priority, the downtown enhancements, and particularly the the
outdoor dining program. And so kind of what's our experience been kind of with
the program? Is there anything in the budget that would help give that a little
oomph, a little push to get some more outdoor dining happening in the downtown?
good evening Charles Ching assistant city manager that's a great question
ever since we the the economic development division within the city
manager's office has put a lot of effort in relaunching the outdoor dining
program there's been a lot of misinformation that's been floating
around around cost in the process and whatnot and a couple of weeks ago we've
we've relaunched the program and it seems like we're getting some traction
around and more energy around exploring outdoor dining opportunities. But to
your question around the budget there is no funding that we put into that but in
terms of effort we're really putting a lot of attention and focus on outdoor
dining. I appreciate that. Have we seen and I appreciate the efforts that were
made on the relaunch and the clarifying the cost of the structures which are
still somewhat substantial right fifty or sixty thousand dollars correct and
then plus the architect fees and and then the city part of it there then
there's that's the on the upfront capital costs and then there's an
ongoing expense part of it where a restaurant owner would have to lease a
space or two from the city at a cost that's correct the the intent is is cost
recovery for the city. These pods take valuable parking spaces that that the
city derives revenue from and so the intent is not to make revenues above and
beyond what we would normally get but just to recover the cost that we we
would lose by installing a pod. And I know the the relaunch process is
relatively fresh but have we seen any applicants come in yet with wanting to
outdoor dining? We don't have an official application in hand we have talked to a
number of restaurant owners who've expressed interest and was planning on
submitting but we do not have any applications in hand. Okay I think that's
probably it for the questions on that for now thank you. Can I add on to that
one? Yeah and I think the parking revenue right we'll have a small I mean
those funds are used for downtown improvements right we'll have a small
fund balance at the end of 26 and 27 to the tune of like 300 plus thousand each
year so there's potentially some money there right that we could we could
allocate towards incentives there is obviously that's that's gonna be a
council decision and whether or not that's something you'd want to do any
Any more questions, any comments, any grand thoughts before we send these people off to
Capital Budget Land?
Yeah, well first of all I want to thank Randy and Kirsten and kind of the whole finance
staff.
I know how much work goes into this.
I did serve on the finance committee and you learn a lot by doing it.
I wasn't an accountant but it was interesting and I know how much of the leg work goes into
And I'm really appreciative, especially it's it's certainly easier to do when you're looking at surpluses and it's a lot harder when you're not
So I appreciate that
I also appreciate the work on my two colleagues here the mayor and the mayor pro tem
For doing all the heavy lifting on the finance committee and bringing something to us. It looks looks really good
I mean we can make kind of trims around the edges, but I
Agree with you know, I asked the questions the concerns that I had about
Potential cuts in or holding off on filling positions. I should say in City Manager and community development
So I'd like to just continue to monitor that and make sure that we're still able to kind of meet our priorities
As we go forward
on the measure there were questions raised about the measure Oh oversight
We do have a measure Oh a citizens measure Oh oversight committee
and so I'd like us to, and I know we publicize that in the nutshell, I get
more information out there about kind of their findings and then especially as we
go out to bond financing, you know, if there's a presentation to the council on
that in addition to that committee so that we're being public and everyone
knows and we're being transparent about how that process works. And then I do, I'd
like to see us, I mean, I do, you know, the general plan is everybody knows that's
my pet issue and I'm a land-use lawyer, but I I see that that is is funded
adequately, but I think we also need to make sure that there's adequate funding
for our other priorities. In economic development, downtown enhancements was
kind of a critical issue. The downtown community was really instrumental in
supporting Measure O and I know that I'd like to see and we include it in our
priority specifically included outdoor dining and I know we have one
structure now I'd like to just have more than one and I think that there's a way
if there's a way for us to provide some incentives or concessions on a one-time
basis to offset that kind of significant upfront cost that a restaurant owner has
to incur to put in that pod I'd like to see us explore doing that and I think
their you know council member Davini mentioned the potential surplus and or
the surplus in the parking fund I think there's also the possibility of looking
at measure O funds for for this basis and I'd like to see us look into that I
know one of the items that's I've talked to staff about it that they have asked
from the restaurant owners in the downtown community is a little bit about
some financial information about what it takes to recoup your costs on one of
those downtown structures.
So I think if we could get that information
before we finalize the budget,
we'd be in a better position
to kind of make a final recommendation
on putting some money towards additional concessions
in that regard.
And those are my comments, thank you.
Thank you.
Mayor Pro Tem?
Well again, thank you to Kirsten and Rindy
and the team on the financial end of things.
it's a lot of detailed work.
I think that Walnut Creek really is the beneficiary
of the prudent, or I should say
the financially prudent aspect that we put into this.
There are other cities that I've come across
that when they have a deficit, they spend reserves on it.
And I'm not talking about an emergency deficit
like we had during when COVID first hit.
I'm just talking about trying to make expenses,
which is not the way to go.
So while a lot of this work is detailed
and behind the scenes and the residents
we'll never see it, I know how important that is
to be able to do that and to make our budget
and to do it with as little impact perception-wise
as the community.
It also seems like if you have a balloon
and you try to fix a budget and spend money in one area,
it's like it pokes out somewhere else
and so it's hard to keep that balloon
in that round shape when it comes to the budget.
I do appreciate Council Member Francois's comments
on outdoor dining, I do wanna see what we can do
to help with that.
I don't know if that means dedicating resources
that would be financial in a financial sense toward that,
but I think we can all agree that during COVID,
the one silver lining was we had truly the downtown area
that everybody talked about when it came to like
a Euro style dining, and we had to take a lot of those down
due to the roadwork and utility work that we did on Locust.
And it's hard to get the momentum to come back
from something like that.
And so I would like to see what we can do in that aspect
because that drives everything.
It is truly the economic driver of our city.
And so as much as we can put into that,
I think we would see the benefits
that would come out of that.
So I do like that, I'm glad that you mentioned it.
and I'm, you're the liaison to Walnut Creek downtown.
So I'm sure that's exactly what you've heard
from our restaurant community as well.
With that, again, I appreciate the work.
I know that we have more work to do on this,
but I think it's a great start.
Council member Defending.
So as my first time going through this process
of a two year budget, it's been very interesting.
And, you know, thank you, Kirsten, for meeting with me
and helping me to digest all of this.
I want to give a tip of the hat to my former predecessors,
because I think that we have been
a pretty fiscally responsible city.
And it's great to see how we have these reserves
and how the money is being moved around.
And after having read through the previous reports
and then watched your presentation,
your presentation was the best, the most succinct of all of that.
So thank you for putting that together.
I've already sort of shared some of my thoughts and concerns.
I echo my council members' positions
on the outdoor dining.
And I think that we can look at how we may help that process.
Not just as a, how do we help these businesses?
But really, I mean, the community
loved that, the outdoor dining.
I mean, they really did.
So I think that it would be a great bonus to the community
to use some of the dollars to help that process along.
And then I do have some concerns.
I know it's really cuts are hard.
I do have some concerns, though, with vacancies
in the PD at a historic high as far as that 7 to 9 position.
And then the cuts that we're proposing to overtime
may ultimately, you know, come back to Biden's
cause we didn't budget for things that we need.
And on the theme of keeping our downtown safe,
and I know we have like, what?
Three times the average retail theft of like a similar city
just because of all the retail we have,
that I think that outdoor,
that downtown presence is important.
So, but thank you for the argument.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
This is a hard budget because we are in budget uncertainty
with a lot of things moving around and so I think what I see that you guys have
done is done your best shot at what makes sense given what we think might
happen and clearly what we think might happen might not be what happens and so
we're going to have to keep a close eye and we want to keep a close eye on
downtown vitality, public safety downtown,
economic development, I think, you know,
in the finance committee, we spent a lot of time
on how those areas were being adjusted.
And I think the proposal that you guys have
for the general fund right now really is doing a decent,
you know, good job, but we'll definitely need
to keep our eye on it as we go forward.
If we end up with, you know, an increase in crime rate,
or if we're unable to meet our permit streamlining objectives.
And then on the downtown dining, Kathy and I have talked about it today.
I do want to see, you know, it's a balance.
I understand that people love the outdoor dining, but people also love parking.
And we have to find a way to balance those things.
And I'm looking forward to seeing the work that Walnut Creek Downtown is doing with its members
to come up with a pro forma of how this might work economically for the different restaurants
and then we can look at that and see is there something that we as the city can do to help
make that happen and what are the you know make sure that we're not taking helping here
and causing impacts there so we'll have to come up with something that balances and I
did I already gave you my how to explain measure oh better thoughts but overall you guys are
are doing good I look forward to coming back to finance committee and do you
guys need a motion on this one or are you just feeling good about well I would
like a little more clarity and if there's can synthesize direction from
council what I heard is a theme and the overarching was outdoor dining to get
additional information from Walnut Creek downtown in terms of the pro forma
relative to a pod once we have that information to look at options for maybe
how to address challenges or to better support outdoor dining.
I don't know if that's going to happen before a finance committee candidly, but we can always
address that and adjust the budget at a future time, depending on the timing that's required
to complete that analysis.
I also, I mean, that was the overarching theme I heard.
Yeah, I think on that one, it's definitely, let's look at the information.
I don't think I'm, don't think I'm hearing it, absolutely, we want to do this or this.
Right.
That was the main theme that I heard amongst the four of you, obviously, of the rather
individual comments but I haven't heard it collectively. Yeah I think on I think
you summarized it well Dan and I think that kind of to me it's it's a quite on
the outdoor dining an issue of kind of coming up with some objective standards
and managing expectations and I think they're related so I think that we would
be kind of I think the information that the restaurants and Walnut Creek
downtown could provide in terms of the upfront costs could give us information
that we could use to justify kind of options in terms of incentives or
concessions that the city might be able to help with on the operational
standpoint and just making it clear that it's a you know that so I would like to
see the information I think staffs asked for it it's not a surprise and Walnut
Creek downtown I know is working on it so we'd have that information it would
feed into kind of how we directed you on your options.
And just making it clear, too, that I do think,
and we get a lot of requests from people.
It breaks my heart, because we get these letters
from people who say, why do I have to pay
when I take my daughter to the library?
So we have to balance and manage the expectations
that outdoor dining is important and downtown is important.
So we need to have a standard, I think,
like, hey, a restaurant owner is having to incur
this significant expense to try to enliven our downtown and so as a result
we're providing kind of some sort of benefit for them so I I think we'll get
there I mean I don't know that it's it's not quite fully cooked yet no but
yeah it'll get there yeah we need to turn up the oven a little bit more and I
think we'll have to look at what are the options you know whenever there's a
couple different places that people were talking about funding, using funding, and
there's pros and cons on each one of those and we'll have to look to you guys
to help us understand those pros and cons. From a procedural standpoint, are we
giving our suggestions on things we'd like to see in the budget right now? What
we're trying to do is give staff some coordinated input that they could take
they can put into the budget.
And how specific did you want us to be at this level?
Some general direction if there are changes
that you would like to see compared to what was proposed,
what those would be.
I mean, we don't need finite numbers necessarily,
but if there's some direction.
I would also add, obviously, we're coming back on June 3rd.
There is an opportunity to modify then,
but if you know now collectively
that there are some things that you would like changed
compared to what we presented would be helpful to know now
and we can incorporate that when we come back on June 3rd.
So, I mean, one idea would be to like wave
a year's worth of rental on the parking.
I was suggesting if there were other things.
I thought I heard consistent direction
on the outdoor dining.
Yeah, I think on the outdoor dining,
I think we're saying look at the pro forma,
have staff think about what are the options
that could help make that a successful program
and what are the costs associated with that
and bringing it back to us.
All right.
Okay and then I have my concern about our police overtime.
So is there a way we can adjust that?
Well I would defer to counsel if a majority of the council
wants us to adjust the overtime budget
and we can come back with options for what that looks like,
what the offset would have to be elsewhere in the budget
and what the impacts would be.
I guess my, you know, I defer to the chief more on this,
but too, it seemed to me that, you know,
kind of the budget had been vetted by him and his department
and that they were comfortable in making
kind of those adjustments.
We have seen high overhead numbers in past years
that you kinda wanna be cognizant of that for certain,
for sure.
You don't wanna incur or have one or two officers
incurring too much over time.
So I think that's a concern.
I'd like to, if we're gonna put our efforts,
and I completely agree with your comment
that keeping our city and the downtown in particular
where there's a lot of retail establishments,
a safe area for people to want to come to
is of paramount importance.
But if we were gonna put our efforts somewhere,
I think I'd like us to see that maybe double down
or we have the recruitment effort,
maybe give it a little bit of extra push
and see if we can get some of those vacant positions filled.
Mayor Pro Tem, what's your?
Yeah, well, I mean, when it comes to that,
I really defer to the department
to let us know what they need
and then we could potentially adjust a little bit,
But I, the chief and his executive team is,
I feel comfortable in telling us what's needed.
And usually we affirm that at that point,
rather than saying, no, no, no, you need more.
Or, I don't think we've ever said you need less.
But, so I really defer to that.
And I would ask that, or I would suggest that
during the finalization of the budget process,
just continue to work with the PD
to find out what their needs are.
Yeah, and we tested this issue
when we were in finance committee.
If we reduce that budget, are we still gonna,
keeping our downtown safe is very important
for the economic vitality and the sense
of belonging in the city.
And I think when we talked about it in finance committee,
the chief was standing behind his,
is saying this is something that will meet those objectives.
And actually I think it should be said
that when there have been issues
that have been happening at downtown,
and we've heard in a few instances over the last year,
for example, whether it was bad actors,
whether it was some issues that happened
close to closing hours, and we had asked the city manager
who then relayed it to the chief
to put some extra rotations around there
and to have an extra, I think now is there an extra sector
that includes downtown or everybody has downtown included
in it, this has all been out of our discussion points
that there haven't been additional budget
that's then been dedicated to police for that.
It's just been reallocating some of the resources
which I think have been done very effectively.
So it's using the resources needed
a little bit more efficiently when needed.
And I'm not saying that that's needed now,
I'm just saying I appreciate what you've done
when it has been needed.
So does that give you the direction you're looking for?
I think so, if you're all comfortable with that.
Okay.
Any other areas that people want to spend a little time on?
I mean, we did get the public comments about traffic safety
and pedestrian safety and I know it dovetails
with the capital budget that we will get to shortly.
So just want to make sure that, and I appreciate,
Spadar, the explanation that kind of a lot of that funding
is coming from things that are not general fund dependent.
So I just want to keep assuring ourselves and the public
that we're moving forward kind of with all those
great programs that you're working on about safe routes
to schools and making it easier and safer
for people to walk and bike around the community.
And as we heard from an earlier comment tonight,
part of that, I think, is an education component.
I was on my street yesterday and saw a young man
on his bike, an e-bike, without his helmet,
doing some not very smart things.
And so I think that kind of getting that information
out there kind of on the bike to anywhere day,
as much as we can, I think is helpful.
Okay, capital budget.
Thank you very much, and thank you to staff
for helping to answer questions.
I think we're good to go.
All right.
Good evening, Mayor Darling, city council,
and members of the public.
My name's Alex Wong.
I'm the senior civil engineer
for the capital improvement program.
Thank you for the opportunity to present
the draft 2026 to 2027 capital budget,
and also the 2026 to 2035 capital improvement program.
So tonight, I will go over
the 10-year capital improvement program
and the two-year capital budgets.
I will go over their development process,
discuss the key program components.
As we progress through the presentation,
I will highlight a couple of projects
in the 26 and 27 capital budgets.
Then I will conclude with answering questions
and receive public comments.
And the goal here tonight is to receive feedback
on the draft fiscal year 2026 to 2035
capital improvement program and the draft 2026 to 2027 capital budgets.
So what's the difference between the capital improvement program and the capital budget?
The capital improvement program, which is often referenced as the 10-year CIP or just
the CIP, is a long-term planning tool with five two-year cycles.
It does not allocate funds, as it is a planning document, but it does provide vision and defines
priorities. And it optimizes the city for grants and donation opportunities. As in the capital
budget, it's a two-year cycle that's approved every other year, and it allocates funds for
specific projects for implementation. It's influenced by the first two-year cycle of the
CIP, and it incorporates a response to grant awards. So, starting with the 10-year capital
improvement program. Let's start with some background. The 10-year CIP posed from a variety
of stakeholders, including staff, transportation and pros commission, and the city council.
In addition, it posed projects from adopted plans including the maintenance master plan,
transportation improvement program, and parks and specific plans. The 10-year CIP informs
the capital budgets. The first cycle of the CIP is the proposed capital budgets. The CIP
is a long-term 10-year planning tool, prioritizing programs and projects over five two-year cycles.
It provides direction for future projects and creates a plan for outside partners such
as MTC, CCTA, Caltrans, and the county with grant opportunities and alignment with regional
projects. So what are the key project groups? So we have discretionary projects, which include
the downtown projects, transportation, parks and open space, climate resiliency, and facilities
projects. As in the non-discretionary group, this includes all the asset management projects.
And this is how it's organized in the CIP and in the capital budget documents. So these
The non-discretionary projects, these are enhancements to the city.
They include improvements to downtown and facilities, transportation betterments, upgrades
to parks, vilification, expansion of existing infrastructure.
These projects are based on adopted plans, and most of the funds have restricted uses.
They're not legally required projects, but they enhance the city's services and benefits
the public.
While the non-disquestionary projects, these are maintenance projects that perform upkeep
of city's existing infrastructure.
They meet safety needs and legal requirements.
They meet maintenance of effort levels for outside funding such as gas tax and Measure
J. So let's get a little more detail into the non-disquestionary asset management projects.
So these projects prevent costly emergency repairs and addresses issues before they become
critical. They maximize asset lifespan through proactive maintenance and they improve budgeting
and resource allocations by planning ahead. They support decision making for prioritizing projects
and funding and they ensure long-term sustainability by addressing both aging infrastructure and new
projects preventing future financial strain.
On the right here in the slide, you can see the different assets.
We have 73 buildings of different sizes, 22 parks, 2,704 acres of open space, 195 street
center miles, 30 vehicular-carrying bridges, over 90 miles of strong drain, 100 traffic
signals and 16, 1,660 city-owned streetlights. So with all these assets, how do we keep
track and maintain these components in the infrastructure? This is where we have the
maintenance master plan, which is also sometimes referenced as the MMP. The goal of the plan
is to preserve the value of the existing capital investments and provide long-term program
maintenance. So the MP consists of multiple asset management database programs. For example,
we have an asset management program for our facilities. We inventory each of the major
components to each of the facilities. We get into details such as when the individual HVAC
units were installed, when they were last serviced, and what their service life is.
We also perform conditional assessments annually at each facility with walk-throughs of maintenance
staff and users to determine the needs and to prioritize or to defer projects.
So oftentimes, more projects, there are more projects than available funding.
So this requires the projects to be deferred.
This is where we lean on our maintenance staff to keep these assets operating until the funds
available for future cycles.
Also with asset management data, we apply maintenance strategies and prioritize projects
into the 10-year CIP.
So how do we prioritize the projects in the CIP?
So in addition to the condition assessments and application of maintenance strategies,
we evaluate projects based on their urgency, their needs, and their impacts.
We look at potential funding sources and we discuss priorities with maintenance and department
heads.
We set timelines for each project, broken down to multiple two-year funding cycles.
So looking at the project categories, here we are showing the demand for projects by
cycles and project categories.
The categories are here on the right.
It's the asset management category, downtown transportation, parks and open space, climate
resiliency and facilities projects.
So you can see that we're consistent with asset management projects.
This is the gray ball on the left.
And that the other categories demand varies on the specific projects are forecasted.
So for example, in 2627, we have programmed a large investment in parks projects.
This is our Edder Farm Aquatic and Community Center project.
And in 30 and 31 and 32 and 33, there's a demand for transportation projects.
But just because there's demand for improvements doesn't mean there's funding.
of projects in this update to the CIP have been slipping to future funding cycles, waiting
for funding. So, early in the year, City Council provided
five council priorities. There are four that aligns to the projects in the capital program,
with the public safety and social wellness, parks and recreation facilities, environmental
sustainability and climate action and economic development and downtown vitality. And just
reviewing the project categories we have under the lens of the Council priorities, we're
aligning the categories that best align with each of the Council priorities. So the first
group there, we have the asset management projects and the transportation projects and
these projects best align with the public safety and social wellness Council priority.
We have about 75 million that's going toward asset management and 59 million toward transportation
totaling about $134.6 million that's going toward traffic safety and social wellness.
With the open space, parks and open space projects and the facilities projects, this
best aligns with the council priority for parks and recreation facilities for a projected
$93.9 million.
Looking at the climate resiliency projects, we have $8.9 million going toward the environmental
sustainability and climate action.
So climate resiliency is a new project category created where we have lumped in projects such
as our sustainable action plan and green infrastructure, as well as you added projects toward
Greek restoration, watershed habitat improvements, and implementation of EV charging infrastructure.
Last category there, we have the downtown projects with 8.3 million going toward economic
development and downtown vitality.
So this is really just a simplified approach to aligning the capital projects to the council
priorities.
Many of the projects proposed in the CIP and capital budget actually align with multiple
council priorities.
So moving to the fiscal year 26 and 27 capital budgets.
So where are we in the budget process and who's involved?
So first we identify a bill of funding with the finance division, then we meet with each
of the departments.
So early in the year, on January 16,
we met with the Transportation Commission.
We presented the transportation-related projects
in the capital budget and the CIP.
And then after that, we went to the PROS Commission,
and we talked about the PROS projects in the capital budget
and also the CIP.
Next, we went to the Finance Committee back in April,
and we went through the funding for the capital budget.
And then after that, we went to the planning commission
and we presented the CIP for general plan performance.
And now we're at city council
for the capital budget and the CIP together.
The total for fiscal year 26 and 27 capital budget
is 108 million over the two-year cycle.
So here are some highlights here on the left.
We have a total of 22 million, 22.2 million
going toward asset management projects.
So this includes a large grant project
for the bridge replacement on South Main Street.
We also have another grant project
to repave Ignatial Valley Road from Oak Grove Road
up to the city limits.
For transportation projects, we also have several grants here.
We've received a traffic safety grant for safety improvements
on Ignatial Valley Road.
And we also have traffic mitigation funding
from the county development, the Glenn,
that will go toward improvements on Ignatius Valley Road also.
Going to parks, we have our header farm, aquatic,
and community center projects.
And downtown, parking in downtown,
we have our deck repair at the North Lucas garage project.
Climate resiliency, we have our sustainability projects.
And for the facilities, we have a project
to install fiber communication from Macnachel Valley Road to the new community center.
Hey Alex on the asset management, do we, for the South Main Street bridge repair, that's
primarily reliant on federal grant funds, is that right?
Yes, we have a bridge, federal bridge program grant that pays for 89% of the project.
Have we received all those funds already?
We get those funds in the phases.
So there's a preliminary engineering phase which covers the design and environmental
and there's right-of-way phase that covers the right-of-way work and then we after we
get those phases clear they'll allocate the construction funding with that and we haven't
gotten an allocation for the construction yet but we have been allocated for the P and
the right-of-way.
away. Do you foresee any issues with us getting those funds? I don't. You don't
have a crystal ball. But we've received the funding for the design work and the
environmental. Yes, the funds receive an arrears so we
occur to funding and the invoice couch hands back and they pay us back for what
we spent. And then just quickly on the Glen traffic improvement funds we haven't received
any monies yet from that developer have we? Yes we actually we actually received the check
for it. Okay. In one check. Okay nice and are there projects planned for that yet or
are you still talking with the Transportation Commission about it? Yes there's several projects
or intersection improvements and actually that's on a slide that's coming up.
All right.
Thank you.
Yeah.
All right.
So, again, reviewing the capital budget project categories under the lens of the council priorities,
we have 28.7 million of asset management and transportation projects that's going to a
public safety and social wellness.
The parks and open space projects, we have the 78 million going to parks and rec facilities.
600,000 of climate resiliency going to environmental sustainability and climate action and 700,000
from downtown toward economic development and downtown vitality.
So here's a look at all the different funding sources that's going into the capital budgets.
So the funding amount for the general funds of $3.85 million, Measure J and gas tax of
million downtown and parking funds. These three funds, the total funds is consistent
with prior cycles. I know earlier we didn't mention that the general fund, we did have
to make up about 600,000 from us having to close some projects that's already been completed
over their priorities shifted, but we're going to free those funds up and put those funds
back in here to fund some of the asset management projects that's needed for this cycle. And
looking at the traffic impact fee and the in-loop park dedication fee. So these two
are developer fees and they have been lower than typical ever since 2024. Our developer
fees have been low and then also projection when 26, 27 it's also low. So those two categories,
the funding from those two categories are lower than typical with this upcoming cycle.
But what is also unique in the cycle is that we have a lot of grant funding.
We have the Federal Highway Bridge Program.
We have a year mark grant.
We have a safety highway safety improvement grant.
And I think we also have a more local ASIC grant which I'll get into later on.
At measure O, we have the measure O reserve
that was set aside for 24 and 25,
plus a portion of 26 hanging up to that 22.5
for the construction of the
Heather Farm Aquatic and Community Center.
And then the 45.75, that's the additional financing
we anticipate needing for the construction
of the Heather Farm Aquatic and Community Center.
The nine million of others,
So this is funds that were already set aside in the previous two capital budget cycles
for the initial design and then some of the earlier construction for the hellethon aquatic
center project.
Under others, on the very end, mitigation in internal, that's the Glenn mitigation funds
and also the internal service fund from IT department to fund the fiber work for the
community center. All right. So we got this on the project here. So we're showing these
projects in relation to the council priorities. This first one here is the headphone park
aquatic and community center project meets the council priority toward parks and recreation
facilities to this project will replace the Clark swim center and the uniform community
and its design is near completion now with construction scheduled for 2026. Next we have
the clock pool and pool house repurpose master plan. This house also aligns with council
priority toward parks and recreation facilities. So with the completion of the new aquatic
center, the project also includes demoing the existing pool and pool house. So the first
phase will be to create a master plan for the repurposing of this area. Next project
here is actually two projects and these two projects align with council priority toward
public safety and social wellness. So this first project here is the Ignacio Valley Road
intersection improvements and these are the funds that we received from the Glen development
and the plan improvements at these four intersections. We have the Ignacio Valley Road and March
Banks intersection. Ignacio Valley Road and Ken Ross intersection and Ignacio Valley Road
and the Saint College in this section.
And then we're also gonna be updating the intersection
of March Banks and Kinross Drive also.
The second project here
is the Highway Safety Improvement Program.
This is a grant that was recently,
city was recently awarded.
This includes intersection improvements also
for Ignacio Valley Road and Walnut Boulevard,
Ignacio on Wimbledon, Ignacio on Wigot,
and Ignacio on Via Monte.
So moving to this next project here,
There is this affordable housing and sustainable community grant project.
So this project would provide sustainable transportation infrastructure consistent
with the city's North Downtown specific plan.
This project's an opportunity to work with two developers to implement a traffic lane
reconfiguration on North Broadway.
So in addition to some bicycle improvements on this project, there's actually bicycle
improvements in several locations in the downtown area and then also includes pedestrian improvements
at several locations. Next we have this south main street bridge replacement project. So
this project is geared toward maintaining the city's infrastructure. This project will
remove the existing bridge and replace it with a new bridge. So again, right now we're
We're near the completion of design, and we're moving toward the right-of-way phase.
We're coordinating utilities on utility relocation, and also starting to work with some of the
adjacent properties on some right-of-way work and some temporary construction easements
to get access.
So next we go to the arterial overlay.
So just to follow up with the repaving work that was done this last month on Ignacio
Valley Road. This project is scheduled to repave nation Valley Road from Oak Grove Road
up to the city limits to Concord. This project is partially funded by a community benefits
grant that's sponsored by Congressman Mark Desengue. The improvements include repaving
the street surface and also some traffic safety countermeasures to reduce vehicle speeds and
also enhance pedestrian safety. Next here we have the North Locust Street parking garage concrete repairs.
So the North Locust, so one of the priorities for the downtown projects is to maintain our parking
garages. So three of the four garages the city owns and operated were built in the 70s and the 80s
and there's needs for repairs. So this project will implement repairs to the garage decks
as recommended by a garage evaluation.
Next, we have the sustainable action plan project.
So these projects may include implementation
of clean energy technology from solar panels,
battery storage, electrification of the electric building
and equipment, implementation of on-bill financing programs
for city facilities and also EV charging.
And our sustainable ability project here
Here's the green infrastructure improvements.
So green infrastructure facilities are used to filter roadway runoff before they enter
their storm drain and into local creeks and the bay.
So their implementation also a permanent mandate from the state of California clean water board.
So we're looking for council to provide feedback on the draft 26 to 27 capital budget and also
the 26 to 25 capital improvement program.
That includes the presentation.
Thank you, Alex.
Nice job.
A whole lot of concrete there.
Questions?
On slide 16, the financing through Mejro, the $45 million is what we need to finance.
It's not actually what we're going to pay to finance.
It's what we need to finance to come up with you add so the total project is 77 million
So if you have to measure all plus the financing plus the other that that's up to 75 77
But our cost will be another will be higher than that. Yes. Yeah, okay cuz a
Yeah, I think
That's all my question
If I may if you somebody clarifying that we're anticipating obviously
There's a lot of unknowns agree with our speaker earlier today
Looking at multiple scenarios as we prepared it to issue bonds relative to the project
But the calculations we did previously looking at the money. That's been accumulated thus far plus setting aside the 9 million a year
The project comes in roughly in budget. Obviously, there's there's some allowance for variation there
We should have enough to pay for the project including the interest costs and the end as well as the issuance cost
as part of that. It wouldn't be beyond that.
But just to, you know, full transparency, the cost to us will be more like 87 million
instead of 77, won't you include, like, the financing or the financing cost to us?
Financing, if you're suggesting the interest that we would have to pay on the bonds, yes.
There are various scenarios we looked at, depending exactly how much, how much, how
many, with the dollar value of the bonds that we issue plus the interest rate, as well as
the payback period we'd like to time the bond issuance relative to the tie it to
the duration of measure O meaning it'd be paid off by the time measure O would
expire so there are some variables there but yes you are correct it would be
above that I don't recall those off top my head but certainly we would share
those as we move forward and looking at the different scenarios my question so
your traffic impact fee and your in lieu park dedication you say those are lower
Are the numbers that you have for the 26 27 are those dollars that are in hand or based on?
projected
fees coming in
See I
They're there in there in hand. I think they were like only about two projects that I can remember
I think one of them's already in construction
Okay, and then the the planning for the
repurposing of Heather farm
The demolition of Clark is that in
Where is that in the budget? Is it part of the?
Yes, it's it's a part of that
It's part of the 77 million that's that that was I thought that was the case and but then
And so now we're picking up the I think it's 250,000 to start
Replanning and planning for what we do with that property after we demo to the demolition. Yes
Okay, thanks
Councilmember Frans what?
Just following up on that on the bridge replacement. Will that happen during the 25?
27 capital budget cycle
That's what we're planning but
That's Caltrans and funding goes it's there. They're driving it
And the bridge needs to be taken down completely in replace
Yes, that's that's the plan
the plan right now is to install a pedestrian bridge first and
Relocate the utilities onto the pedestrian bridge and then we demo the bridge and then put it back up
Might cause some traffic issues downtown
So traffic will be rerouted kind of to Broadway and and California. Yes, that's that's the plan at Botelho and
Newell and letting people into Broadway Plaza for how long of a period of time are we estimating?
The plan is for for a one
season construction inside the creek just because the creek
It's seasonal. We can't work inside the creek between the surface between certain months just because it's a
full
So yeah, we're anticipating that first year as as demoing and putting in the the
foundation and the
Supports and then we start like putting in the span doing the second year
So it sounds like it'll make the loca street pipe project look like a piece of cake by comparison
In terms of the master planning process for the current Clark Swim Center, when are we starting when will that?
That start with pros and then work through the various commissions before it comes to
Counselor. What's the timing on that?
Yeah, so in terms of the planning it'll start with
The pros will do some community outreach. We'll do a variety of different
You know just outreach to the community at pop-ups that sort of thing
Starting this year
Yes, or our plan is to start later in the year probably in the fall. Okay. Thank you
anything else
public comment on
capital improvements
Okay
We are not a lively bunch on this do you feel
Are there anybody feel compelled make closing statements go? Yeah, it's comment comment time. Okay. It's comment time
You are going first because everybody else is not they're doing I avoidance so okay. All right
so
Yeah, thank you for the presentation. That was very good
my my comments one of them pertains to
The sidewalks that were brought up earlier and where those fit in the capital budget or capital improvement program
Depending on where they are
But one of the issues being that certain areas of the city have no sidewalks, right?
And and and some are more impacted by that than others. There's higher traffic through there
I know we spoke about Larky earlier and like every every side street sort of like B lines for the freeway
So there's a tendency to want to drive
Faster in those areas and one
Idea that that's been brought up
is
using a special assessment district to finance to help finance in those localities in such an
Arrangement would the city then?
Also participate like would we come up with some arrangement where if the neighborhood could fund through a special
Assessment district a certain amount that we might
have it in the budget to fill in the gap there
to help those neighborhoods get the sidewalks that they want.
So one idea that I had,
I don't know if that's a question or more of a comment,
but does anyone, is that a thing that can be done?
It's certainly an option.
You just, and I don't know if we wanna have
our city engineers speak to how we prioritize projects
and look at things in just a moment here
in terms of traffic,
because you can imagine there are a lot of areas.
As you noted, throughout the city that have sidewalks,
have different, some that don't, or many that do not,
and various types of traffic issues.
In terms of an assessment district for a certain area,
obviously, however the geographic area is defined,
those folks would have to vote to effectively assess
or tax themselves to do that.
It's a two-thirds vote?
Depends how it's structured, but most likely.
This city would have to be involved
in terms of administering that process
and collecting those funds,
and then ultimately doling those out for projects.
It's certainly something that could be looked at,
we could explore those.
I do wanna highlight that is a very, very big lift
to do that, it's a very involved process,
not only in the city's half,
but on behalf of the residents
that might be interested as well.
So if that were something that certain neighborhoods
were interested in, we could explore it
and we'd have to come back and have discussions
about priorities and how that fits
with some other existing priorities.
So it certainly could be done,
but it's a significant look to do so.
Just wanted to get that out there
because I know that's been an area of interest
from the community.
Great, and I'll just go ahead and add,
just teeing off of what City Manager Bakshi
was mentioning about prioritization
for those types of facilities.
As I had mentioned before,
we don't currently use general funds
for building new sidewalks.
As Alex had presented on earlier,
we were talking about asset management,
we're maintaining our existing infrastructure, not looking at building new facilities.
Those are really those discretionary projects and filling those gaps and so we do have some
projects in the capital budget along with what's being proposed in the CIP that would
that can fill some smaller gaps, but it's not when we do try and do those types of gap
filling projects, we're looking to the general plan to guide us on what those locations should
and along with the council priorities and so that really looks and speaks to
areas around schools, high traffic areas for example in the downtown, connections
to any other kind of like really large pedestrian or or even bicycle depending
on you know what kind of thing we're building but generators and so those
connections to other larger facilities so that's how we prioritize where we
where we place that infrastructure.
And while you're up there, because I
think you are familiar with our bike master plan as well.
Is that right?
Yes.
So we were talking about in the downtown,
doing some bike improvements in the current capital budget.
I know an interest of mine, and I
think a number of other people have expressed this interest,
is trying to connect our trail systems from Walnut Creek
to the La Mirinda Trail system Iron Horse, right,
which is that Olympic corridor.
So I'm taking this opportunity to advocate for us
to put that into the budget in the near future
and see if we can't start on that project.
And while we're doing the downtown bike improvements now,
will we be at all accounting for the fact
that we might have that Olympic corridor coming?
Yeah absolutely, so two components,
there's two alignments that were actually called out
in that Olympic Boulevard corridor plan,
which is that connection from the Lafayette Trail
to the Iron Horse Trail.
One of them is along Newell Avenue,
and then one of them kind of goes around the freeway
and then connects along the Olympic Boulevard itself.
Olympic Boulevard's actually very challenging
because it prevents a very uncomfortable dynamic
between vehicles and cyclists
because of the freeway interchange.
So that Newell Avenue option has been explored and staff is actually
exploring it now and should be taking it to Transportation Commission soon but
they're actually doing a preliminary analysis. We have funding in a previous
cycle through the OBAG 3 grant funds to improve the Broadway Newell
intersection and that's really beneficial to the downtown Kaiser and
Los Lomas High School. And whatever improvements we do at that intersection
We don't want to preclude any improvements to Newell Avenue for bike connections, and
actually city staff will be at Broadway and Newell next Thursday for Bike to Wherever
Day doing outreach on exactly that on some Newell Avenue concepts, so we'll be collecting
feedback.
Great.
Maybe two other comments.
resurfacing in the capital budget while we're resurfacing the tennis courts at
Rudgier this summer. I would I would propose that we also resurface the
pickleball courts because they're pretty beat up as well and I think that's all
I have. Yeah we have enough plans right now I think the projects are a bit out
to resurface the three tennis courts at Rudgier and then three tennis courts at
Albalado. I think the pickleball courts were resurfaced in around 2018-2019.
The return cycle is usually around 10 years or so. It's currently, it's not due
but it's not currently planned but in an upcoming cycle we could, that's something
we could... They get a lot more use I think than the other ones. There's some
significant cracks and degeneration there. Yeah and we've taken a look at
that and that's something that's on our list. It's probably going to you know get
some work sooner rather than later. Back in 2018 there was some work it wasn't a
complete resurface as we looked at our records and so yeah so we're gonna go
back and take a look at that and just see how we can fit it into our program.
Thank you for putting all of this together. I know how much work it
involves and having seen it Finance Committee and appreciate we had seen
there I think we're on the right track on this and look forward to the next
iteration. Yeah same here you know we've seen in finance you guys do a good job
of maintaining our assets it is unfortunate that we don't have enough
general fund to do all the sidewalk replacement that people want but if
people you know are interested in doing something about it it's something that
we could weave in to future years but you know doing the benefit assessment
district and going through that process I don't think we have the capacity to do
it now and I think it would be something that we would have to look to the
neighbors to really champion in a very hearty way with a full understanding of
what sidewalk projects are deceptive you think it's just a sidewalk I mean what
is the Walnut Heights sidewalk project I mean that's every time I look at that
it's like wow that's really expensive it's about two two million yeah two
million for a couple blocks challenging yeah so Larky would be similar and it's
just it's just a fact of life you know my husband's an engineer so when we
We looked for our house.
He was absolutely insistent on curb gutter and sidewalk.
Great work.
I was having a nice presentation, and looking forward to seeing the particular site and
the park.
I thought someone was yelling at me, but I was ignoring them.
And the park master plan process, I think that's going to be exciting for Heather Farm.
And on the sidewalk, it is a challenge, right?
an area is already developed because normally as part of the development
process those sidewalks get built as part of that development and so to go
back and try to recreate them decades after the area has been developed is
challenging to say the least I think Smidart did a good job of explaining how
staff prioritizes those types of projects and I there is one in the Lark
area on Buena Vista near the school that has taken part of the roadway and
striped it as a sidewalk and added kind of bollards to create a safe space so
there are creative ways to do it and and doing it near the school makes sense
but we'll continue to work on that and I agree with council member Davini I'd
like to see that more more of a connection between the the trails the
Lafayette Maraga Trail and the Iron Horse Trail and excited that it might
be coming down Newell there and and excited about the those improvements I
think at that intersection where a lot of high school students are using that a
lot of folks are using that particular intersection at Newell and Broadway so
thanks for all the great work on this and look forward to seeing it well I
Well, I guess in June, right?
Yup.
All right, yeah.
Okay.
Thanks, Ella.
All right, thank you.
So are you feeling city manager buckshy feeling
like you've got the input that you need to fix,
to finish this?
I believe so.
Okay.
I mean, the two things raised obviously,
the trail connection, it sounds like there's work
underway to further that effort.
And in terms of tennis courts,
it's like we're taking a look at some options
for the pickleball courts that were referenced.
So it sounds like the two main items were addressed.
And then communicating to the people
that are interested in sidewalks what the options are.
I think you're well on the way
to getting that answer up to them.
And with that, I put my thing away.
Are we done?
I think we're done.
Yeah, that was rude.
All right, we are adjourned.
Thank you everybody for making it here
and thank you for those who enjoy budgets.