All right, given enough time.
Good evening, I'm Cindy Darling,
Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek
and welcome to the Tuesday, May 20th, 2025
regular meeting of the Walnut Creek City Council.
The City Council is conducting this meeting
from the City Council Chamber.
The 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 everybody 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 do desire to speak to an item
that's on the agenda this evening,
please hold your comments
until the City Council considers that item.
Additionally, we have a section on the agenda
titled Public Communication, which is for public comments
for items not on the agenda.
Any comments during 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,
30 minutes will be initially allocated
public communications for items not on the agenda. Additional time for public
communications for items not on the agenda will be provided at the end of
the open session portion of the meeting if necessary. If you desire to provide a
public comment, please complete a speaker identification card, your handy little
yellow cards, and line up behind the lectern at the appropriate time. Wait
your turn and then you approach the lectern. Please state your name and
your city of residence for the record. 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
efficiently and effectively and that all members of the public have a full fair
and equal opportunity to be heard. The City Council handbook outlines decorum
expected in the council chambers and can be found on our website. All remarks
should be addressed to the City Council. Please do not use threatening, profane or
abusive language which disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct
of the council meeting. Again, each speaker will have two minutes to make your remarks.
Written comments submitted and received up to two hours before the meeting have been
posted at the City's website for public review and are included in the meeting record but
will not be separately read into the record. So now will you please stand and join me in
the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag and to the republic for which
one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
you deputy city clerk Elena Branson would you please call the roll yes
council member Davini here councilmember Francois is absent councilmember Silva
here mayor pro-town Wilk here and mayor darling I'm here and I have heard from
councilmember Francois that he is expecting to be here traffic permitting
so we'll move on to our first proclamation as we all know this is the
month where we celebrate with our housing folks. Oops, that's public works.
We're gonna celebrate housing first and because it is affordable housing month
and Jan and I have spent the whole day together today so working on affordable
housing. So quality affordable homes are vital to a healthy safe and racially
just community. They foster racially and economically just community for all even
Even before our current high inflation rates, increasing housing costs have led longtime
residents to be displaced, to live in overcrowded houses, or experience homelessness, threatening
our region's diversity and economic opportunity.
So stable homes is the goal here.
It's the solution to homelessness.
It's the solution to keeping our kids healthy.
And it's the solution to building our community, having a place where everybody can both live
and work, so people don't have to drive all the way to Tracy to find a place to live.
We are experiencing a time when a lot of our federal funding sources are under risk,
and we're still not sure exactly what's going to happen there, but it makes the role of the city
and the other local and regional governments all that much more important in producing, preserving,
and protecting affordable housing opportunities
for our low-income residents.
And tonight, we have Jan Warren from,
what who are you from tonight?
Are you from the Interfaith Housing Coalition
or the Affordable Housing, why don't you come up
and tell us who you're representing tonight, Jan?
All right, good evening, everyone.
My name is Jan Warren and I'm chair
of the Multiface Action Housing and Shelter Task Force.
That's why I couldn't remember that, that's a really,
I'm also a member of Lafayette Christian Church,
and my church is also a member of EPO,
East Bay Housing Organization,
and we all just say EPO, it's a lot shorter.
It's an, EPO is a member-driven organization
convening a diverse coalition that advocates to produce,
preserve, and protect affordable housing opportunities
for low-income communities in the East Bay.
The membership is over 400 individuals and organizations,
which includes nonprofit affordable housing developers,
social service organizations, advocacy groups,
faith institutions and residents of affordable housing
across Alameda and Contra Costa County.
So you ought to be able to slip in there somewhere.
It is my pleasure tonight to thank the city council
of Walnut Creek for recognizing affordable housing month
and affirming your commitment to affordable housing
year after year after year.
I'm particularly happy to be able to receive
this proclamation on EPPO's behalf
as a 39 year resident in support of affordable housing
in the city of Walnut Creek.
EPPO and partners have created more than 30
public events this month across the East Bay
to educate our community about key aspects
of affordable housing and housing justice.
Mayor Darling, just this morning we were at a,
she was on the panel, I was out in the audience,
We had a great chair in discussion on re-imagining sacred faith lands along with collaboration
can lead to affordable permanent cottage communities.
This year EPPO celebrates its 41st birthday.
They've been working at this a long time.
There is still time to go to EPPO, E-B-H-O.org, to check out the activities that are going
until the end of the month.
I think really wonderful opportunities.
Or you can sign up as a member,
you can check out their Lunch and Learn,
and you can find links to success stories.
So I want everyone here to celebrate
and thank the Walnut Creek City Council
for continuing their commitment
to support a vision of a racially and economically
just East Bay where everyone has access
to a safe, stable, and affordable home.
Muchas gracias.
than not a, thank you, hold on.
Jan, we're not done yet.
I'm gonna meet you up there.
Did anybody else wanna add anything to?
I think we're, I'll come up here.
All right, I'll give you a hug.
I'm gonna go ahead and close this thing.
I know.
Here you are, ma'am.
Read it, enjoy it, and thank you for all that you do.
So you got a crayon for us?
All right.
The next time, the next presentation is public works.
Public works is something that is so important to our city.
It is something that we all take for granted
every day of the week.
It's the infrastructure, the facilities, the parks,
the open spaces, the services that are important
in making this a sustainable and resilient community
that we are.
It contributes to public health.
It contributes to the high quality of life,
the wellbeing of people.
It's why my family moved to Walnut Creek.
And we couldn't have all this infrastructure
without a dedicated crew.
We have 213 miles of streets, 171 miles of street marking.
I don't know how those don't match, but you know,
it ought to, but 1650 streetlights,
100 signalized intersections, 9,500 traffic signs
that have to be replaced on a regular basis.
Parking meters, street sweeping, catch basin, storm drains.
We're always finding more storm drains,
is what I thought was interesting when I took the tour.
parking lots, buildings, off-road, the on-road vehicles, equipment items, 22 parks and green
belts, over 300 acres and nearly 3,000 acres of open space with 9 miles of paved trail
and 43 miles of unpaved trail and over 30,000 trees and a whole bunch of rattlesnakes.
We are really indebted to our staff for maintaining this facility, for planning for their future
expansion and for being the people that when it starts to rain or things catch
on fire or stuff just happens are out there with all their equipment ready day
in and day out to step forward and take care of us all. So I want to call Rich
Payne up to get the to receive this proclamation. Okay thank you Mayor
Darley. Members of the council my name is Rich Payne. I'm the director of public
Works. And I stand up here honored to be able to receive this proclamation on behalf of
the entire Public Works team. And just being able to represent such a talented, dedicated
team is just a privilege to me. This proclamation, National Public Works Week, started yesterday
and we're sort of celebrating all week, but just really recognizing the efforts of our
often times I think the public doesn't realize a lot all the stuff that happens
behind the scenes I always like to look at public works as sort of the stage
hands behind the performance and that's what we do and it's those little things
that make Walnut Creek special it's the you know when they come into the city
citizens visit the city it's clean it's well taken care of and it takes a lot of
dedication from our city staff and specifically Public Works to be able to
do that. I want to thank the support that we get from our council and our city
manager and we really feel like there's a lot of trust and you show that in the
way you support our budgets the way you support us in the public and so we
really appreciate that and I know that I represent my entire staff and thanking
you for that so with that said I want to thank you again for this proclamation
and thank you Rich I think Cindy Silva has something that yes thank you to you
and your team and would you like to explain to the public how we can have
more lane miles of roads than lane miles of road markings and you can use my
street is an example. Okay, so there's some neighborhoods that don't have
center markings. So, primarily there's special streets in neighborhoods
typically traveled streets or main arterials, collectors, that sort of thing.
I knew there was a reason. Anyway, thank you Rich for you and all your staff from
all of us here. All right, at this time I'd like to invite Amelia Whelan, the
Wellness Coordinator at Los Lomas High School, and Stacy Schweppe, the newest
board member of the Akilani's Union High School District to come and give us a
presentation on what's going on down at Los Lomas with the Wellness Center and
the school. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you Mayor Darling for inviting us.
Mayor Pro Tem Wilk and Council Members Davini and Silva. We appreciate being here tonight.
So thank you so much for having us. I wanted to talk to you guys a little bit about the
Wellness Center, Los Lomas High School,
ways that we've been supporting youth within our community.
And also, of course, thank you guys
for your support of our program over the years.
Thank you.
All right, so really what we are
is we're a school-based mental health center,
and we support Los Lomas students
for essentially any challenge, any issue,
anything they might be facing or dealing with.
So students will often seek help
or be referred to us for help for an array of issues
that include anxiety, depression, you know,
even suicidality, other safety issues,
grief and loss, body image, alcohol and other drugs.
We actually have specific programming related to that
that I can talk about a little bit more.
Peer and family relationships, anger management,
and just any kind of major life transitions.
You know, we often see that with high school students
when they're getting ready to launch.
The transition to college can be incredibly stressful.
And on the other side of that,
transitioning from eighth grade to high school
can be a stressor as well.
So that's another thing we really look to support kids with.
But really, all different issues come through the door,
all different ways to support kids.
And we're there for them.
And so this is the data from last school year.
And because the data from this year is still preliminary,
but I'd say that it's on par with what we were seeing then.
So Los Lomas has approximately 1,600 students.
Wellness Center had approximately 2,870 visits
last school year for mental health support specifically.
And of that, a total of 275 unique students
were referred to wellness, but in terms of who access
services, so on their own volition in addition
to referrals, we're looking at over 500 unique students
access some form of mental health support
through the Wellness Center.
So we're a very highly utilized resource on the school campus.
There's a lot of trust between teachers and the community
and our program.
Students are frequently referred by friends as well,
which to me is like one of the kind of most powerful things
that we've seen as well.
All right, so in terms of what services we provide.
So we do provide direct clinical services
through the Wellness Center.
These are provided through myself.
I'm a licensed clinical social worker.
There's also what's called an intake specialist
who does kind of front of house triage
and initial support with students
kind of directing them to where they need to go.
But also, we're staffed by interns
who are either working towards graduate degrees
and counseling or some form of mental health
or post-masters interns.
People actually tend to return to intern for us
after they receive their master's degree.
They kind of fall in love with the center
and the work and just don't wanna leave us.
But in terms of what those clinical services look like,
we offer ongoing counseling.
So that can be in the form of both individual and group
therapy, where a student or group of students
is assigned to a clinician who meets with them
on an ongoing basis.
We also provide drop-in support.
So if a student needs to take a break during the school day,
maybe they're stressed out, maybe
they need to talk to somebody, they
can come down at any point during the day
and have access to the space or request an appointment.
And we are able to offer students drop-in appointments
when they come to the center.
So it's pretty instantaneous, the support
that they're able to receive.
In addition to that, we just kind of provide a calming
environment between classes.
So you can see these lovely thumbnails
that I wish I could take credit for,
but I'm no good with Canva.
But we'll have different events like Mindful Monday,
where there's a guided meditation at lunch.
We do Time Out Tuesday, where it's really
kind of directive, thoughtful, sort of like calming activities
that also kind of can reinforce any coping skills.
Students might be working on therapeutic Thursday is similar.
Fish Tank Friday is a very popular one.
That's where we live stream the Monterey Bay Aquarium
and play very calming music.
Students love it.
Whenever it's postponed,
they're always like ones that come in back.
So that's something that we provide as well.
We also do a lot of case management work.
You know, we wanna connect families and students
with resources and support outside of what we have
on the school campus.
We aren't always in the best position
to help in certain ways if we're looking at things
like maybe food insecurity or other resource issues.
So much of what we do is connect them
with community-based organizations
or help them navigate maybe like their insurance
in terms of accessing outside mental health support.
So one of the big things that we focus on
is really youth engagement and youth programming
and ensuring that what we do is incredibly responsive
what our kids need according to themselves and also give them the opportunity to communicate
with each other.
So really what we try and do is look at the presenting problems that we're seeing amongst
our youth but then really focus on activism and engagement with them.
So we have a number of student groups that are housed through wellness that we support.
We really try and like, you know, just support the kids in leading those efforts and we found
it to be incredibly effective.
of the groups that we run is called Bring Change to Mind, so that's actually a non-profit
organization that seeks to reduce the stigma of mental health on high school campuses.
We were one of the first schools in the state to be part of this program, I believe it was
about seven years ago.
We were one of the first ones, we were part of the pilot study.
It's lovely, they train our students, they provide us with grant money, they're a really
phenomenal community partner. So they support us in terms of having a student
club that seeks to reduce the stigma around mental health. We have a
leadership wellness committee so within our leadership program we have a group
of students dedicated to increasing mental health awareness on campus and
reducing stigma. They're also involved in many of the other groups. We have the
tobacco use and prevention education program which is through County Office of
Ed. They do a lot of work around educating fellow students around the
hazards of vaping and other substance use issues, we've been a partner with
them for a long time as well, and through them our, you know, through
County Office of Ed, we engage in other programming to support students. A new
program we have this year that I'm very excited about is substance free
athletics, specifically a program called Protect Your Game, where its student
athletes educating other student athletes about the hazards of substance
use, but it's really grounded in terms of athletic performance and impact
it has on them as an athlete.
Another thing that we're doing, and this is something I can delve into a little bit more,
is as part of our fentanyl naloxone awareness initiative, is we have a group of peer educators
that are focused on educating fellow students about the hazards of counterfeit pills and
also about naloxone through the nonprofit organization, excuse me, the nonprofit organization
Song for Charlie.
group we have through wellness is our English language learner student
Association it's kind of part of a larger newcomer initiative we're looking
to have on our campus you know we're the English language learner magnet school
within the district so much of what we look at is kind of aligning wellness
programming and protocol along with when we have newer students coming in how to
make them feel welcome make them feel successful in our school environment and
we also do collaboration with other student organizations so we'll reach out
to various student groups, ask them if they have a vision maybe for an event or an activity
they'd like to have and we work alongside them in planning that.
And one of the big things we've done that with is our wellness fair that we had just
a couple weeks ago where it was community partners, student groups, hundreds of students
attended.
It was a huge success.
So I mentioned this briefly.
This is something I'm particularly proud of us accomplishing at our school but, you know,
We've been working on a fentanyl and Narcan awareness initiative for many years now.
What we've done is we've looked at kind of spreading the word, increasing knowledge,
in terms of teachers, parents, and students in a very methodical way.
With our teachers, wellness has led professional development efforts in terms of educating
them about signs of overdose, how to administer naloxone, and about the fentanyl crisis in
general.
teachers were trained in terms of how to administer Narcan and also it was distributed to interested
staff members. For parents, we've focused a lot on education for them. We've had a
community panel education night, we have two years in a row now, which what it was was
we had a woman from the nonprofit organization, Song for Charlie, come out and she spoke a
bit about kind of her experience losing her son to an overdose. I was there as the representative
the school. Walnut Creek Police Department provided an officer as well and what it was
was we showed a documentary from the nonprofit organization and then parents had an opportunity
to ask questions of the of the panel. We've done that a couple years. It was very well received and
well attended. We've also planned for virtual parent education nights around this topic
that you know are accessible by recording and live for maybe those for people who can't attend
person who want that information. We've done a lot of work with students around
this as well. You know we've done academies which essentially what that is
is it's almost like a tutorial period worked into our school day almost like
office hours but what we do in wellness is we really utilize that time to
provide psycho ed like you know educational opportunities to students
and other kinds of support. So while we have them on an array of topics one of
of the things that we've focused on
is having fentanyl awareness academies.
And we've actually brought community partners in
to host those for students.
So we've had National Coalition
Against Prescription Drug Abuse,
a woman from their present in the past,
met the meds coalition from Contra Costa County.
They came through as well.
We've also helped with school assemblies,
Song for Charlie, the woman who was at the parent night,
spoke to our students and shared her story
and important information about this.
we've developed a peer awareness campaign, which is something particularly exciting.
We're actually piloting curriculum from the nonprofit Song for Charlie for peer educators
leading discussions about the topic and providing additional information.
And then also the development and distribution of educational materials.
You'll notice the flyer on there.
We actually worked with our peer educators and had them create that to make other students
aware that there was an RCAN on campus in case they suspected overdose so they could
tell a trusted adult and to the right of that you'll you'll see me the actually
the Department of Education was interested in terms of how we were
approaching this issue and asked that we you know we share kind of what what
we've been doing at Los Lomas right what else do we do so you know we provide
health supplies to students we do a lot of work with teachers and staff as well
you know they have more contact with the kids than we do. I always tell them
like you didn't realize you're gonna be a mental health professional when you
went into the field. So really a lot of what we do is we do professional
development with them. We've trained them around trauma-informed classroom, you
know we do a suicide prevention mental health awareness training with them every
year. We also let them know about our services so they can connect students
with us if they think that they benefit. We also provide teacher and staff with
consultation. So if there's a student who maybe they're
concerned about, they can meet with us, we can talk about the
circumstances kind of work alongside them in terms of
getting the kid the support that they need in class. We also
provide teachers and staff with resources and referrals, not
just like for their own position as an educator, but for
themselves as people. And we also do a lot of inter
departmental collaboration. So like we've done a lot of work
with the English language department this year around kind
of our newcomers program. And then also we do a lot of
consultation and collaboration outside of the school
and outside of the district.
County Office of Ed frequently connects other schools
with us who are looking to get wellness centers
off the ground in terms of what our protocol is
and our programming and just able to answer general questions
for others who are interested in doing what we do.
So thank you guys for your support.
The city's been supportive of mental health services
at Los Lomas long before the wellness centers existed,
that it's continued since.
We wouldn't be able to do what we do without you.
So thank you for having me here
and giving me the opportunity
to talk a little bit about what we do.
Thank you for all you do for our students.
I think we all agree,
it's something that's super important for them.
Are there any questions for the Los Lomas presenters?
Council Member Silva.
I'll just echo the mayor's comments of thank you.
My daughter went to Los Lomas.
I was PTA president years ago,
and we called it a crisis center there.
And I think this is so important
that you've changed the focus.
You've said you're gonna get ahead of it,
and that mental health and wellness are positive things,
not negative things.
When you say it's a crisis center,
you're waiting until something goes wrong to do something.
And so thank you, Ed.
And I particularly am impressed
with the English Students Association because Los Lomas is the four high schools in the
Occalani district, Los Lomas is you call it the magnet school for all of the English language
student, English is the second language back in the eons, students, and you're always worried
about how they were adapting to the challenges of being in high school and arriving in California
California and the United States and being an English language learner and having to
Adjust to both things and high school at the same time, which is three challenges
And so thank you for doing all this and being a model and a leader
in the world
Thank you
I've had the opportunity to meet with Amelia and go to the wellness center and it's just terrific
A couple of times that I've been able to be over there and just to see what's offered now
That was never offered when I was in high school, and it was things that were trying to be reactive then and now
To see the proactiveness is just terrific. So thank you so much for what you're doing
today's students and tomorrow's students
Thank You councilmember defending
Yeah, I echo those those sentiments. Thank you for what you're doing
So very inspiring hearing all the services that you're providing and I was really struck by the the 27 or 28 hundred visits per year
I mean, it shows that you've created a culture there that kids feel comfortable going to the Wellness Center
And I think that's that's really exciting. I guess to hear a really uplifting. So, thank you
Thank you guys very much for coming to present tonight. Thank you for all you do to keep our kids safe
Thank you very much. We'll give them around
and now we're at the time where I'm gonna ask Carolyn Jackson Carolyn Jackson the interim director of Arts and Rec to make a
presentation of the council on the the Lusher Center strategic plan update
Thank You mayor darling and good evening City Council members Carolyn Jackson Lusher Center general manager and interim arts and recreation director
I'm pleased to be here tonight to update you on the Lusher Center strategic plan
And I'm joined by Emily enters Bedford gallery curator of exhibition and programs and Peggy white executive director of our nonprofit partner
Diablo Regional Arts Association
Unfortunately, Matt Morrow, a Center Rep Artistic Director,
is unable to be here tonight due to a family emergency,
but we have plenty of Center Rep updates for you regardless.
Thank you, Elena.
So tonight, we're gonna briefly touch on the development
of the strategic plan, where we stand on key priorities
within the plan, some recent successes that tie back
to the goals identified in the plan,
and then look ahead to the Center's 35th anniversary year.
After addressing any questions from council,
I will also welcome representatives
from the Lesher Foundation
and the Apple Regional Arts Association Board of Directors
to share some remarks.
Before we dive in to all of the strategic plan,
I did wanna touch on how the Lesher Center is essential
to the city council's priority of economic development
and downtown vitality.
The city has participated in the Americans for the Arts
study arts and economic prosperity for six cycles now.
It's a study that's done nationally every five or so years.
And the last result from 2022 showed that in the city
of Walnut Creek, the nonprofit arts and culture sector
generated $36.1 million in economic activity.
And when we think about how arts and culture
ties into local business and our economy,
think about your own attendance at events.
If you go to see a show at the Lesher Center,
you likely are going to do something else as well,
at least probably pay for parking,
but maybe go out to dinner, get a cocktail beforehand,
And maybe you needed to pay for a pet sitter or babysitter
in order to have that night out.
And so as part of the study, we learned that attendees,
when they are coming to Walnut Creek for arts and culture,
they are spending on average $34.64 per person, per event,
in addition to the price of the ticket.
So this is money that's going directly
into our downtown economy.
So the strategic plan really came out
of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Lasher Center was one of the first venues and businesses
to close and one of the very last to reopen.
And as part of that, the City and Diablo Regional Arts
Association were looking at how will we come back strong
from such a significant event, and really decided together
to focus on a strategic planning effort
so that we would be prepared to attract audiences back
to the center when we reopened and also attract new audiences.
Together, we selected the DeVos Institute of Arts Management
to develop the plan and we were fortunate to have Michael Kaiser, the former president
of the Kennedy Center, directly involved in our strategic planning effort and able to
rely on his expertise.
And council received that strategic plan and accepted it in February of 2022.
So we're about three years in now.
At the core of the plan is the concept of the cycle, where we start by investing in
high-quality artistic programming that we then market strategically and
aggressively in order to attract new audiences and then we turn that audience
into a family of audience members and donors who come back to us year after
year because they're excited and engaged by the work that we're doing and that
family leads to financial investment either in the form of donations or
repeat ticket sales and then we continue to invest those financial rewards back
into the great art and the cycle continues.
When we think about the initial presentation to Council,
we have achieved a number of the things
that were identified as the top priorities of the plan.
We have launched the Headliners series,
which moved us to be a presenter of artists on our stages,
rather than more solely a rental opportunity.
And we now present nationally and internationally known
artists throughout the year.
We also launched the Lesher Center in Your Neighborhood Outreach Program,
bringing great art and artists out of the building into our community,
and schools, and various community centers.
And we launched a major, major, major aspirational festival
in the form of Fiesta Cultural,
one of the largest festivals that the center has ever attempted,
and we are now looking ahead to the third year this June of that major festival,
and sneak peek, there's more things coming that you'll hear about later in the presentation.
We developed a unified brand between the Lusher Center and its resident programs and Diablo
Regional Arts Association, and we just transitioned to a unified database and ticketing software
where we will have a fuller picture of our patrons, both their attendance and their support
in terms of donations.
We as part of that merged our kind of separate and siloed development activity and fundraising
efforts so that we had a more cohesive message.
And a big one, we established the center's first ever marketing department with a full-time
marketing supervisor.
And we're really seeing the results of having an experienced, knowledgeable person leading
our marketing over the last year or so.
It did take us a bit to get through all the approvals and recruitments and things.
But it's really starting to show the results.
Stepping in here for Matt to cover center rep.
A major facet of the strategic plan as it related to Center Rep was developing more
collaborations, co-productions, and strategic partnerships, which we have launched this
year when we've partnered with three regional theater powerhouses.
For the production of Dragon Lady, we partnered with Marin Theater, as well as Geffen Playhouse
in Los Angeles, and that production won a San Francisco Bay Area Critics Circle Award
for Best Solo Show.
We're currently in the midst of a world premiere production
that is a partnership with Tony Award-winning
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley.
That's Happy Pleasant Valley,
a senior sex scandal murder mystery musical.
And yes, it is as hilarious as the title.
We're looking forward to that opening in June.
We also partnered with Pemberley Productions
to bring The Unfair Advantage,
which was an immersive sleight of hand magic show.
And it was actually another opportunity
to collaborate internally
because it took place in the storage area
of the Bedford Gallery, and quite a surprise to attendees
when they discovered that's where they were upon their exit.
Also connected to the strategic plan, here we go,
is that we have had two world premieres in this season.
In addition to Happy Pleasant Valley,
we had Froggy, which you see pictured here,
and the world premiere of Jennifer Haley's work.
We received national attention
in the American Theater Magazine for this production
and its elements tying together
such an immersive projected environment.
And that was the first feature that CenterRep
has ever received in that national publication.
And beyond meeting its ticket sale projections,
which we were very pleased about,
it was also lauded by local critics
and featured on the cover of San Francisco
Chronicles Datebook section twice in one week.
As we close out this year,
we're thrilled to share that CenterRep subscriptions
are up 11% over last year,
which is not the trend that most theaters
are experiencing right now.
So we're very happy to see that response.
And recent productions have averaged 16% of the audience
being first time ticket buyers to any Lesher Center event.
So not just to a Center Rep production,
but to anything at the Lesher Center.
So as we look to our 35th anniversary year
of the Lesher Center,
we know that Center Rep is in a strong position
and we look forward to sharing in a little bit
what you can expect there.
Now I'm gonna hand it to Emily
so she can discuss some successes from Bedford Gallery.
Good evening, Council Members.
For the record, Emily Enders, Curator of Exhibitions
and Programs at Bedford Gallery.
At Bedford Gallery, we've continued
to invest in developing our national reach
with our traveling exhibition program,
and now travel one Bedford curated exhibition per season.
I'm thrilled to share that Rediscovering Native America,
Stories in Motion with the Red Road Project,
is now part of our group of traveling exhibitions,
and the show will open at the CDC Museum in Atlanta, Georgia,
this August. Exhibitions such as this and our current show,
Limitless, celebrating artists with disabilities, and two shows
in our upcoming season, reflect our emphasis on curating
exhibitions and hosting programs that celebrate and expand
representation at the gallery. We recently launched two anchor
programs to expand our audiences, including a yoga and sound
healing event and quarterly cocktails and conversation with
industry professionals. Additionally, in an effort to
better integrate programming across Luscher Center,
Center Rep in the gallery,
a key initiative of the strategic plan.
We hosted Contemporary Voices,
a Native artist panel discussion in Good Medicine,
a night of live Native stand up in association
with Rediscovering Native America.
To speak on other exciting program successes,
I'll pass it to Peggy White, DRAA Executive Director.
I have to bring this down.
Thank you, Emily.
You do such great things in the Bedford Gallery
And I also want to take a moment and thank Carolyn Jackson for being such a terrific
leader and partner.
I am so thrilled to be here to talk to you about the Headliner Series, which we launched
in 2022, and in the total audience is the first year around 4,700.
To date, we've welcomed over 32,000 audience members to the Headliner Series, and over
14,000 community members to the last two years of Fiesta Cultural Rail.
We are the Bay Area home for the whirlwind alum Dan Siddle Harlem, producer of the smash
hit College Notes, which just received 20 million views on social media, which is very
exciting bringing a lot of new audiences.
We've also brought in major artists such as Diane Reeves, Lyle Lovett, Chris Bodie, Bali
Hispandico, and Brace Art Stage just to name a few, just the icing of the cake.
Arts education is the cornerstone of our strategic plan, and increasing access to the arts is
absolutely fundamental to the work we do.
We've expanded the Pay What You Can offerings available in the Bedford Gallery, also Center
Rep and the Headliners, thanks to a generous challenge grant from one of our wonderful
board members, Mike Weintraub and his wife Paula.
We launched the headliner series and the lecture near-neighbor program in 2024.
We've reached thousands of students and seniors and other community members by bringing world-class
artists out of the center directly to them, this growth and education program and outreach
builds on the existing robust school tour program at the Bedford Gallery and also the
beloved arts access school time program for Title I schools.
The success would not be possible without the strong private-public partnership of the
city that DRA share that has supported us for over and been a robust partnership over
three decades.
In particular, I also would like to thank our sponsors, the Lesher Foundation.
We're so thrilled to have Steve Lesher and the staff here for their early support of
the STRAP plan and also their ongoing support, not only for the center, but for the arts
in Contra Costa County.
We're also grateful for our presenting sponsor, Kaiser
Menente, and Freedman's Appliance, as well as the
D.A. Board of Directors.
We're so thrilled to have Angie Coffey at the home as our
President this year, who also is very impact oriented,
but makes some great things happen.
So more and more good things to come.
Now, looking ahead, the 35th anniversary season.
We are so thrilled.
We've got a lot of great things happening.
will be celebrating all year long with a lot of exciting initiative, exciting
kickoff, and our birthday month is going to be super big. In October, the
annual Broadway gala will be on October 4th, 2025, to date the 30th
anniversary of the Lester Center, which opened October 4th, 1990. Isn't that
fantastic? Tony Award winner James Monroe Echo Heart will be our featured
He shot to Broadway stardom in the unforgettable genie in Disney's Aladdin, where he earned a Tony Award.
He was most recently nominated as a leading actor for A Wonderful World, the Louis Armstrong musical for a Tony.
We'll find out if it wins the Tony on June 8th, fingers crossed, which is very exciting.
The icing of the cake is he performed in Center for
excited to have SSJazz at the Lester Center as part of our
headliner series. We have two weekend festivals planned. They're
brand new, the Improv Festival and Diwali Festival. This is all
still in October. The culmination of the 20th
anniversary year of the Lester Foundation's News Bakers series
also happens in October and it features Laura Linney and D. R.
Yay is honored to be the non-profit partner of this
program, which is, which will be a very special way to put the
spotlight-only. I'm the Leche Bandages Newsmakers' 20th anniversary, but the
kickoff for our 35th anniversary celebration. Whoo! It's going to be a very
busy October and a very exciting 35th anniversary year. I'm delighted to turn
the program back to Emily. Last time for musical chairs for me. So I'm going to
share some exciting updates about next season, which we are thrilled to curate
another season of groundbreaking exhibitions at Bedford Gallery, opening with a visual art fan
favorite, which is will be a still life exhibition, followed by a solo show of Viola Fry, who's a
pioneer in figurative ceramics and a Bay Area legend. Next spring, we're presenting the first
retrospective of Aztec artist Innecenzio Jimenez Chino, who's Amate paintings, which are art
paintings, portray in painstaking beauty the life of people who live in the Bal salt river valley in
in Guerrero, Mexico.
Closing out this season
will be our annual jury exhibition.
This time next year will be a California theme
to celebrate our Golden State.
I will pass it back to Carolyn
to talk about Center Rep's season.
Thank you, and again Matt is so sorry
not to be able to be here tonight,
but he did take a moment to film a little video for you
so that you wouldn't have to only listen to my voice
to talk about next season at Center Rep.
Season 58 at Center Rep is all about inspiration, featuring acclaimed theatrical works that
celebrate personal moments that ignite us to evolve and moves us to action, as well
as what binds us to our shared sense of community.
We launched this season with Paula Vogel's Tony Award winning play with music, Indecent.
The story brings to light the scandal around the God of Vengeance and the 1921 Broadway
Jewish play that sparked controversy when its cast was arrested for
performing it. Our production of this beautiful and
thunderously relevant modern theatrical classic
stands as a testament to the power of theater and the resilient immigrant
artists who created. Our production of Indecent is its
10th anniversary of its Broadway bow. To continue to
follow through on our strategic plan we are partnering with the renowned
Yiddish Theater Ensemble in Berkeley to realize our goals around this production.
Next up, we continue our partnership with Pemberley Productions by bringing in the critically
acclaimed production of The Woman in Black. This spine-tingling ghost story was London's
second hit on the West End and is just in time for spooky season. We followed The Woman in Black
with a West Coast premiere of our brand-new production of A Christmas Carol by celebrated
playwright Harrison David Rivers, directed by two-time OBE award winner Jared Mizachi.
This production pays tribute to the Dickens classic by focusing on the themes of supporting
the most vulnerable among us. We are proud to partner with Access Dance Company, one of the
nation's most acclaimed ensembles of disabled, non-disabled, deaf, and neurodiverse performers.
We're also thrilled to welcome back our local favorite Michael Ray Wisely who for years has
played Scrooge in our previous production of A Christmas Carol to portray the holiday
curmudgeon for the next generation. This spring we celebrate the 35th anniversary of the
with the 35th anniversary legacy revival production of Neil Simon's classic Lost in Yonkers.
the story is set in revolves around two teen boys who are forced to live
with their authoritarian grandmother and neurodiverse aunt Bella.
It's a heartwarming and moving play and that is widely considered
Neil Simon's masterpiece having won the Pulitzer Prize for drama.
And then we cap our season with the regional premiere of the powerful
Tony Award-winning musical, Jagged Little Pill.
Inspired by one of the best-selling albums of all time
This electrifying new musical charts the lives of Mary Jane Healy and the fracturing of her
picture-perfect American family, forcing each of them to redefine the place they once called home.
Raw, personal, and bursting with some of the most explosive songs in pop music history,
this powerful new musical from Oscar-winning writer Diablo Cody and Grammy Award-winning
and songwriter Alanis Morissette and Glenn Ballard
will have you in purpose of family.
And that's a sneak.
These are filled with fiery passionate characters
who are determined to find human connection
and who in their search discover the power of compassion,
empathy and healing in times of shifting cultural change.
On behalf of all of us at Center Rep,
we are grateful for your support and belief in our work.
We look forward to launching this dynamic season
for the city of Walnut Creek and beyond.
Take good care.
So the part you missed on Jagged Little Pill
is you will be rocking in your seats.
So as we look ahead,
in addition to these exciting season highlights
that we've shared tonight,
we will be continuing to expand our education
and outreach programs and deepening our partnership
with our own Center for Community Arts.
We'll also be investing in some major facility projects.
35 years is an exciting milestone,
but in a facility that large,
it's also the time for some big changes.
That will include this summer,
replacement of the stage floors for the Leisure Theater
and the Hoffman Theater,
and then future projects that are funded
in the capital budget that include
replacing the fire system devices,
replacing the theater sound system in the Hoffman Theater,
and a bunch of other fun HVAC related things that,
You'll all notice when you're nice and comfy
when you're in your seats.
That concludes our presentation
and we're happy to take any questions
before remarks from our partners.
Thank you very much.
I'll turn to my fellow council members here
and back in Washington DC.
Anybody?
Kevin, you okay?
All right, thank you guys for everything.
That was exciting.
Yeah.
I think that sums it up for all of us.
I was curious, so it sounds like we are at a point
where we can say COVID is in the rear view mirror?
Well, I would say from an audience standpoint,
we're generally seeing that we're close
to pre-pandemic levels.
It varies per producer,
so not every producer is back to where they were,
but overall, we're seeing that steady increasing trend
from a kind of production management side of things.
There still are hiccups when we have COVID positive cases
in center rep productions.
And so we did see with our last production,
roommate that we had two nights that had to be canceled as a result of after
illness so it's it's still impacting us but nowhere near the extreme that we
felt yeah nowhere like half the cast is down right yeah thank you guys for all
your work and wonderful looking forward to hearing from yes welcome up Steve
Lesher all right well I'm excited all over again hearing that Steve Lesher
chair of the board of the Lesher Foundation and I'm really excited to be
with you tonight to support the strategic plan and not only that but to
applaud your support for the plan and your investment in the arts. I think it's
also important to mark this time as a critical one and underscore the role
that we have as partners, supporters, caretakers, elected officials. Decades
ago a visionary City Council and group of business and civic leaders held the
collective aspiration that this city would be the cultural and economic
center of the region and it's certainly become that. On the artistic side of that
ledger was the Lesher Center for the Arts and since its construction the
Center's success has really hinged on two things in my mind. One is bringing
professional grade productions to the region of the type you've heard and two
regional audience development. We have our core professional companies like
Center Rep, the California Symphony, the Smithsonian Ballet, and then the high
which has been brought in by the DRA headliner series,
the lecture speaker series that I produce,
and now SF Jazz, which I think is the most exciting thing
to happen to the center since These Makers.
I really do believe we have offerings that rival
anything else in Northern California at this point,
which I think is exciting and to your credit.
It's important to know that none of this
is happening by accident.
These things are all working in tandem
to make the center what it is.
is. It isn't about one group, one person, one show, or one company. It's about the
integrated whole of programming and that's what you're getting with the
strategic plan. And of course there are always going to be great community
groups who have access to the Center for local productions, graduations,
symposiums, but the heart of the Center's program is always going to be those
professional productions. DRAA, as you've seen, and for those of you who've been
supporters for a long time, has evolved into an outstanding production
organization. The speaker series brings globally relevant programming. Center
rep has gained national recognition for premiering new works and the Bedford
Gallery continues its tradition of world-class exhibits. These are truly the
best of times for the arts and culture in our community and this was the vision
chartered by people like Angie Coffey, Bill Armstrong, Gail Murray, Ken and Jean
Hoffman, Peter and Kit Bedford and of course Dean and Margaret Lesher. I know
and I think it's important for us to all acknowledge that there's been a lot of
change at the center and change is hard. But the seeds we sow for progress take
time to terminate. As you continue to support the arts and culture in the
community, I encourage you to follow the example of your predecessors and resist
the temptation of trying to influence the content, casting, or programming. As it
has been throughout the center's history, it is the patrons who will decide what
succeeds, who succeeds, and what fails. You as council members and we as donors and
supporters shouldn't condition art support according to our own tastes or preferences.
And I just want to note that I personally am terrible at this because I said, and some
of the people in this room know this, that I thought Hamilton would flop.
I mean, a rap musical with the founding fathers, I thought you've got to be kidding me.
But that shows you what I know and why none of you should ever ask my opinion about the
art that happens at the Center, save for the speaker series, maybe.
But as it has been throughout the Center's history, it's really going to be the patrons
that decide.
And on a more serious note, one need only look at what's happening at the Kennedy Center
here in Washington, or there in Washington, DC, where Councilmember Wilk is right now,
to see that, you know, political interventions in the arts, even if they're well-intended,
have really disastrous consequences.
Once you open that door, you can never close it, and I really appreciate that the Council
has always steered away from that.
and I want you to know that the donor community,
we have that same posture.
This strategic plan is premised
on this important principle of artistic freedom,
for without that freedom,
the center will cease to be what it is,
which is a special place where magic happens
and a powerful force for good in the community.
In that same vein, I know it sounds good to say
that producers and directors at the Leisure Center
should place a premium on using local talent
for professional productions.
It's critical to remember, however,
that that's not the purpose of the center.
We are about audience development
enriching the community. We want the best at the center, no matter where they
come from, and many do come from the East Bay community. The Bay Area has a rich
tradition, of course, of public-private partnerships and supporting the arts. You
might consider a place like the Daily Symphony Hall in that quaint town across
the Bay to be something of a cousin of ours, or else I consider that. Whether I'm
naive, I'll let you judge that, but I consider them to be a cousin of ours,
and like the Lesher Center, it took a big public investment coupled with private dollars
to Bill Davies.
It's hard to imagine the San Francisco Symphony without Michael, Tilson, Thomas though, and
due to an unfortunate illness, we are faced with that possibility.
But imagine if they didn't bring him in because he wasn't local.
Or imagine if they said to him, you can only use local musicians, people from all over
the world perform at the symphony, and it's a fantastic and world-class product because
of it. I think that's because of some visionary folks who let the artists do their work. I
don't think we should be limited in our thinking by what's local, but we should be limitless
in our thinking about everything that's possible. And that's really what the foundation of the
speaker series has always been, or excuse me, the speaker series and everything that
happens at the Lescher Center. I also would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity
to express my full support for Carolyn Jackson and everybody that's at the center doing such
a great job. The partnership between the Lesher Foundation and the center has never been stronger
and I know that's true of DRAA as well. So in closing I just want to note that it's our collective
responsibility to keep our city as the cultural epicenter of the East Bay. It's also important
to mark this moment because what you are doing in supporting the arts is truly extraordinary
especially in the times that we're in. More than anything the strategic plan is our opportunity to
to say thank you to you and to ask you to stay
on the journey with us.
Let's continue to provide premier programming
and place our trust in the artists, curators,
and producers, and I promise you will not be disappointed.
Thanks for letting me address you this evening.
Thank you.
And now I'd like to introduce the first ever chair
of the DRA board, I believe,
and the current chair of the DRA board.
How is that for a continuity and someone who without,
without whom the center would not have been built,
the great Angie Coffey.
And thank you for your eloquent remarks.
I was on the board of directors
of the Regional Center for the Arts
when we raised the money to build this magnificent theater.
And the commitment we made to our donors was,
we're gonna bring beautiful, classic,
genuinely talented arts programming
to this beautiful new center that we're building.
That's a promise we made to the donors.
And we are continuing to honor that promise.
So thank you for that.
We, I remember in the old Nut House,
sitting and looking at a program,
because I've been going to the theater for 40 years
in Walnut Creek, and seeing an asterisk by someone's name,
which meant an equity actor.
How did we do that?
It was so exciting to have one or two names
with the asterisk.
Now we see beautiful programming
with wonderful talented equity actors.
It's a coup to have equity actors in Walnut Creek,
and I applaud you for continuing with that.
So I wanna just reiterate what Peggy said,
and that is we're gonna be celebrating
our 35th anniversary.
We hope that you will come celebrate
the wonderful night of magic and entertainment with us,
all of you.
It promises to be a beautiful event.
Thank you.
Thank you, and I have my tickets,
and my husband is trying to figure out
how he's gonna fit into his suit for that event.
We do have a couple people in the audience.
I ordinarily ask him to wait for public comment,
but why don't you have you come up
and give your public comment now on this issue.
If there's anybody else in the audience
that has a strong opinion on Lusher
and everything that's happening, welcome you to.
So we'll go ahead and start to say your name and your city.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor Darling and Council.
It is indeed my first time in front of the council.
So thank you for reading out the rules of engagement.
My name is Sandeep Kajelgi.
I am a proud member of the board of directors of the DRAA
and a resident of Wallet Creek.
In 2015, my wife, Rini and I, and along
with our then three-year-old twins,
moved from Massachusetts to Wallet Creek.
One of the main reasons for us to choose Walnut Creek,
among all, over all these neighboring towns and cities,
was the Lesher Center for the Arts.
Our real estate agent was right there,
across from the center.
And she would drive us to Moraga and Lafayette
and Alamo and Danville.
And we were always like, but what's this?
Right here.
And we ended up in Walnut Creek, so.
Today I'm here to show my support
for the leisure center of the arts, the strategic plan.
And also, talk about a couple of things
that really get me excited.
First, we love jazz.
That's what's always playing in my car.
That's what's playing at home.
Over all the complaints of my kids, who are now 13,
in middle school, they don't like it.
They say, call it elevator music.
That's me.
And we used to go a lot to San Francisco
to visit SF Jazz and watch these amazing performances.
So I cannot tell you how pleased I am,
how excited I am that this programming is coming here
from Walnut Creek, the Leisure Center and SF Jazz.
Amazing, all right.
Did I say I'm excited?
Yes, okay, all right.
But second, the DRA and the Leisure Center for the Arts
are thrilled to announce Walnut Creek's first ever Diwali
Festival.
It's going to happen in October, a very busy October.
It's going to be the 17th and 18th of October.
And it will be a mix of very traditional Diwali customs,
along with modern South Asian expression, culture,
and the next generation.
And when I say it's going to be exciting,
it is going to be exciting.
It's going to be live music, it's going to be dance,
it's going to be food, it's going to be fashion,
it's going to be crafts, arts, handicraft,
it's going to be a party, right?
It's a joyous holiday celebrated all over South Asia
by more than a billion people,
and this is the first time we're going to do it
in Walnut Creek, right?
It's the victory of light over darkness,
is the victory of good over evil.
So I'm honored to be leading this effort,
and trust me when I say we're gonna light up the lash.
There's a lot of work to be done.
We are deep in it right now, so stay tuned, everyone.
But we're gonna need everybody's support,
especially the council.
We're gonna need everybody's support,
especially everybody in the city and the community.
That's all I had to say.
Thank you very much for your time,
for your leadership, for your support.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor Darling and council members.
I'm Mike Weintraub and I live in Alamo,
but my office has been in Walnut Creek since 1981,
so I feel like a resident.
I'm also a member of the board of directors of DRAA.
Tonight, I'm here not only to express my full support
for the Lesher Center's strategic plan,
but I'm also here to share some truly exciting news
about how that plan is coming to life.
One of its most visionary goals was to launch
the Lesher Center in Your Neighborhood Program,
bringing world-class artists out into the community
to engage individuals who, for reasons of financial hardship,
physical limitations, or mental health challenges,
may not otherwise experience live performances.
That mission spoke deeply to my wife, Paula, and me.
We believe that access to the arts is not a luxury.
It's a human need.
So to help launch this program, last year we
awarded a $100,000 challenge grant to DRAA.
And we were thrilled to see that our gift
helped additional support from individuals and local businesses
who also believe in this cause.
As season ticket holders to newsmakers,
center rep, headliners,
and many of the wonderful Broadway musicals
that we've had over the years,
we've experienced firsthand the joy, connection,
and meaning that the Lesher Center brings.
And through DRAA's Arts Access Program,
we've seen the faces of those whose lives are changed
simply by being given a seat to be in the audience.
We are incredibly fortunate to have
the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek.
It is the cultural jewel of Contra Costa County.
And I want to thank the city council
for your continued leadership
and unwavering commitment to the arts.
Together, we're building something truly special.
And even though it's been three and a half decades
since the Lesser Center opened its doors,
we're just getting started.
So thank you.
Thank you.
So are there anything,
this is just a presentation to update us.
Councilmember Silva, would you like to,
you're reaching for the button.
Well first I wanna thank all of you who are here tonight
for the work that you do every day
to make the Lesher Center and the arts
a vibrant part of our community.
But I think if you had the opportunity
to travel the way my husband and I have,
we have discovered something that you probably don't know.
We are internationally renowned
because of the Lesher Center for the Arts,
and I can't thank the Lesher family enough
for being part of that vision.
I was on a tour bus in Charleston, South Carolina
about 10 years ago with my daughter.
And the tour bus driver was one of those hop on,
hop on, hop on, hop off buses.
And the bus driver, good old boy from Charleston,
he said, he wanted to know where everybody was from.
And when my daughter and I said
we were from Walnut Creek, California, he said,
don't you have a performing arts center there?
I thought my daughter was going to die
because she, you know, thought this is Podunksville.
But we were in having dinner recently in Barcelona
at the original teleferic with friends
who live in Barcelona now
and have lived there for almost 20 years.
They watch Sarah Mackenzie on her YouTube videos
and they talk about the Lesher Center.
And then we were on a cruise in the Mediterranean
outside of Sicily.
And the people sitting across from us on the tender
to get ashore.
Well, first of all, they're from Walnut Creek,
and they live at the Mercer,
and the friends they were traveling with
are so excited that they now live at the Mercer
that their friends do
because they can go to the Lesher Center,
and they made a point of talking about it.
And all of this is happening outside of California,
outside of the Bay Area, outside of California,
outside of the United States.
So thank you for putting us on the map,
and you're doing a fabulous job,
And I'm so excited, I'm looking forward to the next 35 years,
I think.
I, we'll make it 25.
Thank you.
Mayor Pro Tem, anything to add?
Just that I appreciate everything that we heard.
Balester Center absolutely is a jewel of the city.
And of course, I have heard that and been involved
hearing about the marketing and working on that
since I was on the Arts Commission,
oh my gosh, 25 years ago.
So it's great to see us continuing to have
such an attraction in Walnut Creek,
especially in light of the challenges
that other local theater companies have had around us.
If somebody was just asking me in Washington,
the former mayor of Danville was asking,
you don't do the Shelley Awards anymore.
And I had to say, it's because all of these other
local theater companies have folded.
We would love to have the Shelley Awards.
We need to have these local theater companies
become reinvigorated and to become part
of the acting community again.
And so I understand very well how important this all is
and look forward to continued success.
Thank you.
Council Member Definney?
say we're very lucky to have this tremendous resource in Walnut Creek and
I'm really excited about what's to come. And I'm really excited about it too and
I'm gonna give up my statement because Bob Lynch had said he wanted to have
just a little something to say because Bob was looking for the last word. Thank
you Mayor Darlin, members of the council. Bob Lynch had representing the Walnut
Creek Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau. I felt compelled to speak on
behalf of business for a minute. Peggy and I have long shared the slogan that
the arts is commerce and in representing the Chamber and Visitors Bureau we took
a risk to move a legendary conference that we held in the East Bay to Walla
Creek and even though it's not technically an arts program it is a
a venue that deserves some consideration when you're putting on conferences. And I have
to say that this last year we had 700 attendees. We actually had Sandra Joseph, the Phantom
and the Opera, sing and perform at the event. It was fabulous. We are measuring the success
of some of our events in Walnut Creek, and I dare say that in addition to the arts, the
Lesher Center is a terrific venue for conferences.
And we're gonna prove that this next year
as we've identified several that we're trying to bring
to Walnut Creek.
So I thought I'd add some additional perspective
in support of the Lesher Center for the Arts, the DRAA
and all that make that wonderful venue happen.
And I can second Council Member Silva's remarks
about how it's known nationally
because I too attend national and international conferences
and we are well-known and respected throughout the world.
So thank you for the opportunity, Mayor.
Thank you.
And with that, we'll just give our whole Lusher team
a big round of applause,
because you guys are hanging in there.
And now, we'll move on.
Next on the agenda is the consent calendar,
and I'll let the record show that Council Member Silva
has joined the meeting.
I've already been here with,
or Council Member Francois.
Somebody's showing up, you know.
Anyway, on the consent calendar,
does any council member wish to pull any item
for discussion or any staff need
to pull anything for correction?
I'd like to pull item 2E, please.
Okay, any other items?
All right.
If there's anybody that would like
to provide public comments on consent calendar items
to A, B, C, D, or F, if they could step forward now.
Seeing no one, is there a motion on those measures or those moved to approve
consent calendar items to A through D and F? Second. All right roll call please.
Councilmember Silva? Aye. Councilmember Francois? Aye. Councilmember Davini? Aye. Mayor
Pro Tem Wilk? Aye. Oops. And Mayor Darling? Sorry, aye. Motion passes unanimously.
All right. Item 2e. Councilmember Silva. Thank you very much Mayor. Item 2e is the
authorization of the city awarding about two million dollars in grant funds to
two affordable housing developers for projects that they have been working on.
We heard this presentation about this and it is coming forward through the
Housing and Community Development Committee but of this of the City Council
but I was hoping our community development director
or representatives of the housing department,
I couldn't see you through Erica and Rich,
could give us an update on what we're doing
and how it's different than the way we used to allocate funds
for affordable housing projects.
Of course, I'd be happy to give a quick overview
on this agenda item.
Jennifer Yamas, I'm a housing analyst
in the community development department.
So the city has historically provided opportunities
to affordable housing developers to request funding
to increase and preserve affordable housing,
to equitably support access to the funding that's available
in November of 2023,
City Council authorized a new process
for soliciting proposals.
So the process changed from collecting applications
on a rolling basis to having one annual RFP
that has very defined evaluation criteria.
About a year later, in November 2024,
the city issued the first ever RFP.
We received three proposals in response to the RFP.
And tonight's staff is recommending
funding two of the three proposals.
The first would be $1 million to Habitat for Humanity
for Esperanza Place Phase Two, which is an ownership project
that will bring 19 low and moderate income
homes to Walnut Creek.
The second is a $1 million conditional award
to RCD for Civic Crossing, which is formerly known as 699 YVR,
which is a rental project that would bring 93 affordable units
to the city.
And I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you.
So if you don't mind, I will ask you a couple of questions.
So we previously did this on a rolling basis,
which meant almost a little bit of first come, first serve
if we had the funds available.
I remember we started awarding funds somewhere
in the early 2000s, because we had set up the program.
And what is the source of funds for that program?
The source of funds, there's two funds that it comes from.
It comes from the Affordable Housing in Luffy,
And it comes from the commercial linkage fee, which are funds 173 and 175.
So the affordable housing in lieu fee is basically when housing projects are being proposed by
developers, they, as part of the entitlement process, they are required to pay a fee to
basically contribute toward these funds, which then help to fund these affordable projects.
That's correct.
And then the commercial linkage fee is a, would you like to explain that?
Sure.
linkage fee is a fee that is for commercial development with commercial
development housing is you they bring in they bring employees and housing is
usually in demand and so we charge a fee for the development of commercial space
and it's $5 per square foot and do you happen to know off the top of your head
or perhaps one of your colleagues would how much we've awarded since the
inception of this program? I would say we've awarded a lot of millions of
dollars. I think it's at least 30 million. Yes. The number keeps getting bigger. Yes. Yeah. It keeps getting more
and more expensive to develop these projects. Yes. A technical question on
recently reading about the May revision of the governor's budget there was a
disappointing not re-up of the housing affordable housing one of the funding
sources that we have been relying on from the state. Is this going to affect
either of these projects? So that's correct the current draft of the state
budget has made substantial cuts to affordable housing but it is a draft so
it's still under negotiation and discussion. RCD will not be impacted
Because they have already secured the state funding through the no place like home and the affordable housing and sustainable communities grant
Habitat for Humanity does have an application out there for Cal home
And so they will continue to lobby to reinstate the funds to the state budget and
RCD is the developer for the cross civic crossings. That's correct. Yes
Thank you very much
have any other questions? Councilmember Francois. Just thanks Jennifer. Can you
remind us how much generally annually a year we get in affordable housing fees?
Sure so for the last three years the city has received about five hundred
thousand in affordable housing fees. So about a half million a year. Yes. That's
the average. Yes. And then after we award these two one million dollar grants what
will be the remaining balance in our affordable housing fund? It will be about
two million. Okay, thank you. Any additional questions? Any public comment
on item 2e on the consent calendar? Seeing no one, I will bring it back here
for a motion. Sure, I could make one. First of all, thank you to the housing and the
community development staff. We will be meeting next week, by the way, on the
community development block grant funding, yay, he came through. I am pleased to be
able to make the motion to authorize the award of a million dollars to Habitat
for Humanity for Esperance of Place Phase 2 and conditionally award a
million dollars to resources for community development for the Civic
Crossing Project. Second. Call roll please. Councilmember Silva. Aye. Councilmember
Francois.
Council member Dabini.
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Wilk.
Aye.
And Mayor Silva.
Aye.
Mayor Darling.
Okay, we're gonna have to put our name tags bigger on it.
Aye.
Anyway, thank you very much and thank you
and good luck to both projects.
They're both very exciting projects
and we're happy to have them in our community.
Next on the agenda is public communications.
This portion of the meeting is reserved
for comment on items not on the agenda.
under the Brown Act, the council cannot act on items raised
during 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,
we'll have 30 minutes right now, and if we need more,
we'll have some more at the end of the meeting.
If anybody is here for public comment,
you could step up to the podium.
And seeing no one, no one, we're gonna move on.
That'll be the end of public comment.
So, next on the agenda is council member
and staff announcements and reports on activities.
City attorney, is there any closed session items
to report out?
There are no closed session items
to report on this evening.
All right, city manager, any reports?
Yeah, good evening, Dan Buckshi, city manager.
Two updates this evening, council member Silva
foreshadowed the first one related to the release
of the governor's May revise as it's known,
which was released last week relative to the state budget.
Just to give a quick overview of the state budget,
there's literally hundreds of pages of analysis
that one could read if interested.
Give you a sense of scale, the overall state budget
is about $322 billion.
The general fund is about $225 billion of that.
And the state is facing about a $12 billion gap
for the general fund.
So about a 5% gap, just to put it into perspective.
We're looking to close that with $5 billion,
roughly, of ongoing expenditure reductions
in seven billion of one-time
or short-term types of budget balancing solutions,
including transfers and deferrals
of various types of programs.
So with that, obviously,
they are having to make some difficult decisions.
One of the areas that is a big focal point
that the state is investing in
is fire prevention and control, shifting some funding
from cap and trade and otherwise to the general fund
to help with that as well as from other bond funding
to help.
As noted, there is no new funding for homelessness
or for affordable housing.
I believe the prior grants that were allocated
are continuing, I don't think they're being cut.
Some of them are not continuing
and many of them one time in nature
and they're not being allocated for one time in the future.
One thing that is a bit concerning,
on the public safety front,
Proposition 36 was passed by the voters this fall.
There appears to be little to no funding
in the state budget for implementation of Prop 36,
so it appears that it'll be left to counties and cities
to effectively tackle that.
The governor suggested or hinted
that it may pursue a housing and infrastructure bond for 2026.
I'm not really sure of all the details
at this point in time.
And then something that's worth noting,
there's obviously a lot of discussion in Washington, D.C.
at this very point in time about the federal budget
with the House moving forward a bill
that has substantial changes in tax,
as well as cuts to some entitlement programs
which would trickle down to the state and the counties.
This budget proposal that came out
from the governor last week
does not take any of those program reductions
into consideration.
So if that occurs, it's anticipated the state
would need to convene a special session potentially
to address those.
And I know we used to keep in mind it's amazing
how incentives tend to work.
The state legislature has to pass a budget by June 15th
or they don't get paid.
And since that bill went into place,
every budget has been passed on time.
So I suspect this one will be also.
The other update that I had this evening,
I did wanna highlight,
those of us in cities tend to focus
on what we have going on in the city,
but Contra Costa County did issue
their annual report for 2024.
Just came out, just came across my desk yesterday,
thought I would share it.
For those that are interested,
it hits on some of the key programs and outcomes
that the County Board of Supervisors and collectively
the nearly 12,000 employees of Contra Costa County
delivered last year.
And if you'd like to find out more,
you can go to contracosta.ca.gov.
And that's it for me this evening, Mayor.
All right, thank you.
Now, turning to my fellow council members,
council member Definni.
Yes, good evening.
I don't have a lot from this last cycle.
I did get a chance to meet with the arts community
and we just saw that fantastic presentation.
Let me see.
I was present for the,
I know it's not really a city activity,
but I thought it was,
it's a leisure activity that had the Fire Academy
graduation this last, just yesterday, I think,
the day before and it was very moving to see all these young firefighters finish
up their training and and launch their career and I was privileged to be there.
Thank you. Councilmember Silva were you on vacation the whole time? Well I was but
I have a few things. Okay you can you can have a few things. First of all I will
mention that the Association of Bay Area Governments which I am on the executive
committee of they had a couple of meetings while I was away and I was
getting rapid-fire text messages and thank you to Erika Vandenbrandt our
Community Development Director for attending the meeting and making
comments. Okay what's on the agenda? In the last 18 months Metropolitan
Transportation Commission and the Association of Area Governments
adopted what's called a transit-oriented community strategy and
This basically, in a nutshell, says they want people to be,
they want us to focus our housing near transit
so that we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
we can make it easier for people to drive less,
and in addition, allow for more housing.
Hand in hand with that, they basically have made a commitment
to tie the awarding of transportation dollars
that they get, MTC gets from the federal government,
and from the state government to award,
to tie the granting of those funding,
those monies, which we,
there's 25 to $30 million at stake here
for the city of Walnut Creek,
to tie the award of that money to our ability
to adopt and follow the transit-oriented community strategy.
Now, what we will say to ourselves is,
We have a lot of transit-oriented development.
That's where we're focused.
And so we'll score well.
The challenge is what the scorecard says
and what the criteria are, because it's not just
about density.
It's also about the three P's, production, preservation,
and protection.
And it's policies.
There are about a dozen policies.
And they have to decide.
The regional agencies are in the process
of gathering feedback on their proposed scoring scorecard.
And it doesn't look pretty
and we're going to have to pay attention
because it will be, if we get zeros
or let's say we just score average,
we're either going to have to take money
that we're investing in other places
and invest it in those three P's of the policies
or we're going to be losing dollars
in the transportation infrastructure.
and that's dollars that have already been preplanned
to be used for Redne Show Valley Road, et cetera.
So this is going to be serious looking at this.
We will be continuing to talk about it
at the mayor's conference and regional entities,
but we have to pay attention.
Because the first blush was not so good.
That's why they were texting me in Rome.
Well, they didn't know I was in Rome.
thought I was going to the meeting but so that's one item. I did have a chance
to be in Italy for a little bit of time and spring has sprung in Italy from
small towns to Rome and outdoor dining which I know you all talked about as
part of the operating budget which I did enjoy watching the discussion. 4 a.m. on
a cruise ship watching the sunrise over the back of a boat but it was interesting
interesting. And I noticed the discussion and there are some ideas that I've come back
with with samples of how they're doing it in these small towns but they're also doing
it in Rome as well. Where they're doing outdoor dining on what is probably a more seasonal
basis with what are easy to pop up but stable and they will work in the public roadways
and may be a way to do outdoor dining, more seasonal, at a lower cost, maybe.
I have photos.
My husband thought I was taking photos of other things.
I was taking photos of structures.
And finally, I'll mention Recycle Smart at their recent meeting, had a presentation from
the two proposers who are competing for the collection contract that will be the company
that for the next 10 years plus we'll be running the trucks that collect our
garbage, our organics, and our blue bin recyclables. And the presentations were
very good and I think Matt may have more to report on that but I think we'll be
making a decision by mid-July. And thank you very much. Thank you,
Councilmember Francois. So I had, thank you Mayor, I had relative light duty for
the last two weeks, brief report along with Council Member Davini. I did meet
with the DRAA representatives and heard about the lesser specific plan, a
strategic plan. Sorry to miss a presentation tonight, but I did get a
preview through those meetings and have other city meetings this week, but I'll
report on those at our June meeting. That's it for me. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem.
Right, well as the representative for County Connection, a couple of updates on
this. One is that on the electric bus issue, which we've heard about for the
last several months now, we do have route four running with its electric
buses. We got the charging to work all right on that. We are prepared if
there's anything that goes down again. The problem is that the subcontractor
has gone out of business and we're essentially trying to use people that
are familiar with the infrastructure of the charging system to be able to help
the city of Concord and Walnut
system. So what is that? Well, TSP is the system will provide real time changes to traffic
signal timing in response to automated requests from buses by either extending a green phase
or shortening a red phase at an intersection to allow buses to travel faster than passenger
cars. So the aim is to enhance mobility and sustainability and safety across all transportation
modes. The program's core goals include improving travel time and reliability for vehicles
in transit, enhancing safety, reducing emissions, and increasing proficiency in advanced arterial
operations. So think about Ignacio Valley Road, Treet Boulevard, and through this initiative
Concord and Walnut Creek were each awarded nearly $800,000 to implement the transit
TSP systems along these designated corridors. So the pilot program is going to be on Walnut
Creek routes four and five. That's downtown and through to Shadelands. And they've been
installed on 66 signalized intersections. And we're hoping that this will the pilot program
will be successful and it'll be rolled out to an additional 28 buses bringing the total of 59
and then across the entire county connection system at some point. Speaking of county
connection, the reason that I'm remote today and in Washington DC is that I'm leading the county
the connection delegation as board chair
to the American Public Transit Authority
legislative conference here.
We're advocating for additional grant funding
for public transit or should I say keeping what we have
as we've heard from our city manager
and council member Silva, there's some challenges right now
and there are going to be cuts in substantial areas.
We're trying to ensure that the congressional
and the Senate delegations understand
how important this is that we continue
to fund public transit because even if there are people
that are not using it or if the majority
in the House and Senate constituents feel
that they're not using it,
we all know that without public transit,
we're just gonna add two or three times the amount
of cars on the roads.
I mean, think about what happens when BART has problems.
So this is a huge issue.
And so we're also trying to hopefully hold the line
when it comes to zero emission bus technology
that we've already started adopting
and now have to try to work our way through
over the next few years.
So that's why we're here.
I also wanna mention a couple of other things.
I was at the Walnut Creek Locust Street Festival last week.
Rousing success, great attendance.
It's the largest festival that I've seen us have
on what was previously called first Wednesdays.
There'll be several more this summer
with the next one on June 11th.
So I look forward to going to that.
And then lastly, sort of dovetailing
onto what council member Davini had mentioned,
I attended the Contra Costa Fire Department
Girls' Empowerment Camp opening this last weekend.
And this was the idea of CCFD getting all of these girls
that have been interested, schoolgirls,
that are interested in fire and firefighting
and maybe having that as a career,
having them spend a whole weekend
on doing a lot of the activities that firefighters do
and ideally, team them up for a career in firefighting.
So while that's the beginning of it,
it's great to hear that Council Member Davini
saw the end of it with graduations.
Thank you. That's my report.
All right.
And for me, we had the Walnut Creek Chamber Board meeting.
Dan gave the city report.
Bob is relentlessly pursuing his strategic plan.
Lots of good coordination going on there.
A couple things to highlight Art and Wine Festival is coming to Civic Park, the 31st and 1st.
Many of you have already signed up to volunteer.
They're still looking for a couple volunteers on the 1st, the afternoon of the 1st.
We had a good discussion on the presentation at Civic Affairs on taxes and tariffs.
And one of the things that struck me was a number of the nonprofits in the room talked
about the different ways that the federal changes are influencing their operations
and things as varied as contracts with farmers being canceled
so that foodstuffs aren't showing up, regular surplus food
that is normally provided from Department of Agriculture not being distributed
from warehouses, tariffs causing increases in costs.
And then after the food insecurity people were done creating anxiety,
The folks in the medical profession started talking
about the implications with the kinds of cuts
that are being talked about in Medicaid and how
that would impact the infrastructure here
and in rural areas of the state where all of a sudden,
people that had health care coverage are no longer covered
and are seeking health care in the emergency room, which
affects us all.
So that was a little sobering.
After that, I went to the MCE meeting, we did a lot of discussion about our various
programs to provide sustainable resources around the service area.
One of the things that is new this year, they had not thought this federal money was still
going to come through, but it looks like it is coming through.
They're trying to set up at least one battery facility in each one of the counties that
they provide power to, and they are looking to set these up at civic facilities.
So I will get more information, share that with Rich Payne, because it's an opportunity
for us to get some battery back up for the new community center and swimming pool.
So we'll be looking into that.
The cancer support community had their hope walk, which is why Kevin got to go to the
fire academy.
And that was a it's just really uplifting. I love the support and the love and air that they have for people that are going through cancer and their motto is nobody goes through this alone and it's just really wonderful.
Primrose Preschool have their ground break or their ribbon cutting out at the orchards. It's a new daycare and it includes a couple much much needed infant rooms.
infant daycare is tremendously expensive, tremendously short supply, and so it was
good to see that. Coming up, in addition to Art in 1 on the 31st, this Friday is
the Fundraiser Fraternity Center at Lafayette Park Hotel, and that will be a
fun event. And then this morning, as Jan Warren and I talked about earlier,
EBLO used the experience that we all had in bringing the Hope Village up out of
ground as a learning opportunity for other faith-based communities and there are a number
of them around Contra Costa County that were there who are actively pursuing it.
In addition to the success at Grace Presbyterian with Hope Village, the Hope Solutions is working
on one with the City of Pittsburgh called Village of Hope at the Church of the Nazarene.
And so Dion Adams and I, Dion is the Mayor Pro Tem and Pittsburgh and I, we both talked
about what it takes to bring these things out of the ground and we talked
about getting along and building connections and that and that's my
report and now we will know if you want to go to the bathroom you have to start
yeah you may add one more thing you brought up the taxing of our health care
system when cuts are made to low-income families receiving health care I just
wanted to add another layer on to that so you know we can we can follow the
train of thought that if you cut the the health care to poorer families they
wind up having to seek health care through the emergency room which creates
long wait times and unclogs up the emergency room but what it also does is
every ambulance in the county that's dropping off patients though that
That ambulance can't leave the ER until they've turned over patient care to the hospital,
to the nursing staff there.
And sometimes ambulances are, you know, waiting an hour just to drop off a patient.
So those are also, it's also a tax to the EMS system that is then taken out of commission
and sitting in the, you know, sitting in the lobby with lines up around the corner trying
to drop off their patients.
So it affects the community in so many ways that we don't always appreciate.
And so it's very, very concerning to hear about these potential events.
I think the bottom line is that the support network is varied, and it's integrated together.
And we are all watching, with a certain amount of horror, worrying about what's going to
happen as people pull, it's like a big Jenga Tower.
Let's pull this out.
Let's pull that out.
of unintended consequences.
Well, I appreciate also what you just said as a physician
and a health care provider.
I've always heard that it is cheaper to prevent something
than to treat it, and it's certainly cheaper
to prevent something and not have to treat it
in the emergency crisis.
That's the most expensive form of health care, is it not?
By far.
I mean, it's like five or 10 X.
That's not to say you're expensive,
But it's an environment that is expensive.
It's the hospital system.
It's using the hospital and all of the resources
that the hospital has.
Well, by the time you get to the point
where you have to go to an emergency room,
you're really sick.
Potentially.
Or you just don't have health coverage and you need a med
refill.
Anyway.
I was going to change the subject.
OK.
It's an important subject, but yeah.
Why don't we go ahead and take a five minute break
and come back, and then we'll hear about our strategic plan.
Thank you all
All right, and we are back
Two quick things. We've forgotten the update councilmember Francois reminded me that the new fair guard gates are going in at the BART station and
Staff reminded me we have a Memorial Day event that is not to be missed the love of clock at Civic Park
And I will be speaking so I better make sure that people show up
Next on the agenda is the council calendar
2226 priority scope of work and I invite the staff to come forward and start the presentation before they start
Can you tell us what time it is in Civic Park on 11 a.m. Thank you
All right. Well, good evening council members. My name is Joe Caroza and I'm an analyst with the city manager's office
And I'll be introducing tonight's
Council priorities topic. So first of all, thank you for the opportunity
To present this evening the recommended scopes of work for the city council priorities
And as you know it is City Council's practice to establish
Priorities every two years to guide the city's work for the upcoming two calendar years in this case
We're talking about 2020 2025 and 2026
So tonight's presentation kicks off that process
This is initial update about the scope and objectives of these five City Council priorities
and we intend to provide quarterly updates going forward.
So our next update will include more timelines as well as further work planning and progress
to date.
So in February of this year, Council identified five priorities for calendar years 2025 and
2026 and they're listed here in alphabetical order.
And I'm not going to be covering this presentation by myself.
I'm joined by the lead staff for each of these five priorities.
So we've got Mike Nieman, who will be covering economic development and downtown vitality.
We've got Candace Rankin-Mumby, who will discuss environmental sustainability and climate action.
We've got Erika Vandenbrandt for general plan update, Rich Payne for park and recreation
facilities.
And then our chief of police, Jamie Knox, will cover our last item, which is public
safety and social wellness.
So each of our leads will walk through staff's proposed scopes of work and work and talk
about it at a high summary level.
And we will invite your feedback, questions, and input at the end of the presentation.
And as you know, significant progress has already been made on several of these priorities.
However, there is a lot of work that remains in the months and years ahead.
particular the general plan update, the new item will extend well beyond this two-year cycle.
So to bring these priorities to life, staff translated each priority into multiple strategic
objectives. And strategic objectives meaning broad focuses or focus areas describing what we
aim to accomplish in the next two years. And then each objective is then further broken down into
actions which are the specific steps we'll take to meet each of these goals or priorities.
And you'll see this structure reflected in tonight's presentation as well as the attachment
to the report.
So following your input, staff will begin implementing these particular actions and
return again quarterly with updates.
And so with that, I'm going to go ahead and pass it to our first presenter, Mike, on economic
development.
Thank you, Joe, and good evening, council.
Mike Nieman, your economic development manager.
So the first priority is economic development,
as you can see here.
The thinking behind this is to proceed
with where we are headed and build on some of the strengths
that we already have here.
We're fortunate, we have a really strong economy
in Walnut Creek, we have a really diversified economy,
we have more employees than residents,
and we have well-established business clusters.
So the thinking is that we need to retain our leading role in the region and continue
developing some competitive strengths here.
We already are well into the two-year action plan that I want to thank council for adopting
a year and a half ago.
So we'll continue with that plan through the rest of the year and we'll be looking for
a new one.
The focus for these objectives is to continue investing in our downtown as ground zero for
economic development, retain the quality of life that we have here, which is one of the
most unique attributes of Walnut Creek, revenue generation, continued growth in jobs and employment,
economic resilience, business support, tourism, and performance tracking.
you'll see that as I cover each of the objectives.
There are four objectives for economic development
and the themes among them are resilience,
inclusiveness, flexibility, being business friendly,
experiential side with six million visitors
to Broadway Plaza alone, and the quality of life,
whether it's measured through the arts and culture,
as you have heard in the prior presentation,
safety or many other unique attributes
that make Walnut Creek a unique place.
So the first goal,
continue building a resilient, inclusive,
and diverse economy.
How do we do that?
One of the strategies is developing a targeted campaign
to attract higher paying jobs.
There's already a lot of jobs here
and not all of them are paying high wages.
Not everyone can afford to live in this community
who works here.
So the thinking is how do we identify the types of jobs
that we're competitive for,
building on some of the existing clusters
that we have, identify opportunities,
and target some of these niche employment sub-sectors
for these opportunities that are higher paying.
We will also focus on business retention programs,
such as reintroducing the mayor's visits.
The current businesses are a bedrock of the local economy.
We have well over 3,000 businesses here
and retaining them, building relationships with them,
understanding what some of the local dynamics are
which are rapidly changing is very important.
Attracting tenants to shade lands in particular,
and we look to attract tenants to the city as a whole,
but shade lands is a particular area of an opportunity
and teaming with the P-bit there in marketing that area,
understanding that there's some capacity
and opportunity for repositioning.
There is some new and fresh thinking
in going into how do we best leverage that
as a continued area for supporting employment
and growing some of the job growth within the city,
with infrastructure there.
Creation of a wellness corridor that's been identified
in the existing action plan and the thinking there is what is the wellness corridor, how
do we build on some of the wellness trends in this community, how do we build on some
of the hospitals, some of the healthcare employment and leverage some of the existing office space
to build a cluster that supports and complements the ecosystem that's already along that corridor.
Lastly, supporting growth in the auto industry.
We already have a thriving auto industry cluster here,
and we heavily rely on them for sales tax generation,
which supports services.
About one third of our sales tax comes from it,
so building a relationship with the auto sellers
and understanding what are some of the challenges,
how can we partner, how can we continue supporting
their growth is a goal of ours.
The second area is continue creating
a business friendly environment.
And this is all about flexibility and attracting businesses.
And the key is doing it without negatively affecting
the quality of life that we have.
So it's really about striking the right balance
with being flexible and being able
to attract desirable businesses,
but also retaining the rules that make Walnut Creek unique.
And so we continue having the quality of life
that we have here, which is our competitive advantage.
Improving permitting is part of the goal here.
And we're looking to do the whole process
on making sure that this continues
to be a positive experience for developers, businesses,
applicants, creating concierge service where
we focus on businesses that are of strategic importance
to our economy and making sure that we're not adversely
affecting the timeline for these businesses
so they can start generating benefits as early as possible.
And lastly, enhancing business outreach,
meaning that we continue having a dialogue
with the business community.
We build relationships and we continue to understand
the things that are going well, that are not going well,
how can we help and how can we be proactive
in addressing some of the things that may be challenges
that are seen in the business community.
The next goal is enhancing the downtown experience
and tourism attraction,
and that is back to the experiential factor.
Downtown is a crown jewel of our strategy.
It's what draws people to town.
It generates a lot of sales tax for our community.
We heard council direction recently
on the outdoor dining program.
So focusing on that, how do we continue making sure
that the streets are activated,
the user experience is enhanced,
and people want to continue coming here
and spending money in downtown Walnut Creek
and creating experiences that are unique
and cannot be created in other communities,
especially given the increase in competition
and other communities also trying to compete
in this realm with restaurants
and other experiential side of retail in general.
And promotion, promotion is another key area
where we partner and work closely with the chamber
and their tourism arm visit Walnut Creek,
such as the Arts and Wine Festival that's upcoming
is an example of that,
that's going to bring a lot of folks to the community
and hopefully generate a lot of spillover,
economic impact outside of Civic Park
and the remainder of downtown and elsewhere in the city
through hotel stays and other activities.
And the last goal is promotion of the city,
brand as a premier destination.
And Walnut Creek is a unique brand.
As some of the council members talked earlier,
we get recognized not nationally, but internationally.
And not just for the Lesher Center,
but for some of these other competitive elements
that I mentioned.
It's about the quality of life.
It's about the shopping.
It's about the experiences that people have
when they come here.
And we want to remain at the forefront of that.
We want to do marketing and we want to tell the stories
of what makes us unique so we can continue
attracting people to this community.
We want to continue tracking performance
and seeing what strategies work and don't work.
That requires a lot of data, mining and tracking
and building trends over time.
So being the city's data broker
is a big part of economic development.
Working with the stakeholders.
Economic development is a team sport.
So when I talk about economic development,
we are a division of two,
but it's really partnerships,
partnerships with downtown, with the chamber,
with the departments and external stakeholders
on the regional level is how we can get these things done.
And lastly, the new action plan.
So with the winding down of the current action plan in 2025,
we will be looking to update and implement
some of these strategies that I've highlighted
the new two-year document that will cover 2026 and 2027. And with that I will pass it over to Candice.
I it might be easier for us to go through and ask specific questions of each area as we go through
rather than try to hold them but so if people have a couple quick questions for Mike, Councilmember
So I, you know, as the council, you know, our biggest role is passing policy, and then
so much of the groundwork is, and the ongoing work is done by staff.
When I hear things like, you know, targeting higher paying jobs, marketing, and you mentioned
the mayor visits, like going out to businesses, it just made me think that as far as, you
targeting these companies, targeting these higher-paying jobs, the marketing campaign,
the outreach. Do you see a greater role for the council to be advocates in that regard?
Do you have lots of businesses to visit and perhaps we can spend time doing that? I'm
just curious what if you see the role besides policy that that we might be
able to engage in. What I would just add at a higher level and I can add in more
detail I mean certainly council members and mayor always ambassadors for the
city and part of your role is active in the community and talking with folks to
understand their interests that we can you know address those not only here at
the dais but in operations as well. In terms of you know visiting businesses
and whatnot we have staff that you know work with WCD to visit some and in the
downtown areas and partnerships with the chamber and then there are I think
we're targeting roughly six or so a year that the mayor would do so I don't know
that we'd have capacity in that regard to organize tours with each of the
council members more specifically we're trying to have the mayor be the focal
point there and then do some other work at the staff level and less formal kind
of check-ins but you know obviously as you're out in the community talking with
folks helping send the message in terms of some of the policies that we're
working on or bringing that information back from what you're hearing is an
absolutely critical role of the council. Other questions? Council Member Silva. I was just
going to add to that we have an opportunity as council members on an
ongoing basis to be able to work the address questions and work the message
when we're at events such as Walnut Creek chamber bashes or Art and Wine
Festival etc but I think it's easier if we have one voice that speaks for the
camp as a representative of the council as a whole each year and that which is
why the mayor's visits were always it just rotates but I appreciate the the
more we know about what the answers to the questions are the better we are as
ambassadors as council members too. Right. Mayor Pro Tem did you have any
questions? Not any questions I well I guess I can phrase it into a question
which is I know there's been some challenges when it's come to working
with commercial office space on Aria and so I think some creative ways to be
able to increase occupancy there I think is going to be something that will help
all of our vitality and would be interested to have those ongoing
discussions with staff in the community and how they would like to position it
for us. There's a question in there somewhere but that was my thought.
I'll follow up because that sparked a question in terms of, Mike, is that particular sector
what you're envisioning when you talk about strategic zoning updates?
Is it focused on office, commercial, pedestrian retail?
What are you envisioning there?
It is.
Yes.
Thank you for that question.
It is.
And what we're doing in that regard, and we have already started, is getting input from
the business community.
So we have engaged brokers in the conversation and getting feedback, and we're working with
the planning division staff to make sure that we understand and fine tune.
So whether it's through the general plan update or other ways, understanding that we don't
have any zoning rules that may inadvertently prevent the types of businesses that we may
want to see in certain areas.
In other cases, it's just understanding why we have those rules having the right rationale.
So being flexible yet making sure that we retain the quality of life is really the key
there.
And so far the kind of input that we've received are mostly focused on office and retail type
zoning.
So you get the feedback from the brokers and then the next step is engaging with Erica
and her group in terms of, here's what we're hearing.
How could we implement this in terms of changes
to the zoning code?
Yes, that's correct, and I'll let Erica cover it a bit more
during her portion of the presentation,
but that's where we currently are,
and it's an ongoing dialogue.
So, I really think of it as more of a framework,
because we want to make sure that we understand the input,
that we work with planning, that we report back
on some of the outcomes of those conversations,
And we'll also brace and plan if and how we can fix
to the extent that, because not every kind of feedback
we've received necessarily merits fixing per se,
but to the extent that there are opportunities to improve
that we'll look ahead and look for ways
how those could be improved, which generally would probably
be through the general plan update where we could look
at a more strategic way of making sure
that things are fine tuned.
Thank you.
So my only question was I was thinking
about the idea of the permit streamlining
and the potential for a concierge.
And one of the things that I have
heard from a number of different businesses
that are trying to cross the I's, dot the T's,
is conflicts with other agencies.
And so PG&E transformers, Hope Village and their East Bay
asking for six meters, you know, the primrose last, you know, where they were
talking about the the state licensing and having difficulty getting through
that. Is there a potential for something like the concierge to also provide that
service, like who do you yell at a PG&E kind of thing? Yes there's always an
opportunity and thank you for your question mayor but I think the primrose
example you bring up is a good one so we knew that they had a lease signed and
they're losing money because they were they were not able to get the permit
from the state that would allow them to move forward so us knowing that we
reached out to the state we reached out to various avenues that we could find to
put additional pressure on the state and try to expedite the permitting process
which ultimately were successful in getting them permitting so that's a
really good example of what is meant by the concierge service.
It's not that we can always control the outcomes of external
agencies, but we can certainly prioritize and try to invest
resources and hope that our efforts enhance and leverage the
applicant efforts and try to expedite those kinds of things.
Okay, good.
Thank you.
Can I ask a couple of questions when you're done?
Yeah, I'm all done.
Go ahead.
Thank you very much, Mike.
The reference to concierge, we've
talked about it a lot in recent years.
And it seems very important.
And then you said, where would we be focused?
And is it also possible that we can offer a concierge service
to those new businesses, particularly downtown,
that don't know what they don't know?
You don't know to ask.
So is there a way for us to be able to facilitate
an awareness of some services that they need?
And as an example, I can remember standing
in the community development department talking
to someone 15 years ago, and a new restaurant
across the street, it was a different brand.
It had come in and it didn't have a sign.
And I said, why don't they have a sign yet?
You can't get business without a sign.
And the answer I got, this was ages ago,
was they haven't asked for one.
And to which I kind of, my head was going like this.
They don't know that they need,
I mean they probably don't even know they need a sign
or need permission.
So that is also an element
of where we need Concierge services.
I have a technical question.
In the wellness corridor section,
you use the phrase supply chain,
which I know in the document.
I know what it is, but I don't understand the reference to it, so can you explain what
the meaning of how you're using the term here?
Yeah.
Thank you for your question, Council Member Silva.
So this term was used as looking at part of the ecosystem.
So what are our strengths as far as the health care cluster and some of the existing types
of sectors that are already here and what may they be needing that may not exist in
Walnut Creek or maybe there is a shortage of it in Walnut Creek.
So for example, if John Muir Hospital is on Ignacio Valley Road and they have most of
their services within their campus, but maybe they have a shortage of lab space.
So identifying that and seeking a way to attract lab space to the corridor within proximity
to the existing hospital would be the supply chain deficiency that we would be targeting
in this regard.
So you're meeting it in a broader sense, not just a product.
They need sterile needles.
You're meeting it in the services that they need within a 10-mile radius.
Yes.
That would be make them more efficient and make this whole corridor work.
thank you okay so why don't we go ahead and move on to the next one mayor if I
may I just wanted to add up just a couple comments related concierge
service one building off your comments councilmember Silva when things are
looking at is you know what types of businesses is it some of the smaller
businesses the large ones in addition where are the other friction points
because there's a lot with homeowners that come in for a remodel that same
thing they're not seasoned developers and don't know so part of the process
going forward is to really identify those creek key friction points which
ones we want to zero on Israel in on I suspect we may pilot one or two first
get it dialed in see if we can then expand to some of these other friction
points where folks need a little more focus and the other nothing else I'm
just gonna build on your comment mayor and about other agencies and just use
use the moment here to highlight that one of the challenges we often hear the governor
and others in Sacramento like to lay blame on cities and counties for not developing
housing and moving things forward. What they often forget to include in those statements
is that cities are working within the regulatory framework that was created by the state, which
is oftentimes convoluted and complex, as highlighted by the multiple other agencies that need to
be coordinated with. So, we'll make sure we set realistic expectations for what a
concierge service could actually do, those that are within our control. We can
certainly try to influence in certain areas, but given the regional nature of
water, wastewater, electricity services here in the Bay Area, coupled with a lot
of state regulations, there will still be challenges amongst the
various entities that are involved in the permitting process. That said, we will
to try to limit the negative impacts
of all of that coordination that needs to occur.
Yeah, sometimes it's just a matter
of giving somebody the right phone number.
And all right, sustainability.
Good evening, Mayor Darling and council members.
My name is Candace Rankin-Mumby.
I'm the city's sustainability manager.
And I'll be talking to you this evening
about our environmental sustainability
and climate action priority.
This priority builds pretty closely off of a priority
from the last cycle.
And the six proposed strategic actions under this priority
come from the city sustainability action plan,
which the council adopted in July of 2023.
That plan at the time had implementation goal timeframes
included for the actions within the plan.
And about half of those were aimed to be completed
by the end of 2026.
So all that you'll hear me talk about this evening
pulls directly from that plan and uses those as the base.
So I'll get into more detail
about these objectives in the next slides.
So these first two goals to decarbonize buildings
and transportation focus on reducing greenhouse gas
emissions from energy use in both buildings
and transportation.
And these two sectors account for the vast majority
of the climate pollution reduction potential
in our sustainability action plan.
So decarbonized buildings, to start with that priority,
it has six actions underneath it.
The first two address our own city facilities
and our opportunities for us to lead by example
by both installing renewable energy solutions
and conserving as much energy
as is feasible at our facilities.
The second two relate to building standards
for construction through the building
and energy codes in the community.
And the 2025 code cycle,
that code will be adopted later this year.
And staff are currently exploring opportunities
building off the guidance from the plan
to set appropriate standards for a community
that would go beyond state minimums
both new and existing buildings and construction. And then these last two actions, they relate to
encouraging the community to electrify their homes and businesses by sharing information about
incentives and about our community choice aggregator MCE. Walnut Creek residents and
businesses can enroll in a 100 percent renewable electricity rate plan through MCE and so we partner
with them to really share that opportunity. Looking at our transportation goals here,
our four actions really do overlap and the overall goal here I like to think of it as reducing the
numbers of trips alone in internal combustion engine vehicles in our community and there's
several different ways that we can do that. So the first two actions here really look at electric
vehicles and both the chargers that this fee provides and then our own fleet of vehicles and
and how we can transition those to electric vehicles.
And staff are currently undertaking a sub-plan of this,
a strategic plan built specifically
around electric vehicles with a consultant
to look at really building out the details of how
that will be done.
And so there will be more details on that coming
before you later as well.
And then we are also in that looking at both our fleet
and our charters in the community.
The next action, to expand the bike network,
focuses on capital projects to improve bike facilities in the city and you'll
hear more about these efforts later tonight in other parts of this
presentation. And then the last goal relates to our school related
transportation emissions. We really work on this in partnership with our schools
and utilize a combination of both outreach and infrastructure improvements
to make it more sustainable how our students commute to and from school.
Moving into our next two priorities, first focusing on conserving water,
water. Reducing water use both conserves a precious natural resource and also prevents
emissions that would have resulted from treating and transporting that water. And so our first
action in this strategy includes exploring opportunities to encourage new buildings and
significant retrofits to conserve water beyond state requirements like we were talking about
earlier with the building requirements. And then the second action is to continue our
efforts to encourage water conservation throughout our community. And we do this through outreach
and education and partnership with our water districts, East Bay Mud and Contra Costa Water
District. The next action related to solid waste reduction. This is actually a lot of people don't
think about waste as a climate change goal, but it is the third largest sector in our plan.
So this is another great area for us to really work towards reducing waste and then also properly
sorting it to reduce missions related to it. And for these goals, we work very closely with
with Recycle Smart, our waste management,
joint powers authority on implementing actions in this area.
We plan to formalize policies and procedures
that will expand on organics and recycling waste sorting
at our city events and facilities to further opportunities
for those events that our community comes to.
And then we also hope to work with Recycle Smart
to partner with interested restaurants
on a reasonable food ware pilot program
which would aim to reduce plastic utensils
or to go containers from the service
that these restaurants put to the community.
And then lastly, we'd like to work
with our farmer's market and our community gardens
to encourage the use of local food
in an effort to reduce both food packaging and food waste.
So continue on to our last two strategies here.
The fifth strategy,
transition to pollution-free outdoor equipment,
focuses on reducing pollution from gas-powered leaf blowers.
City staff have almost completed transitioning
our own fleet of leaf blowers to electric options
and expect that transition to complete this summer.
And then staff have received a lot of feedback
from the community about an interest
in banning gas-powered leaf blowers community-wide,
and so we are actively working on a policy
to implement that, and there will be more information
coming on that soon as well.
And our last strategy here relates less
to preventing climate change from worsening
and to more reacting to the conditions
that we're already seeing from it and will continue to see.
And so it's really looking at
improving our community resilience to these changes.
So these first two actions related to masks
and resilience hubs respond to the increased likelihood
of natural disasters and extreme weather
that will impact the safety and health of our community.
Resilience hubs are a multi-use publicly accessible spaces
that aim to equitably distribute knowledge
and resources pertaining to both climate change
and extreme weather response and recovery.
And then the last point here ties back
to a bit of what you were just hearing about before,
but the great opportunity resources
that we have in our economic sector
and looking here to encourage green businesses
and have the shift in the economy.
There'll be lots of opportunities created
from all of these new technologies
and regulations that we're seeing come.
So looking here to see how we can work
with our environmentally conscious businesses.
And for that, we plan to partner
with both the educational sector and our business community
to promote the green workforce training
as well as green businesses.
So that concludes our
Sustainability and Climate Action Strategies
and I can take questions with these.
Thank you, Candice.
Questions for Candice?
Councilmember Defini?
I was encouraged to hear you mention
the food wear reduction efforts.
And one of my questions is, where are we in that process
as far as trying to encourage restaurants?
And what are the steps that we need
to do to maybe implement something like that to cut down
on single use plastics?
And if I could actually ask you to,
we used to have the ban on bags, but somehow it
seems like all the grocery stores,
like they got around that.
Yeah, so to address the last part about the plastic bag use,
I think there's kind of a two-pronged approach
or response to that.
One is that understanding and remembering these policies
is an ongoing effort that takes a lot of reinforcement.
But there was also a technical way
that non-reusable bag was defined
in the original version of that regulation
where the bags were a certain thickness.
They were technically reusable.
So there has been some state legislation that's caught that loophole a little bit and updated
it.
So I think we'll continue to see a slightly different environment in terms of what bags
are available, but that will continue to take education with our businesses.
And that ties back to your broader question about also the food ware generally.
So we work very closely with Recycle Smart and their current waste hauler provider, Republic
Services has sustainability coordinators as well who go and visit all of our businesses and really
try to share information about all of these regulations related to their waste, including
the plastic foodware. So that is an ongoing education effort that's very intensive and that
we support as we're able to. Some of how we're hoping to really get across in this is these
innovative ideas like this pilot project. So Recycle Smart has developed this program and I believe
believe that they've implemented it with some restaurants within their service area, but
not yet any within Walnut Creek. So we're looking in this two year time period to partner
with them to find a good business that would be interested in taking something like that
on. It can be a big change to your business practices to start. So it is a big, we need
a willing partner who understands as well.
Okay, thank you. And then, as far as, like, EV charging stations, we had a community member that was interested to know if we have incentives for multifamily units that are, you know, already existing to install EV within those those buildings.
Yeah, so we do not as the city have our own incentive programs. However, we really partner with our other utility partners and other incentive programs and promote those and so MCE who I mentioned earlier, our community choice aggregator, they actually do have some new funding
related to multifamily charger incentives. So that that is a program that's newly available and then this, you know, residents can work with their property owners of the multifamily on, and that information is all available on MCE's website.
And they also have a really great incentive finder where they have information on other incentives that maybe aren't theirs
But are from the state as well, so encourage folks to check out their website and look for more information there, okay
Thank you, and then
Last question we have the blowers on the the radar are we looking at other?
gasoline powered
Outdoor equipment as well
so what the direction that
Action comes straight from our sustainability action plan and the direction in that is limited to gas power leaf blowers
Which would be in line with some of the regional
Regulations that we've seen from that as well from our neighbors. So
Currently that isn't the direction that we have to address that community-wide
I will add that in addition to our ban kind of just to give a sense of the regulatory environment
There is a state law that went into place
I believe at the beginning of last year that limited the sale of all small off-road engines
Which is kind of the technical term for all that landscaping equipment
So there's there's you don't have the opportunity to purchase them anymore
But that would be outside this current vision of this thing. Thank you
Thank you mayor pro tem. Did you have any questions on this one?
Nope, I'm pleased with what I see. Thanks. All right other council members councilmember Sola
Thank you very much Candace and this may be one of the first times that you have presented in front of council it is
Good memory congratulations
you're surviving
excellent job the
There's a lot that's here
This is can I trust that it is all in alignment with the sustainability action plan it is I have a cheat sheet
I can tell you the action number if you'd like and
when we look at the
Solid waste, thank you for acknowledging that Recycle Smart somewhat takes the lead and works. We work with six agencies
municipal the
but our
Walnut Creek community is different than the other five communities
it that are in
partnered in Recycle Smart. Are we going to be able to take a targeted approach?
as to encouraging recycling and et cetera,
and we can talk about it more when we give our comments,
but are we gonna be able to take more targeted approach
than they're taking at Recycle Smart
because of just the uniqueness of our agency?
If I understand your question, what I'll say
is that we do quite a bit of programming
in our small but mighty sustainability division
to add to, a lot of it is outreach at this point,
but sharing about the state regulations
or other programs that are available.
So that is definitely something that we do
to build on top of what the outreach and programs
that Recycle Smart's already doing.
But beyond that, we do have several actions in the plan
that relate to waste.
I think there's 14 actions under that strategy,
some of which are described here and built on that.
So those are also initiatives that we are taking the lead on
or very closely in partnership with them.
Does that address your question?
And we'll make comments later. So I'll give you a couple of suggestions in the comments section. Thank you. Thank you
And I'm good too, thank you for I know you I caught as you were going through that the 350
Comment letter you had many of those as parenthetical to the councilor Daphne asked for us a couple of those
So I appreciate that. Mm-hmm. All right. Thank you. Thank you
next
Hello there council America abandoned brand I'm the community development director
And I have the fine honor of talking about the general plan update tonight
so as I'm sure that most of your were a general plan is a
jurisdiction's guiding framework that expresses a community's values as it relates to thank you as it relates to quality of life land use
Environmental resources capital investments and all the regulations that help get a community there and engaging with the private sector and others
The overall goal for this particular effort is that at the end of a four year period so it's going to go past
The initial two years of this biennium is to have an updated general plan that offers a clear vision
What walnut Creek aspires to be in 2050 along with the policy?
Along with the goals policies and zoning code updates to help get us there
There we go
There are several strategic objectives that are identified here
But this is just the beginning because just like with any other major effort like planning a major capital and project
There's a lot of pre-work that needs to be done not least of which is
Assembling the team including the consultants to work on the project to be able to actually get the general plan in place
What we heard during council priority setting was that you have an expectation around robust
community engagement and stakeholder outreach.
And so that is a very strong element that we are putting in place with this over here.
And that as we're seeking consultant efforts, that that's going to be a very strong part
of it along with all the various technical pieces to go.
And in fact, we are doing some experiments right now.
So we are recently out at the Lotus Street fair,
and we're receiving community feedback
about what they like about Walnut Creek.
So the next piece of this is starting to deal with not
just the outreach and so forth, but it's framing things up.
Because there's a lot of technical work
that needs to be done, too, in preparation for actually
talking about vision and talking about implications,
et cetera, so that there's work to be done
about what our current state is,
documenting it in terms of demographics.
And we heard earlier about economic development,
but there are many other things
and other aspects of the community.
And also, forecasting into the future,
because as we look 25 years into the future,
the world is hopefully gonna be a very different place
than it is right now.
And so being able to articulate what we aspire to be.
In order to be able to get there,
there are different scenarios that
need to be developed, et cetera, which
are going to be based in a lot of this technical work that
needs to be done.
And to be able to describe how the future might unfold,
to be able to create different scenarios, as well
as the implications, environmentally and economically
and otherwise, and then trade-offs
that would need to be addressed to have that desired future state become a reality.
So that's the overall framing for the general plan update.
If you have any questions, I'd be very happy to answer them.
Thank you.
Councilmember Francois.
Do you perhaps have any questions?
I've got a few.
So thank you very much for the update.
Do you have a general sense for how much of this work will be done by staff and how much
will be done by the consultant?
question. It's going to depend on we're going to be seeking in terms of bidding
and you know getting doing an RFP to see how much resource we can actually get
from our consultants and if there is a gap then we're going to look at where we
have staff capacity to be able to do that. We've already reached out you know
amongst the executive team and in the different departments and as I'm sure
that our city manager shared with council earlier that this is a
significant lift for the entire organization and so it's going to be a
hybrid of those things and depending on how the RFP comes back we may may need
to adjust scope a little bit. So there's a possibility then to seeing if you know
having the consultant do as much as possible and seeing what the capacity is
in-house but also maybe reassessing a potentially augmenting CDD staff to
address any shortfall? I theoretically yes but I think right now we're going to
proceed as if we have it all dialed in because we have a great talented staff
and a lot of ability to be able to not only within the community development
Department, but to reach out with our colleagues and other departments and
You know work on these different pieces and so that for example in
The city manager's office in our economic development side there folks that have you know expertise in various areas that we could rely on
And that's also true in other departments. And so I hesitate to say definitively
yes to any of these things because
It will depend on what our consultants come back with because in the current bidding environment
We anticipate that it would have been last year things. They weren't quite as hungry now consultants are hungrier
And then most cities seem to form like a general plan Advisory Committee
made up of you know
mostly community members, but also sometimes including
Representatives of the Commission's and maybe a council representative is are you envisioning that as part of the process?
So whenever we sit there and look at it and look at best practices having a group that's representative of the community
Provides the clearest lens and the clearest vision
The planning commissioners each one of the different commissioners and then you as counsel also have the ability to have very frequent check-ins
and to weigh in etc
but the best practice is to try and keep the two realms a little bit more separated so that
You know the commute those that are representative of the community
Are able to speak on behalf of the community and look through that lens
Just just generally then last question the idea of the schedule for going out for RFP for the consultant
So we're looking at doing that later on in the summer. We've already
Put together a quite robust
RFP based off of looking at other jurisdictions and so forth and
We're trying to do exactly what you had alluded to earlier about which pieces are we best able to deal with in-house and where we're going
to be
Prioritized in terms of having consultant assistance and to be able to gauge that more effectively
Thank you. Thank you others on general plan
Councilmember Silva
councilmember Francois asked a couple of the questions that I was going to ask and
Is it safe to assume that when the
vision of how this will roll out and
How many people would be on a steering committee and what the composition might be etc that will come to council because these are real
policy questions for the 25 years into the future
Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. And
Is it also I think that will be very helpful because a lot of us were here before and a lot of us weren't
so and things change the other thing is
Is there a vision in this that there would be?
It was called community conversations in the previous version of this
There were three or four meetings that were essentially town halls and people were
really invited to attend and it was somewhat like standing at a farmer's market and just
let capturing people as they go by, but it was by invitation attendance, really people
were encouraged and invited and et cetera.
Is that envisioned up front as well?
Absolutely that as well as various technological means, potentially questionnaires and other
forms of, you know, because people communicate in so many different ways now.
And so the foray into a farmers market type of approach, we started off with that this
past Wednesday, just talking about the community to get the community used to actually talking
about city things.
And as we go forward, we'll be experimenting with a number of different things.
If we have a really clever consultant that helps gamify things, that would also be of
interest because people communicate and they engage in very different ways now.
Mayor Pro Tem? No questions, thanks. And I think Councilmember Fredswell hit most of
mine. The one I was still wondering about was when I've looked back at the previous
general plan and thought about what are the gaps, is that part of what you guys
are doing when you're looking at best practices like what has really changed
in the last 25 years, you know, and what are the sustainability being one and how we communicate
and some of those things?
Absolutely.
And, you know, this is not going to be a one and done kind of thing because there's going
to be continuous engagement.
So, you as council members, the community at large, our stakeholders in the business
community and also our partners, you know, there had been some discussion earlier about
other agencies and so forth, we're all going to be talking along the way and it's like
where are there gaps?
Where can we identify the things that we can help use this as a format to be able to fill
some of those gaps and make it easier because the intention is that by 2050 we realize the
community that we aspire to be in that time frame and I want to try and make it as easy
possible to do the things that the community wants. Yeah I found when I was
starting to go back through it and think about the general plan I just went looked
at like three other general plans that are just been done it's like oh that's a
good idea oh that's a good idea so I'm sure you guys are working on that it's
gonna be fun. I think it will be. I think it will be. Thank you. Moving on to parks
and building stuff. Good evening council members. I'm super excited to be able
to present this council priority. This has been one many of the projects
associated with this council priority have been in the works for quite a long
time, specifically our new aquatics and the Heather Farm Community Center. So so
So when the council members chose this as one of their priorities, a lot of the work
was already in place and we were moving forward.
So I was really excited to see this.
So our focus tonight will be obviously the projects related to the Measure O funding
along with current park and recreation facilities that are in our current capital budget and
the 26-27 capital budget.
My focus tonight will be four main objectives
for the strategy.
And it will focus on the existing park and facility
improvements as outlined in the 24-25 capital budget
and the 26-27 capital budget.
Work will also include the big one, the new aquatic and community
center, which is moving forward, and then design and construct
new and improved pedestrian bike infrastructure that
encourages physical activity.
And again, we've made a lot of progress in this area,
so it's nice to see that this is going
to be one of the strategic objectives.
And then also, lastly, just begin
looking at the existing Clark pool and sort of imagine, reimagine what that
space might look like in our parks. So the first one I'll focus on is the
existing park facilities and improvements. As you are aware, the
ball field lighting is underway at Tice Park. This will allow expanded use of
of that park, specifically for soccer and other activities
that happen out at Tice Valley.
Just being able to work into the evening,
especially during those winter months,
will really expand the use and make it a little easier
on some of the programming that happens at our other fields.
The Synthetic Turf Project at Heather Park is also underway,
and again, will expand the use there.
If you've been out there, there's a lot of excavation,
A lot of piles of dirt out there, a lot of equipment
moving around, and things are going well.
That project is moving forward.
So two projects that are underway,
so we're excited about that.
And then the next objective here, or not objective,
the next project that we have underway there
is the court resurfacing at Arbolero Park
and Red Gear Park.
So this is the tennis courts that are out there,
and also the basketball court that
is out there at those parks.
These parks haven't received some treatment
for quite some time.
We did some preliminary repairs.
And then this is just sort of finishing
the work that needs to be done out there at those parks.
And then also the playground equipment upgrade at Civic Park,
Although this and Walden Park, although this,
these projects have not started.
The outreach to the community has began
to try and see what the community would like to see
at these parks in terms of the playground amenities
out there.
And then last but not least, looking at the Pickleball
and Bocce facilities and possibly trying to incorporate
some of that, or those two types of uses in our parks as long as funding is available.
So the next objective I'd like to focus on is the phase one of the Heather Farm Project.
you might be aware, this project, the new aquatics Heather Farm facility, is broken
up into two phases. The first phase will really be the lake expansion and the realignment
of the pond edge. And I'm happy to report that we have received all three of the environmental
permits to make this project move forward. So, we're excited, we're out to bid, yes.
There's been a lot of work and I attribute a lot of that work, the heavy lifting to mic
makers who is here tonight. But, as I mentioned, we are out to bid. We did a job walk yesterday,
so we're excited. We had five or six interested contractors that are willing to do that type
of work and it's pretty specialized. So our goal is to receive those bids by the
end of May and then bring it to council for approval and then start
construction. In between, maybe in the next month or so, you'll see a planned
groundbreaking event and all of you will be invited.
Can I ask a question here?
I know we pulled our questions to the end.
This is not a long one.
Okay, I'm going to ask you to go back to this slide then.
Okay, sounds good.
And then phase two, we're looking at starting in parallel with phase one, we'll be going
out and pre-qualifying contractors because this is such a large project, we wanna make
sure that we get contractors that are skilled and have the experience to be able to do a
project of this magnitude.
We're hopeful to get this out to bid, not hopeful, we will be getting this out to bid,
by the fall of this year, and so that's our goal.
And then construction will start early in January.
And then the next objective here is to really improve our pedestrian and bicycle experience
and around our streets, building connectors to the downtown,
looking at just really building amenities
that make it safe for bicycle use and our pedestrians.
And as you can see, some of these projects
are already in the works.
And then we've got many projects in the capital budget
as outlined.
And I can just kind of go over some of these.
That one is the Wigget and Contra Costa Canal Trail,
if you've ever been there, just sort of,
it's a connector from the park there that's,
and then also Mount Diablo Boulevard
and Bont Lane intersections, kind of over by the,
I want to say it's over by the St. Mary's Church there,
and then Mount Diablo Boulevard, or I'm sorry,
and the southwest corner of Oak Grove Road
in Ignatial Valley.
It's a tricky intersection right there,
so those amenities will be going in there.
And then the Wigott Lane and Mitchell Drive intersection.
So those are some of the things that,
or some of the projects that we have in the works.
And then the last one here is to begin.
You probably noticed this money set aside
for the planning of this, the Clark Pool site.
You can see it there, the footprint.
It's a pretty large area that we'll be looking at.
And so the goal here is to develop a subcommittee
with active community members.
And then at the same time, hire a landscape architect
to assist with that process.
And just develop a list of amenities
and then take those amenities to the public
can get some feedback. Oh and with that I'll take any questions. Okay now it's
time for questions on building cool stuff. Councilmember Silva. So I
appreciate the resorting of the these are in a different order than they were
in the documents that we were receiving and I appreciate it because if you don't
lead with your big one I don't or your existing ones. I was confused when I
looked at this and I hope so the clarification is really for everyone at
home phase one is not building the whole thing because this is just phase one is
the reconfiguration of the lake yes thank you for pointing that out if you
look on this photo there this schematic you'll see the green areas thank you
That is the lake, oh, the lake, right there?
Okay, let me see, I wish, yeah, so right there, thank you.
This is the lake expansion.
This is the lake expansion.
And if you look over here, the work will really be
focused on realigning that pond edge.
So that is phase one.
And then the reason why you have, we highlighted this,
is the dirt that will be removed from the lake
will be regraded out in that area.
And then the plan is to replant trees and really
make that area a nice.
Right now, it's an open field, grass field.
So the work that this will include after everything
is graded out and sort of re-contoured
trees to that area.
So phase one, which is May 2025 to June-July,
when will phase one conclude?
So phase one is slated to conclude by October.
So it's the lake, the reconfiguration of the lake
and the ancillary work.
So that means that phase two is the actual construction
of the new pool and the new community center.
The fun stuff, yes.
or the water person thinks this is fun.
All right, so that's helpful
because I was a little confused initially.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
Council Member Francois.
I'll ask a few questions about maybe the ones
that are sleeper ones in your presentation
on the playground equipment upgrades.
Just in terms of outreach, just wanted to ask,
are you reaching out to like moms and dads groups,
frequent users of those, of the playground equipment?
Yeah, so the idea is to put a pop-up out there at the site.
Specifically, there's certain times,
if you're familiar with these parks,
they're a little crowded during the day.
And so we would go out there and solicit feedback
on those crowded times of the day,
in addition to hitting like farmer's markets
and other community events.
There might, yeah, I'll save it for comments, I guess.
But some of these specialized groups,
yoga mommies and things like that,
know I think we first got involved in the city because of the upgrade that
was being done at Larky Park near where we lived at the time and it I think it
enlisted a lot of community engagement and interest in the playground upgrades
I'm glad to see we're doing that then in terms of the traffic improvements this
one piqued my interest too in terms of Mount Diablo and Bont in particular but
just in general are you talking about flashing signals or some more visible
kind of markings for pedestrians there? You know what I I'm getting the nod from
Smidar but I'll let her expand. No you felt her eyes boring into your back.
She loves this stuff she's dying to get up here. Okay hi Smidar Boardman City
engineer. So yes, we actually had put this project out to bid and you actually accepted the rejection of this bids on your
consent calendar earlier. But this is one of those locations that we'll be getting these flashing lights at this
intersection because we already did these striping improvements. So this is just that extra layer but we will be bringing
it back to council once we get the scope or find a little bit.
And that's unique to this intersection. There's other ones are getting different treatments like you're showing.
Yeah, and actually that so the improvement of adding those flashing lights
We're actually doing it at multiple locations and that's in alignment with the safe system approach, which is the systemic
way of
addressing traffic safety
Looking at similar context and applying the same treatment at all those locations. I
Think it's a great idea. Thank you
Councilmember Defending don't go so somewhere Spinar
I was going to catch you while you're still up there,
but I was curious, Rich, the courts in Arbalada and Rudgier,
what is the cost of the resurfacing on those courts?
So collectively, it just went out to around the 600,000 mark.
For both?
Yes.
That's both sides.
And at Rudgier, there's how many tennis courts are?
Is it three courts there that are being resurfaced?
Or?
There, there's three, yeah, three.
Okay, and so it's about 300,000 for those?
Roughly, yeah, just a little more of that, yeah.
Okay.
And the, the pickleball courts at Rudger,
those are, those were touched a little more recently
than the tennis courts, can you,
can you tell me about that?
Yeah, so the tennis courts a couple years ago
received some minor repairs.
And so we're coming back to do sort of the final resurfacing.
In terms of the existing bocce resurfacing project,
it was done about eight years ago.
And you figure that the use of that is between 8 and 10.
And we've evaluated those courts, the bocce courts.
The pickleball courts?
I'm sorry, I watch you, I don't know where that is coming from.
The pickleball courts, we've actually went out and looked at the pickleball courts and
there's some minor cracking, but we don't, right now, they're looking like they're in
pretty good shape other than the minor cracking.
The striping looks good, but it is in the 10-year CIP for the next cycle, which would
be 28, so it is listed in the 10-year CIP.
And how much would it cost to do those two additional courts
roughly?
Those two courts were probably around $200,000 to $300,000.
So if we were to do a full resurfacing of those courts,
repainting, all that.
Yeah.
OK.
All right.
The timing of the Clark Swim Center, when do you think that the community will be engaged
for that?
Because I know there's some interested parties in that, I'm sure.
As you can see, we're really busy.
Yeah.
In fact, I think I had said at one point, maybe it was the last council meeting, we
were going to try and get to that in the fall, you know, to start a process, and it might
spill into twenty six just based on the workload that we have in community engagement and what
community engagement the community engagement process is just you know that will probably start
fall of this year into next year and then we'll go from there and I would just add to that in
terms of timing something to keep in mind obviously it's important to future reuse but if you look at
the time frame for the construction of the new project of the new community center aquatic
We're targeting, I know this makes rich squirm a bit,
we're targeting end of 2027 for the completion
of the new building, which is fairly aggressive.
And then there would be the demolition
of the existing aquatic center after that.
So we're into 28, that's if all is on schedule,
which I'm hoping we are, but obviously a lot
of big public projects can be extended for various reasons.
So I mentioned that because I think we're looking
at at least three years before that site would be viable,
be to be developed into something else so there is some time to work on this
project and in fact it'd be we wouldn't want to start too soon one because of
workload constraints but also some of the feedback might be dated by the time
we would actually conduct the work so we want to make sure we time it in a way
that makes sense in terms of when the actual property would be available to be
repurposed. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem? No further questions. Okay thanks. My only
One question, thinking about the community input
on reusing Clark's from center, that location,
because you do have houses there,
is there any value in having,
I could see noise associated with that.
I mean, if pickle balls of potential use,
then noise is something.
Having some of the sound studies
before you start doing the outreach,
or is that something that you pretty much know
you're gonna have to do no matter what?
I think that'll be something depending on what we end up with will be something that we do. Right now the pool generates a certain level of noise, right. So, but if it's something like pickle ball we we've learned from that's something we're going to be looking at pretty close.
Yeah. OK, good. All right. Thanks. Any more questions on parks? Jamie, you can't run out the door now.
Good evening. I'm not that tall. Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the City Council.
Jamie Knox, Chief of Police, and it's my pleasure to present our objectives. I guess I should
advance to my slide here. To support your council's goal of keeping public safety and
social wellness a priority here in Wheellet Creek and those priorities include strengthening
and modernizing our police force,
using proactive strategies to address crime,
coordinating responses to homelessness
and mental health issues,
and fostering crime prevention partnerships
and promoting programs in our neighborhoods
and our business districts,
and improving traffic safety
for everyone who travels in the city,
and bolstering our preparedness and resilience
against the growing challenges of regional disasters
such as wildfires, earthquakes, droughts, floods,
and other hazards.
So I'll dive into a little bit more detail here.
So first, to maintain an effective
and innovative police department,
we're committed to exploring technology
to include artificial intelligence
to streamline tasks and improve system interoperability.
We'll continue to utilize social media as a community engagement tool.
It's proven to be a valuable resource to keep the public informed.
And we will evaluate our citywide camera systems to look for opportunities to
improve our LPR system, uh, and our traffic management cameras.
And we will continue our proactive police response to crime trends by
establishing stronger community connections and identify target areas for
crime intervention.
We will not only rely on data driven approaches to do this,
but also rely on community sentiment so that we can ensure we're making people
feel safe.
We'll also refine and streamline our internal communication channels to improve
intelligence and information sharing and to coordinate joint agency response to
homelessness and mental health challenges.
We'll continue to collaborate with city and community partners in response to
issues arising from homelessness,
and collaborate with city and community partners
to promote inclusive disaster preparedness,
and this creates an emphasis on addressing
our vulnerable populations that are even more at risk
during some disaster situations.
So now that we have our new crime prevention
specialist on board, we're gonna continue
to develop our crime prevention partnerships and programs.
Primarily, that'll consist of establishing a neighborhood watch procedure and program
and a crime-free business program.
And next will be, this is a big one, it's always an issue here with traffic.
So we will continue to improve traffic, transit, pedestrian and bicycle safety for everybody.
This includes increasing traffic enforcement that is complaint and data driven.
driver education, we'll continue to support our grant initiatives and work closely with
the Office of Traffic Safety on those endeavors.
We will be increasing DUI enforcement.
Since I've been here, we haven't been able to hold a DUI checkpoint because now the laws
are very complicated.
You need specialized training and specialized equipment to do that.
So we're hoping, I'd love to be able to do that before the end of the year, so that's
our goal.
We can also establish a traffic safety working group, which we're currently working on now,
and improve internal communication and coordination efforts, and finally, implementation or continue
to support the implementation of Vision Zero, and as you know, that's to eliminate severe
injuries and traffic fatalities.
And then for enhancing our community and regional disaster preparedness and resiliency, we want
increase our community emergency response team and personnel training opportunities,
deliver emergency trainings to city staff which has already started, promote disaster
readiness and guide community members to proactively prepare for disasters and finally promote
disaster preparedness that addresses the needs of our vulnerable populations as I mentioned
And with that, this was the slide that opened it up for any questions.
I feel safer already.
I guess I'm in the hot seat.
Yeah.
Questions for the chief.
Councilmember Definni?
You're good?
Councilmember Silva?
Thank you very much.
Help me understand, and I was working with the document itself, is what we're going to
to do to enhance the cert, because it's kind of gone fallow.
My husband is a cert volunteer.
And if we want people to be prepared in the neighborhoods
for.
That's a great question.
We're working on that actively.
We actually have a meeting scheduled tomorrow
with Margaret Campos, who is an outgoing cert coordinator.
So we're getting a bunch of downloads from her.
and we'll be working actively to get me
in front of that group and to identify
what the next couple of years looks like,
not only as far as training goes,
but help support them in keeping that program alive.
In the same vein, neighborhood watch.
Yes.
It kind of read the way I read it was,
let's have a presentation,
and actually you need to outreach to the neighborhoods
and get them engaged and interested
being part of the solution? That's correct. Yeah we've never really had a
formal program here. It does take a little bit to manage now that we have
somebody in place to do that. We want to formalize the program. I have a grand
vision of, thank you, during National Night Out not only having our National
Night Out in a centralized location like we've done in the past at Civic Park and
also Broadway Plaza but also having staff go out to neighborhood block
parties because that's the whole point of it is to get your neighborhoods out
into the streets talking to one another building those relationships so that's
going to be a priority of mine. And on the same vein guess what the other one
is the business crime prevention program. Yes so there we're going to explore a
crime-free business model which essentially is just an education effort
for businesses on how they can harden their businesses to be more resilient
and less of a target. So that there's a lot of legwork involved in that and it
does take some time but again now that we have a staff person in place I'm
confident that we'll be able to get that program up and running by the end of the
year. Thank you. You're very welcome. Just a few chief thank you for the update.
I'm not sure if this is actually directed to you or someone else on staff.
In terms of wildfire evacuation drills is there anything planned and what do
the vision kind of happening in the next, this year and next year on that front?
Well, we did a town hall last year, we've done a couple of town halls, in fact.
I think the next step would be to put together more of a tabletop exercise.
And look at, you know, we do have some current technology that we're using
that would help us model what an evacuation might look like,
especially in communities that present some challenges,
such as Rossmore.
So I think that would be the next step,
is to start doing some tabletop exercises
and modeling what that could potentially look like.
That makes sense.
And then in terms of the traffic safety working group,
I was interested in seeing that,
and maybe that's more for Smidar,
kind of when that might get kicked off,
and will it involve,
How broadly are you in viewing traffic?
Does it include e-bikes and?
Yes, and I think the goal is,
I don't know what's our take,
but I think the goal is to meet quarterly.
And I just saw a meeting pop up on my calendar, so.
Spot on, yeah.
So Traffic Safety Working Group,
that actually is a commission,
it's a subcommittee for the Transportation Commission.
So there's two commissioners who've been assigned to it.
And then it's really a higher level coordination meeting
with the two departments, police and public works,
along with those commissioners.
And it's really just that advisory,
more policy level discussion on some of the bigger issues
or how to assess or just keep on track
with making sure that we actually are following through
with our Vision Zero goal.
It's a new group though, right?
It is, it's a new group.
but the assignments actually got done
during the March transportation committee meeting.
Excellent, thank you.
Okay, Mayor Pro Tem?
Hi, thanks, couple of questions, Mayor.
First of all, I apologize if I missed this,
there was a quick little cutout,
but Chief, did you mention something
about the homeless outreach team,
and where are we on that?
And if you already did mention it,
I apologize for repeating the question.
No, that's a good question, actually.
So we are fully staffed now on that team,
so they've been very active.
Great, great.
Secondly, without school resource officers,
what's the current plan for emergencies at the schools,
and how quickly is the PD able to mobilize on that,
if it's needed?
Hopefully not.
Well, we've been put through our paces a couple of times
on some very minor events,
but we have specialized officers
who are liaisons with the schools.
They work out of our detective bureau
and they have a very good relationship.
The school has direct access to me and my staff
and just over the past, I would say six months,
we've had a couple events where we've proven
to respond very effectively.
Something, and I've said this before,
if something happens to the school at a school,
we drop everything and everybody goes, everybody.
People clear the station, we all go.
we take that very seriously.
Great.
Thank you.
That's good to hear.
You mentioned something about cameras,
getting more LPRs and traffic cameras.
What about high-def street cameras
that can deter or find criminals?
Is there a plan for having more of those?
Not at this time.
We have looked at some technology,
some deployable mobile cameras that we
could bring to special events.
But we have other technology available to us,
such as a tether drone.
but the ALPRs have been very helpful.
A lot of the crime that we get is regional crime,
so people are usually in cars,
so it's being able to track those cars down
that help us solve the crime.
And cameras, in particular in intersections
or general city areas, are not really proven to be a deterrent.
If you have them in more specialized places,
such as parking garages or parks,
usually the studies show that that's more of a deterrent,
Not necessarily just general cameras throughout the city.
OK, OK.
And really my last question is, are there
areas that the police department would like to see us provide
more support in or that we are currently?
I'm thinking of tools or resources.
Is there anything else that you think
would be helpful to ensuring the safety of people that live here
and people that visit?
I think your council's been very supportive of me
and my staff and all of our priorities.
and obviously being well-funded is very helpful.
Technology does come with a cost,
but I think that's the wave of the future
is being able to integrate technology
in a very holistic, smart way,
but also so that it's fiscally sustainable
and that's something that we're exploring
as part of the priorities.
Great, great, thank you, appreciate it.
Thank you.
Council Member Dafinny, you had one more question?
Yeah, I was gonna maybe hold it for comments,
but then it was brought up,
So I want to touch on a little further, the e-bikes.
I had something we're seeing more frequently,
injuries in the hospital.
And we all see these kids flying up and down streets
going quite fast on what looked like little motorcycles.
How hard is that from an enforcement standpoint?
I mean, what's your lens on ideal scenario?
Do we, as far as trying to regulate that
or trying to address it?
because the state hasn't really passed anything yet,
so maybe it's beneficial for us to look at
something at the city level.
It is challenging.
We do have some local tools.
We have an ordinance regarding bicycles on sidewalks,
for example, so that's a tool that we can use.
Sometimes it's hard to tell how old somebody is.
There is an age requirement if you're under 18.
You're required to have a helmet
if you have one of the faster bikes that can go up upwards of 28 miles per hour,
you're supposed to have a helmet on no matter what. We do,
we did a social media blast, I believe it was earlier today on, um, you know,
May is bicycle safety month and we will be having doing some targeted
enforcement later this month, um, for those types of violations. But it is,
it is challenging, but we try to use other tools. Um, and of course,
taken an, uh, an education approach first and enforcement second.
All right, but here just you know a few things to add around you bikes
There are several assembly bills and Senate bills right now that are being considered
You know like the chief said requiring
the use of helmets
while when when operating an e-bike there's a
legislation and proposed bill that prohibits
The sale of I guess motors to enhance bikes to increase the speed so there's there's various legislation around that
But they're still very early in the process, but it is being looked at
Not just on a local level but on a national level as well
All right
Okay
On the license plate reader cameras
And this is a little bit selfish because our neighborhood one is in our front yard and somebody was asking me this
I said I don't know and
Are those accessible we've had a lot of discussion in this country about
Enforcement by ice are those license plate reader cameras that we have and throughout the city are they accessible to?
people outside of PD
We do not share outside of California, but we do share
information with other law enforcement agencies, but that's generally very limited to
municipal police departments sheriff's departments I
May need to do a little research to give you a definitive answer on on who has access
Outside of those entities, but generally my understanding is they do not
okay, and then this is this might be a
day on answer rather than a Jamie looking at the wildfire preparedness it really focuses on responding to an emergency and
and there's another part to wildfire preparedness,
which is getting ready proactively,
you know, the home hardening and things like that.
Is that something we're really relying
on confire to deal with?
Some of both, and certainly our public works team
could speak to this as well.
There's obviously the defensible space
that all homeowners are responsible to do.
There's enforcement of that in our open space.
We put in significant breaks, fire breaks.
There's grazing that's done with goats, I believe,
maybe some cattle as well in various areas to help.
There is a big focus with Contra Costa Fire
and partnership with Rossmore
to tie in for the shaded fuel breaks.
So those are big prevention efforts
that we're involved in as part of the city.
Okay, and then I know some areas have really focused
on developing fire-wise communities within the city,
and I know Ross Moore is one.
Have we thought about whether or not that's,
as we do our community outreach,
having the resources to help people understand
how to put together a fire-wise community
if they're interested?
Yeah, I mean that is something we've more so relied on,
our county fire department to take the lead on,
but that's something we can certainly
talk with them more about.
Okay, all right, thank you.
And with that, we're good on this,
and we will go to public comment on everybody,
at once. Anyone? Anyone? Oh, no public comment. So let's come back up here and
we'll start with closing comments starting with Councilmember Definney.
Can I ask? Are we going to do these? Each of us do all five or are we going to take
each topic because if we have to reach consensus it's going to be perhaps easier
if we do this one priority at a time.
All right.
We'll do one at a time.
Well, I just.
Yeah.
No, I was just thinking about it.
I'm not anticipating this being a big knock-down drag-out
based on the questions.
But why don't we do comments on economic development,
recognizing that it is 9.20 at night
and Kevin is three hours ahead of us.
So let's be efficient about this folks.
I'm nine hours ahead of you.
As far as economic development, one of the things that I would like to propose is that
we put aside some money from our parking fund to potentially fund incentives for outdoor
dining space in the downtown area.
That was the only thing I have on that particular subject.
Do you want me to be specific in numbers or is there's a surplus there and if we, you know,
don't have to come up with a number but if we just maybe earmark it as
something we can use then at least it's available. Yeah and we'll have to look
to the city manager on this because there's there's the budget that we're
going to be passing and then there's the priorities and the work plan and so we
have outdoor dining here does that capture what you want to do and then
we'd have to look to staff on how we would fund it. I don't think we are going
tonight say here is something we want and here is how you will fund it that is
a budget activity so I think if you're satisfied with how the outdoor dining is
captured here then we can leave it to staff. So I could comment I think the
fact that we want to incentivize it but assuming it is by spending money and
and giving money away is a little premature.
I think there are multiple alternatives
to incentivize it and encourage it.
I could offer three different ways to approach it here,
but that's not what we're here.
And I don't think there is as much a surplus
in the parking fund.
Yeah, I think what we're trying to do
is we're not gonna argue about the budget tonight,
because that's not on the agenda.
This is the priorities in the work plan.
And so we wanna stick to does the action in the work plan
Capture what you might want to do what you want staff to be doing in this two-year cycle in this priority cycle
It is fairly broad, but I guess we can hone in on it later
Yeah, I mean if there's specific things that you want to make sure
Activities not funding sources
Okay
councilmember Silva
I would
Augment this by saying that I think we need to this does capture the higher level. We will see more detail in
The next round we'd haven't seen the detailed work plans yet, but I think also to say that we want to incentivize
outdoor dining
Considering the policies that we put in place in the outdoor dining program one of which was equity and things like that
So there's more to be considered, but I think staff is hearing us
that regard also in the economic development. I just want to mention that
I'm just going to say this here that I think what we have is we have one policy
that has been put into around traffic safety and traffic improvements and I
think we need to look at it a little more holistically because it seems to
touch just about every policy area. We're looking at it long term in terms of
general plan. We're looking at it in terms of safety. We are looking at it in
terms of encouraging more economic vitality because if people can if we've
got better sidewalks downtown they're going to feel comfortable to park once
and walk. And we have it also in recreation and wellness. So I would like
to see in the next round of economic development, but I'm just going to say it
once then I won't say it every time, is maybe look at ensuring that we write it
as one action area, and I know that creates a sixth priority, but we've got five different
priorities and they're all mentioning in some way, shape, or form traffic safety, pedestrian
safety, bike safety, and wellness and health.
Maybe there's a way to not look at it vertically, but look at it horizontally or something,
and it might be easier because then it's truly collaborative and across all policy areas.
So I'll say it here because I actually think it belongs in economic development as well.
And I just wanted to say about economic development that the work we're doing now is definitely
going to feed into the general plan work because otherwise we'd be doing it to feed into the
general plan work.
Thank you.
Council Member Silva or Francois?
Somebody over on my left.
Well, I think you just insulted her.
I think staff is on the right track with us.
I appreciated Mike's report.
I'm interested in terms of the flexible zoning and the improving the permitting process and
what we're able to come up with in terms of action items there.
And then I appreciated the city manager's comments about, you know, we're focused on
kind of businesses and improving the permitting process for them, which is important.
But let's not forget the average resident who is also doing improvements to their home
and making sure that we've got this customer friendly, you know, face to them and that
they're getting the same preferential treatment as we're trying to give to some of our commercial
businesses.
Thank you.
Mayor Pro Tem?
Regarding this particular topic and really all the topics, I, my questions and comments
I made at the time, I think we're on the right track. I'm really happy with what we've seen,
not just with economic development, but with all of the different priorities. So I appreciate that.
All right, thanks. My only comment on this one was when we have stakeholder collaboration,
we have a number of actual planning efforts going on with the Chamber and Walnut Creek downtown and
making sure that we're tracking what they're planning and making sure we're taking where it
integrates with our economic development plan and making sure those are
Attacked or tacked together as best possible
Sustainability we'll start at this time
Thank you two comments and I think
Because the sustainability action plan is sitting there a lot of the work has been done and we're just picking off of it
when we talk about decarbonizing
The transportation network we have to recognize that also means
going back to pedestrian network bicycle network and in this one instance also the transit network because
That saves us a huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions if we can actually get the buses
carrying more people and
The other thing when I was talking about the solid waste and recycling. So when we have six agencies involved in recycle smart
Lafayette
Moraga, Arinda and Danville are primarily suburban residential
We are the bulk of the commercial that is in the Solid Waste Authority and so a lot of what
They're doing at Recycle Smart. We can see the numbers
The challenge we have in Walnut Creek is not single-family households
It is multi-family households and commercial and we may need to do something using some of the Recycle Smart money that actually
belongs to Walnut Creek, we might need to use some funds to actually do targeted analysis
of what's not working and what people aren't sorting and are sorting and then how best
to do that outreach.
I don't think we should assume it's the way they would do it in those other agencies.
But we do have money separate to be able to do something like that.
Yeah.
I think we're on a great path here too, Candace.
is I think with all the hard work we did with the environmental sustainability
plan I guess I'm just a small point but in terms of the permits for requiring
waste sorting for events that require a permit from the city makes perfect sense
to me and so keep up the good work and looking forward to seeing this being
implemented. Councilmember Defaney. Looking at the develop foodware reduction
pilot I was thinking perhaps we could provide some city incentive for
businesses that do it or create a campaign where they get a marketing
sticker or something they can put on their door front saying that you're you
know Walnut Creek you know eco-friendly plastic reduction type of business if
we could promote a campaign like that it might be helpful to sort of launch that
from from this initial pilot. So there there's a lot there are pilots going on
in Lafayette and they're not getting the kind of results they had hoped they
would. So we have to be mindful of their couple communities are ahead of us and
what they're learning from that and that'll help. Mayor Pro Tem. Nothing
further. I like what again I like the direction that we're looking at
obviously there's been a lot of work that's been done in the last six years
with this priority, and I'm encouraged about the direction moving forward in the face of
some challenges that are coming from a top down.
Yeah.
And I guess my only comment is, I think you guys are doing a great job in partnership
with MCE.
I love the electrification fair you did last year and things like that.
We'll just have to keep an eye on it.
Right now, MCE is not projecting that the federal actions will create problems for them.
So I hopefully we're good, but I'm knocking on wood
as I say that.
So general plan update comments.
Nothing from Definy Silva.
Really pushing robust outreach
because the more you learn upfront,
the faster you go with putting it all together.
Francois?
Yeah, I'd agree with that comment.
And I think it's a topic that like a lot of topics,
need to make effort to try to get people engaged and to get their opinions and
different mediums and how you ask the questions and kind of how you present
the information and then I know that there'll be a lot of opportunity for
counsel in policy input on this so I'm looking forward to that and appreciated
the mayor's comments about the gaps analysis and and I know that works
underway so looking forward to having a consultant on board hopefully by later
the summer mayor pro tem no further comments yeah I guess on this one my
only comment is as you lay out the stakeholder process how we integrate the
commissions into that and how we look for cross commission relationships and
then what are the steps making sure that council is keeping up with you and not
you know is in the loop that's going to be a real trick to this whole thing
because you know I would just add to that if I may mayor you know I do
anticipate considerable number of updates to council possibly study
sessions and we're going to need to keep that in mind in planning for the council
meeting calendar for the coming years I anticipate more meetings and longer
meetings yeah no I think you're right and I think making sure that we've
thought through that which are the key points where we have enough information
information to sound semi-intelligent on the issue.
Heads up, I was on the planning commission
when we were doing the last general plan,
and we spent a year on it after it was done
through the steering committee.
We were a year working on it, and we got so tired
that we met every Thursday for a year,
because we didn't have enough time at a regular meeting
to do both types of business.
So just, maybe we weren't very efficient,
but I'm, we could be so much more efficient now.
Moving on to building stuff.
Councillor interfeiting?
As far as the court resurfacing at Red Gear Park,
I'd like to see if there is a number
that if the community contributes to the project
could potentially make the project affordable
for us to do on a shorter, in a shorter period of time.
Because there's been some community members
that have expressed that perhaps they could
find some private funding.
So maybe there's a threshold where it becomes affordable.
So I think what you're saying,
I were to be putting it towards,
is evaluate whether there is an opportunity
to partner with the community
to accelerate pickleball court resurfacing?
Yes.
Okay, that's what I thought you were saying.
Okay.
Knew that's what you were saying.
Council member Silva.
This is an exciting time with all these capital projects
and I know all of these, there's a ton of work here.
I'm very mindful on starting the outreach process
on what to do with the existing pool facility,
that that costs money and time.
And I don't want us to get our hearts set on it happening
in a certain amount of time when we haven't seen
what the cost of the pool itself is and the whole project.
So I'm just being, I just,
if everything could be done at once, wow, great.
But I also know that we want them focused
on getting the big project done on time and on budget.
in councilmember Francois I think this is really exciting I mean I'm looking I
was a little disappointed to hear that it might be late 2027 I thought it was
gonna be more like summer of 2027 when that I can break out my speedo and kind
of okay that's a vision I was hoping to get some giggles over that so I think
this all looks great I mean I could quibble in terms of the order that this
is put in but it yeah right I think just whatever is logical makes sense and
and there's it's probably not time preference but and then just in some of
the other issues that were raised I mean I think I'm glad there's big things
that we're doing and there's also a lot of small impactful things we're doing
and Mount Diablo and crossing walk.
I've tried to cross at that intersection
before and I've almost been taken out by multiple vehicles.
And it's such a high volume roadway
that I think identifying those types of areas
and trying to make it safer for people
to cross the street and to walk is great.
And the playground equipment upgrades are fun too.
So I'm all on board.
Mayor Pro Tem, did you have anything?
I like the plan that's been set out regarding some
of the plans that may or might take a more
of a couple of years.
I'm thinking more like the pickleball and bocce for it,
but failing the plan is planning to fail.
And while we may not know where the exact funding
is coming from on that right now,
I do think it's great to have that in the plan itself
and then we can work toward that.
But overall, I'm pretty pleased with what I'm seeing on that
and looking forward to all the ribbon cuttings.
And I still want to know, how did you get all three permits?
I think you're doing a great job.
I think the work plan is good.
The one thing I would put in here,
it is the nightmare that the bids come in.
Not necessarily for the first phase,
but for the second phase.
And tariffs have jacked up utility or costs
or something like that.
So making sure we have some recognition of the need
to have contingencies as we go forward.
I'm sure you guys are all thinking about that,
but we're in a weird time.
And sometimes you get a deal when you put things out
to bid in the middle of a recession,
but sometimes you don't.
So just being ready for that.
And I think I agree that focusing on the big projects
that we have been pushing over the line for years,
it's important to get the planning going on what we're gonna do with that but if
I if it's push comes to shove and you can only do one or the other I focus on
getting the things in the ground that we're working on right now and with
that we will move on and talk to Jamie if any all right I'd like to see us look
at the e-bike issue and if there is something we can do more proactive at the city level,
I know we're education, I hear the things we're already doing, but if there's a way
we can bolster that with a local ordinance or something that would help the police department
our kids safe because I just I see these e-bikes as just disasters waiting to
happen with you know having three young boys and seeing the way the especially
the young boys are flying around yes counselor silver I think my comments
were wrapped up in cert neighborhood watch and business crime prevention is
just making sure it's not a pamphlet that goes on the shelf and in a rack car
and you know in the rack cards. Councilmember Francois. Great work. I'm excited about the
traffic safety working group and kind of all the other initiatives that the
chief mentioned. I'm glad to hear that we have the crime prevention specialist
on board and that we're going to be getting kind of some dedicated resources
towards preventing crime and also the use of technology which the chief has
always championed. So I think we're moving in the right direction. If there's
an opportunity it sounds like there's going to be there was the the town hall
at Rossmore and some tabletop drills. I always I always we you know when I was
mayor in 2022 we did a an evacuation drill starting in Rossmore and ending at
Heather Farm. I don't think you can do too many of those you know Lakewood's
probably another neighborhood that could use one and so we just advocate that we
keep that in mind if as resources permit going forward.
Mayor Pro Tem? I made my comments pretty much during the questions as well but
good job keep it going. People pay attention to crime and safety in Walnut
Creek and I appreciate the work that PD is doing and continues to have in their
plan. Yeah and I think I double down on the e-bike comment I think that is
something that we are just one heartbeat away from scrambled brains on the
sidewalk somewhere and I don't want to see you know I want to get the message
out to kids I saw a young girl riding down to the pool today on her e-bike
with her helmet hanging off the handlebars again down Mountain View which
really? So do set up speed traps around the swimming pools during the summer
during the swim season and you'll get a lot of e-bike violators. So that's my
comments on that. City manager checking in with you, do you need anything? No I
think we're good. You think you're good with the direction. All right so now
We're at the point. Yeah
These are great programs and not everybody watches TV and listens to us talking about them
one of the things that could have would be good would be a
they're going into the nutshell, but for example the
pedestrian and the bike in bike way
improvements even having a big poster about that that the council can take to this
Farmers market gives us something to something to generate conversation the same with
The pool and what the rough timing of it is?
the same, you know just
Happy to help with that, but then that we can keep the community engaged
And then when it comes time to gathering general feedback on the general plan
Put the questions up on them on a whiteboard and have people fill out of
Fill something out or we can bring the laptops down and have people chain them to the desk, but have people
Actually we chained the people that can't run away with the laptop
Anyway just ideas
right
So now we come to the last thing on the agenda
Which is the selection of the applicants to be interviewed for the unscheduled Commission appointments?
We have a really short staff presentation and then an assignment for us all
Speaking of first time to actually present to council
And thank you guys as you all head home and get your dinner
All right. Good evening council. My name is Linda Branson deputy city clerk this evening
We will be discussing unscheduled Commission vacancies the unscheduled Commission recruitment process
we had six openings one opening each on design review and the Contra Costa
County Library Commission and there were two openings each on Planning
Commission and the Board of Appeals including in the agenda packet is a
listing of all 23 qualified candidates additionally the City Council has
received the full applications for review at this point in time this
council standard practice to ballot and select who they would like to interview
at your next meeting which is set for June 3rd in the past council had set
at a standard of interviewing three candidates for opening.
The clerk's office has ballots prepared
for each commission.
So if you would like to ballot at this time
or provide us other direction, you may do so.
Choices are to interview all candidates,
interview a select few,
or direct the city clerk to go back and reopen the recruitment
and try and find additional qualified applicants
or a hybrid alternative as you see fit.
Additionally, we'll proceed with scheduling group interviews
on June 3rd, unless we are directed otherwise.
Okay, and Susie and I talked about this last week,
and as the mayor, I'm recommending that we go ahead
and interview both Board of Appeal candidates.
I know there is some concern about whether
or not they actually meet the standard by some people,
but I think it's worth it to go ahead and interview them.
We have five Library Commission applicants.
Susie and I said, you can do all five at once if people,
unless people really have a strong desire
to ballot on that one.
design review we only have one candidate he is not particularly local. Susie was
reaching out to him but I recommending that we reopen the design review
Commission recruitment to see if we can gather some additional applicants and
for the Planning Commission we are not going to interview all 15 so we need to
do some balloting there. I think it's going to be important for us to have we
have two vacancies right now I want to make sure we have a robust list to fill
other vacancies, so I'm recommending we do two panels and we vote for up to eight
people. You know each of us vote to eight and then see how it how it lays out and
pick two panels of people to interview either three or four, eight. Yeah, people
down. You know I wasn't gonna, I couldn't, maybe one panel of five people. I think
We have enough time to do it that afternoon.
So I'm recommending we just go ahead
and interview all five of them.
Reviewing them, they seemed all really interested
in the community and Library Commission
doesn't have very specific requirements to it, so.
And what are you recommending for on the Board of Appeals?
I'd just go ahead and interview the two.
So what I would appreciate is that one of our,
Erika, for example, describe what they need to be able to do.
But when we interview them?
Yeah, I mean, so that before we interview them,
so that we're clear what we're looking for.
We're clear because we've interviewed for this before,
and we get very unclear in the process.
I mean, this is no different than interviewing
for someone to work in the ER, and someone who is nice,
and really well-meaning, and wants
to be a community volunteer, but doesn't
no building code, and says, well, I can learn it.
Yeah.
So we'll interview the two of them after we educate ourselves
on what exactly we're looking for.
OK, thank you.
Question?
Yeah.
As a procedural, we're voting tonight.
And then as far as the structure of the interviews themselves,
we'll be discussing that prior to the interview process, or?
What we'll do is we'll go ahead and set it up.
Susie and I will work together and set up the panels.
We usually interview people as a group
with standard questions.
And so we will vote tonight.
We're getting, working towards our break,
because after we voted, we'll give them to Ellen
and she can tally them and then we'll look
for a natural break point to come up
with who we're going to interview.
And then Susie and I will put together the process
on how we do the interviews.
will we have an opportunity to submit questions that we'd like to ask?
Mayor what we've done in the past is staff has provided us with the list of questions
that staff recommends that we ask because and then we agree on which questions and we
can submit others but we agree on all questions on the questions up front.
So it'll be a discussion process that we'll have about what those questions are prior
to the usually you know you'll get the questions from staff ahead of time if
you see something that you're not you're not getting in there we can add it in
as we're going forward any other questions people comfortable with the
process all right hi we've got we've got a band of all-stars here so as a point
clarification does it sound like you have consensus on the three other
commissions and you would like to do the motion now for those three and then do
the ballot or motion for those other three after we do the ballot? I will make
a motion okay that we interview the two candidates for the appeal that have
applied for the appeals board that we reopen the application for the design
review commission architect and that we interview all five of the applicants
for the County Library Commission and I'll second that roll call council
member Silva aye council member Davini aye council member Francois aye mayor
pro tem Wilke aye mayor darling aye and so now what's Kevin going to do take a
picture of his paper and yes Mayor Pro Tem Wilk will be emailing me his ballot
of eight that he will select we will print that and have him sign it as his
ballot when he returns okay so we will pass out the ballots and when you have
voted for your up to eight planning commissioners that you want to read
interview then you could take your break and then we'll come back and agree on
who we're doing it's getting called the public works directors solving the heat
not in any order just to be yeah and now we'll take a five-minute break to allow
tallying all right we are back in session and deputy city clerk grandson
Can you please provide the results of the ballot tabulation?
Absolutely on the screen. We have the ballot tabulation
This included six candidates receiving five votes one candidate receiving four votes and one candidate receiving three
There were two candidates that received one vote and then the rest received none
Okay, I like it
Moved to interview the candidates on the screen second and double-check any public comment in the no, okay
rule call, please
Councilmember Francois. Aye councilmember divini. Aye councilmember Silva. Aye mayor pro tem Wilk. Aye and mayor darlin. Aye
All right. So now we are
Through with that and I'd like to
adjourned tonight and memorial of former supervisor federal Glover
He's an old friend
somebody born and raised in Contra Costa County
Began his years of service in the city of Pittsburgh serving on several City Commission's just as we did tonight
Followed by serving on the City Council and as mayor for over two decades
He served the people of Contra Costa County district 5 with distinction including serving as the chairman of the board from 2004 2008
2013 and
2017 as a supervisor he helped improve the quality of life for residents in his district the rest of the county
Some of the great things that he did
He initiated the regional efforts in East County to secure funding for highway for widening and they e-barred extension to Antioch
Which just was a huge quality of life for the folks out there in East County to the tune of a billion dollars
He in funding that he got for that
He was all about youth and his county youth conferences
Which give young people a chance to air their views to the community leaders get valuable information about careers and education
It's a great example of that
And he had sponsored
Seminars and symposiums economic development efforts to improve the business climate and job opportunities in East County
That was something he felt deeply. I
first met him years ago when he was on Delta Protection Commission. I was just some little punk staffer and
Years later when he ended up on my husband's board at Delta Diablo
He remembered me and he said hey, how are things going in the Delta?
That was just who he was as he paid attention to people around him and he
You know paid attention
Made people feel like he was caring about them
So on behalf of the City of Walnut Creek City Council
We extend our deepest condolences to the Glover family and his friends and all those who had the privilege of working with him
We honor a federal's life and thank him for his many years of service and dedication to the Contra Costa community
And so we are journeying
into closed session
So we are journeying in his honor and now we are going to adjourn into closed session
subject to
Thank you