Alright, good evening. I am Cindy Darling, the Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek and
welcome to the Tuesday, June 3rd, 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
desire to speak on an item on the agenda this evening, please hold your comments
until we get to that item. Additionally, we have a section on the agenda titled
Public Communication and which is for public comments for items that are not
on the agenda. Any comments during public communication should not relate to an
item that is on the agenda for the evening. Consistent with section 9.5 of
City Council Handbook, we will allocate 30 minutes initially for public
communication for items not on the agenda. We will allocate additional time
for public communications for items not on the agenda at the end of the open
session of the meeting if necessary. If you desire to provide a public comment,
please complete a little speaker identification card and line up behind
the lectern when I call for you. Wait your turn and when you approach the
lectern please state your name and city of residence for the record you'll have
two minutes to address the council and I will talk about this later but organized
groups can have ten minutes if nobody else in the group decides to speak
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 chamber and can be found on our website. All remarks should be addressed to
the City Council. Please do not use threatening, profane, or abusive language which disrupts,
disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of the Council meeting. Again, each
speaker is going to have two minutes to make your remarks. Written comments submitted and
received up to two hours before the meeting have been posted to the City's website for
public review and are included in the meeting record but will not be separately read into
the record. So now please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you
City Clerk Susie Martinez could you please call the roll. Councilmember
Davini? Here. Councilmember Francois? Here. Councilmember Silva? Here. Mayor Pro Tem
Will? Here. Mayor Darling? Here. All right thank you. The first item tonight is a
proclamation relative to recognizing gun violence and this is one that is a huge
issue in our community, in our country, because every day, 125 Americans are killed by gun
violence, and more than 200 are shot and wounded with an average of more than 17,000 gun homicides
every year. Americans are 26 times more likely to die by gun homicide than people in other
high-income countries, and firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens
in America. I could keep going on and on with the statistics, but it is something that we
need to find a way to break the cycle and to get out of this. While we support
the Second Amendment and the right of law-abiding citizens, we also need to
make sure that we are handling guns responsibly and reasonably in this
community. We are working in partnership with a number of groups here tonight and
I would like to invite... oops, I rearranged my skin. I would like to
invite up Erin Roter with Moms Demand Action and Kathy Maloney from the Rossmore group that is
the president of the End Gun Violence Club to accept this proclamation from the city.
And you can, I welcome brief comments from both of you on your work to help end gun violence.
Please come forward. Yeah, come up here. I know, just follow her.
You're in for a treat.
I'll just let you brief remarks.
Good evening.
Good evening.
Thank you for inviting us.
Thank you.
I'm Kathy Maloney.
Obviously, I'm from Rossmore, she's not, and Erin, of course, from Moms Demand Action.
I'm the president of the N-Gun Violence Club of Rossmore.
There's no kind of, well, what do they do?
That's what we do.
talking about acting on end gun violence so mayor your your data the statistics
that you read are absolutely horrifying we did we all agree with that but I want
to give you some hope okay in the two years that we've been doing this we have
learned so much about what's happening in the way of ending gun violence. We
acknowledge the horrors of it, but I think it's important for us to be able
to support politicians who are, we have, what are they called, your folks who run
for gun sense. They're gun sense candidates, and I don't know if everybody
knows about this, but they're pledged to to work on legislation that ends gun
violence from cities all the way up to the feds. So that's one thing. Also,
there's been a lot of research done on things that we can do now that will
lessen these horrible deaths, gun deaths. And I don't know if you found this in
your research, but the mass murders that are so absolutely horrifying, the school
murders are 1% of the number of people killed with guns. Most of them are killed
in neighborhoods, impacted neighborhoods. A euphemism to be sure, but impacted. And
we've been doing a lot of work on that and looking at it, and so there is hope.
There are wonderful violence prevention community programs, of course their funding has been
cut, but they're finding ways to, just like PBS, to make up for that.
So I offer you hope.
I offer you a standing invitation to come to our meetings.
The second Wednesday of the month at 10 o'clock, I'll send Kevin, if you don't mind, can I
send you?
Because he's my contact.
Kevin's everybody's contact yeah he was he was attending of function at Rossmore
and I cornered him and so anyway I I'm gonna send him a little bit about us if
you're in the neighborhood come and visit us on the second Wednesday at 10
o'clock thank you we have speakers for the most part and is my two minutes up
Yeah, great. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you
Any of my fellow council members have anything that they want to say
I'll say that I this is a passionate to me
I know I have friends and relatives that have been killed with guns due to gun violence and
Wear orange. I've got that. That's thank you for what you're doing. It's it it saves lives
it's really really important among the most important things that there could
be. Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna bring you your proclamation. Do you guys
want to do a picture? Okay we're gonna do a picture and it's June which means
it's Pride Month and that's always an exciting time here in Walnut Creek. Our
city has a diverse LGBTQIA plus population and we are committed to
visibility, dignity, and equity for all the people in the community. I always
look at it as we do best when everybody feels welcome and everybody feels like
they can be safe and be prosperous here in our community. June has become a
symbolic month for LGBTQIA plus persons and supporters and they come together
in various celebrations of pride. Pride Month has its roots in the Stonewall
uprising which occurred in New York City back in 1969 sparked by a series of
protests around police harassment and discrimination. It was a turning point
for the LGBTQIA plus community. The first Pride marches were organized to
commemorate the anniversary of the uprising and cities across the United
States continue to recognize and celebrate June as Pride Month.
Mayor Pro Tem and I got to represent the city in the Clayton Pride Parade this
year which is always a fun time. We also have been raising the pride flag here
thanks to our previous council members appointment our efforts back in 2018. We
raised it just the other day and had a lot of great that was yesterday and we
were all there and it was great to join in the celebration. I also want to
commend our arts and recreation staff they have a broad array of things here
in Walnut Creek. Different ways you could celebrate. There's a drag queen hike this year. I was like,
was that really a thing? And they said, no, no, it's the intersection of equity and sustainability,
and I just love all the bright creative ways that people have found to celebrate pride here in our
community, and I invite my other council members to weigh in on it. I think we have a Rossmore
club. Come on up. Well, after we're done with our part, we'll come over there.
Did anybody else want to weigh in?
I'll just quickly say I was invited, was able to attend the pride, the opening of Pride
Month at Rossmore today and saw, it turned out about 60 or 70 people there along with
Cherise Count, who was representing Assemblymember Roebucka Bauer-Cahan.
Great to see the turnout and the enthusiasm.
It's so neat at this time, as you mentioned.
Yeah.
The Clayton Pride Parade is always a heck of a lot of fun and very wholesome, very family
oriented pride. It's the family pride in the Bay Area so I will go ahead and meet
you at the dais and we'll introduce yourself.
Hi, I'm Phillip Bollinger. I'm the treasurer of the Rossmore LGBTQ Alliance. The Alliance is sort of
a bridging club between the women's club and the men's club. We have, especially
this month, we have activities going on all month. Tonight started as well as the
opening our film festival tomorrow we have a film festival with about 10
movies in it then we have our pride walk on the seventh salsa dance party which
is usually a sellout is coming up to we have a live salsa band and that's always
a big deal we have an author event coming up on June 10th with the author
of gay and gay in the Bay history of San Francisco Bay Area so if there's a lot
of things going on. The film festival last year was so popular we were asked to do it ongoing. So
now we try to offer at least one movie per month. So we're pushing things out and we're going to
our last year our talent show was so big it was standing remotely. So this year we're moving it
to July and we're going to have it in the event center which if anyone's been to Ross Morris the
largest room that they have. So hope that everyone can come, everyone's invited.
Thank you. Thank you so much. You guys want to pop around and do one more picture?
Oops, next on the agenda is the consent calendar. Does any council member wish to
pull any item for discussion? And I am going to pull item 2C because there is a
small correction on that. Or does any member of the staff wish to? I'd like to
pull 2g 2g 2d 2g 2d and 2c anything else all right does any member of the
public have a comment on items to a b e f h through the end of the alphabet
seeing nobody anybody have a motion for me move approval of consent calendar
items 2A and B, 2E, F, and H. Second. All right, we'll call vote please. Council
member Silva. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Will. Aye. Council member Davini. Aye. Council member
Francois. Aye. Mayor Darden. Aye. Motion carries. Okay so we'll do item 2C. This is
the resolution from the City Council adopting a list of projects for fiscal
FY 26 funded by SB 1, whereas at the bottom of the page lists some
neighborhoods that staff will be updating. They are the incorrect
neighborhoods. Does any member of the public wish to address us on item 2c? If
not I will move it as corrected by staff in reference to the neighborhoods. We'll
Call, please. Mayor Darling, aye. Council Member Silva, aye. Council Member Davini, aye. Council Member Francois, aye. Mayor Pro Temwel, aye.
All right. Item 2D. Or 4, yeah, D. Okay. So I have a question about 2D. We, it looks like we pick about seven different companies to consult with or to
Outsource some of our plan check plan check review process
What are we using the same companies this time around that we use during the last cycle or are these new companies
Councilmember correct. My name is Frank. I'm the building official for the city to answer your question
We most of the companies we select this time was used in before but we do added a two more two new company
three companies in a list so which will provide more diversified experience for us to choose based on the project types and
the work scopes. Right. Okay. And so, you know, it's sometimes
warranted, sometimes unwarranted, but, you know, the city is under scrutiny constantly by folks who are going through the process and sometimes
have frustrations.
I've heard some people mention that
they had frustrations with the outside plan check
process when when we use that those agencies are there metrics that we use
or standards that we hold them to when I read the contract it says that under
professional efforts that we expect them to be competent practitioners but above
that what how are we judging their performance or making sure who's
overseeing them to make sure that they're providing the service that we
want the city to provide? So there's two criteria for to track their performance.
The first one is the city's a population turnaround time to make sure the
contract firms will perform the work based on our, you know, targeted
performance matrix we call turnaround times. And secondly we do have an
internal staff to monitor the work they did. For example if they provide a
to plan check a comment for a project, our staff will review the comments to make sure
they are in line with the current code requirement and our current practice.
And have you found that there, say, are more or less complaints generated from us outsourcing
versus doing it in-house?
I think in general, in-house staff will provide better service, but right now we are kind
of short of a staff.
I was seeing, you know, we have limited staff resources.
Currently, we have mainly talk about,
we have only four planning engineers.
But the world workload, you know, it is quite demanding.
That's why we send quite a bit of work
to the outside consultant, realizing that at the same time,
we want to make sure we are in the safe on the budget side.
So, we are going to propose to increase one,
to add one more project engineer
for the next two fiscal years,
which is in the current budget proposal.
Hopefully through that effort,
we can gradually reduce the amount of work
sent to the outside consultant.
Right, because they're a fairly big number.
I know we don't probably use all of the
allowed stipend for each consultant,
but I suppose we've looked at comparing that
to what it would take to hire someone in-house,
And this is a more affordable option?
Yes, right now, I think we try to analyze it.
Basically, by adding one new planchette engineer in-house,
we could save about, say, 350K new planchette storage outside.
But at the same time, we have to know there is uncertainty
down the road.
We cannot add more than too many staff.
And in the end, you know, we run into a deficit
because when the economy go down south, right?
We're over time.
So we're taking kind of a proactive approach right now
by adding one planning engineer during the next two years.
And then we'll see how the economy goes
and we'll make a necessary adjustment
if the situation deem for us to add one more engineers.
But that's depending on the situations,
you know, other factors to consider.
So maybe there's a way so in order to respond to the public
if they have issues or direct their ire towards these outside
agencies that we could share the metrics of turnaround times
and things like that to reassure them that these services are
being provided at a high standard
and that we're overseeing them closely.
Yes, the metrics currently are already
publish it on a website. Okay, great thank you. Thank you. Any additional
questions? Councilmember Silva. Frank, I have one
other question or I remember when we started using outside services it was
post-recession and isn't it also true that using outside plan check services
in the same way as other facets of the business allows us to fluctuate with the
flow of business because otherwise we are hiring people that we might not be
able to use all the time?
Yeah.
OK, thank you.
While we're on the subject, I'm assuming that the RFQ that we
floated includes some recognition of past performance
as an evaluation criteria.
Definitely, yeah.
So for example, one of the consulting firm
we used last time, and we stopped using it.
And because due to the performance issues
and the feedback we see with the from the applicant
and the communities.
Thank you.
All right.
Any additional questions?
Any public comment on items 2D, 4D I guess we're actually on.
Seeing none, motion?
Move approval of item 2D.
Second.
All right, roll call please.
Council Member Silva.
Aye.
Council Member Davini.
Aye.
And now we'll go to item four G, two G.
Why is my thing got the wrong numbers on it?
Okay, nevermind, two G.
Thank you very much.
This is the item that is the fiscal year
2025 third quarter budget update.
I just had a couple of questions about the report.
on page three of the attachment two.
There's a reference to two projects
that were where we approved the funding
for these downtown beautification
and downtown programming late in 2024.
And we're now approving,
it looks like this was approved subsequently.
Why is, have these funds been allocated
or are they yet to be spent?
evening City Council Mayor darling Carson Lacass administrative services
director yes so these funds were allocated toward the end of calendar
year 2024 and so they have when we presented this third quarter report
initially we're pulling the information together we were using what was
literally in our financial system so at that time it had not been appropriated
however it was allocated and so there have been no delays in terms of
providing those payments. And my second question is on page attachment to page
five. There is a reference to table five. It's page five and table five this
unassigned fund balance. Can you tell me what the unassigned fund balance
currently is? If I read this correctly it's roughly 21 million dollars. That is
correct that is what we're projecting for the end of fiscal year 25 and then
those funds are available to be used for example on the aquatic center based on
whether the budget comes in as expected or not correct 18 million of that is
already set aside based on previous council action for that reserve for
Heather farm for the aquatic center and community centers but yes the residual
whatever else is remaining could also be allocated for that and there's three so
that's roughly three million at the end of this month correct is unassigned
that's what we're projecting yes thank you very much any additional questions
all right thank you um public comment on item 2g seeing that motion move to
accept the fiscal year 2025 third quarter budget update report as
recommended by the finance second roll call councilmember Silva aye mayor
Darling hi I'm summer divini that's my reference. Why may I pretend well, all right?
We have made it through the consent calendar next on the agenda is public communication
This portion of the meeting is reserved for comments 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 may request clarification or refer the item to staff
Consistent with section nine point five of the City Council handbook
30 minutes will be allocated this time for public communication for items not on the agenda
Additional time for public communications can be provided at the end of the meeting as necessary
So, please step forward to the podium line up along the wall complete a speaker card cards are available at the counter near the entrance
Once at the podium, please introduce yourself from the city of residence for the record
Consistent with city policies related to public comments. Each speaker will have two minutes to make your remarks
Written comments have been posted to the city's website for public review and are included in the meeting record
But will not be separately read into the record at this time. I notice the time is
628 so we will go to
658 and we'll take the items at this time and remainder if we need it and later. So go ahead and
Step forward
Hi, I'm Denise calm Walnut Creek
It was brought to my attention through Nextdoor that the Walnut Creek Parks and Recreation
is considering putting in bike paths at Lime Ridge Quarry, a place I hike frequently.
Now, I'm very sympathetic to bikers.
I was a biker for many years, but particularly with the proliferation of e-bikes and things
like that, it's gotten more dangerous on narrow paths to hike, and we run into that periodically.
calling out at the last minute, and I can't react quite as fast as I could when I was
a biker.
That's a big concern.
Fire risk with e-bikes is another concern, and biodiversity.
It's a very diverse and beautiful area.
Bikes tear it up far more than us hikers that all stay on our little trails.
I also believe there's plenty of biking space available for bikers currently and I suggest
that we turn this proposal down when it comes forward.
Thank you very much.
Evening council members, Mayor Darling.
Wrong, Cindy.
Yeah.
You think I'd know better, right?
It's like a confusing measure O with Measure X.
That's okay.
So for the record, I'm Bob Lynch, representing the Walnut Creek Chamber and Visitors Bureau.
And I'm here tonight to talk about this weekend.
We were, as you know, after many decades at Heather Farm Park, we began a conversation
with Don Murphy two years ago about the transition to downtown.
And while we had some first-year jitters after four decades at Heather Farm, Sunday was fabulous.
Saturday was pretty hot.
And it was reflected in the sales, which were about 40 percent below last year.
We don't have final results, but I want to acknowledge some of the unsung heroes that
helped make these events happen.
And I want to start with the Walla Creek Police Department.
The reserves, the lieutenants that were in charge.
Saturday, there were a few incidents
of heat-related illness.
AMR was right on it.
I couldn't be more happy and yet committed
to make the event even better.
What stood out to me was all five of you
served in the pouring booths, which
was extremely gratifying to know we had your support
as community volunteers to help make this huge event
even more successful, so thank you.
To the reserves and the police department,
couldn't thank you enough for that effort.
I think that when you look at putting on this,
when we looked at putting on this event,
parking and transportation to downtown was paramount.
I want to thank BART director, Ren, and all the staff at BART,
both lots at Walnut Creek and Pleasant Hill.
BART stations were free, and we provided a shuttle.
And we're looking forward to the numbers.
But it was rather significant.
And lastly, I just want to mention
that I happened to be in the South Bay for a fundraising
event in which I met maybe 20 people and the discussion on Walnut Creek came up and one
of my chief marketing consultants while I was in San Francisco said that you need to
capitalize on your opportunity, meaning our community, your opportunity because it's out
there that we're quite a place to be and I just wanted to acknowledge not only the folks
that were involved with the police department and others yourselves,
but what a great community we have together.
So thanks for letting me run over.
Thank you and thank you for putting on a great event.
I know I was supposed to,
I lured friends to town on Saturday and we're like,
oh, it's just too hot.
But we use those tickets on Sunday to good effect.
So, and I really had a good time working.
I think I speak for all of us when I say it was a tremendous effort getting something,
You know the first time that a new venue is always hard. Yeah, you guys just didn't outstanding
Both sides of the park were challenging to navigate but it it ended up. It'll work good. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you
All right. Any other public comment?
Thank you guys for the providing the public comment
Next on the agenda is council member and staff announcements reports on activities or requests
City attorney any closed session reports. No report from closed session. Madam Mayor. Okay
Assistant City Manager is any report. I have no announcements Madam Mayor. All right. Thank you so much
Now we'll turn to my fellow council members for your reports pursuant to AB 1234
Councilmember Dafini you want to start
Yeah
Good evening to echo
Bob's Lynchides words that that that was a great event
I had a chance to volunteer there on Sunday at the arts and wine festival, and it was really impressive
I mean we used like every square foot of both sides, and I wasn't there on Saturday, but on Sunday. It was packed so
Nice to be a part of that
In addition, let's see I was at a ribbon cutting for the gotcha covered
Which is a custom window treatment that Sabrina Martin has opened in Walnut Creek mostly online
So she held her event at the chicken pie shop and that was fun to attend
Was at the Trinity gala fundraiser a couple weekends ago, and I think I think we were all there for that event and that was
Also a really tremendous event. It was it wasn't held in Walnut Creek, but I still enjoyed the venue very much at the Lafayette Park Hotel
was at the ribbon cutting for the BART next generation fare gates.
Really excited about those. They're both open in Walnut Creek now.
And I think that it's really showing the evolution, or the changes that are taking place at BART
that hopefully will draw ridership back to BART.
Having these fare evasion gates is going to keep people from verivating,
but also help with some of the unsavory elements
that sometimes get on to BART and cause problems and so hopefully that will improve everyone's
experience. Also for the the ribbon cutting for payroll vault it's their third year anniversary
that was that was held over at the Ruth Bancroft Gardens and that was the same time we we were
able to the city in collaboration with the Walnut Creek downtown and Chamber of Commerce is
launching the
size up
Campaign or size up program which is free small business assistance program that the city's launching and I think the city will probably be
Announcing that maybe in some more form away coming up soon
Yeah, so we'll get more information about that
But it is a program that's being offered to free for the the businesses in Walnut Creek
And I think it's a it sounds like it's going to be a great program
Attended the aquanauts fundraiser. That's for the
City councilmember Silva was there as well and
that we had the the treat of seeing
Five members of the aquanauts that are part of the national team and the national team performed there
So we saw everything from the the little ones the peanuts all the way up to the national team. So if you haven't
Been to that event before I know there's another one coming up in the fall
It's really very impressive and let's see we had raised the pride flag yesterday. We talked about that and
one thing I wanted to touch on I met with the climate was at 350 Bay Area and then sat on a call the next
Day about a bill that's coming up through the state. It's a Senate bill
684 Assembly bill 1243 by senator men jivar and
Assemblymember Addis and it's a it's a polluters pay
Superfund Act, and it's I think it's already been done in Vermont and New
York and it sounds like something very promising. What would happen is we would
the California EPA would go back to 1990 and then look through 2045 at the
damage that's that's taken place to our climate to California from some of the
biggest polluters. Because right now the narrative is that the or the truth is
is that the taxpayers are taking on these expenses.
You know, the fire in LA was something like $250 billion
worth of damage and that gets rolled
into our insurance premiums and so forth.
So anyway, I guess I'm supposed to wrap up.
So it's an interesting bill to look at.
I think we'll learn more about it as the time goes by.
So thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Silva.
Thank you very much, Mayor.
As a representative from the council,
lay eyes onto the Rossmore Golden Rain Foundation Board.
I attended their meeting last week.
They have welcomed three new board members to their nine,
including Susan Hildreth,
who is also on our Measure O Advisory Committee.
So congratulations to the three new board members.
They've also spent some significant time
integrating a new financial system.
So we can probably all say that we feel their pain.
But it's a very complete system and comprehensive system.
And they were demonstrating it for the board last week
as part of the meeting.
And one of the things that I noticed
is that personnel costs are high for them
as they are for us.
That represents a substantive portion of their budget.
Thanks to being able to attend the Bart Fairgate opening
and also all of these other openings,
Congratulations to the Walnut Creek Aqua Nuts.
Mayor, I wanted to congratulate you
and thank you for leading a tremendous Memorial Day.
I survived. Commemoration.
And I wanted to thank staff who helped bring
and pull that together because that doesn't happen.
It's a required event for the council to show up,
but we don't actually plan it and do a lot of the work.
It's all done by staff.
And so thank you to staff for your work last Monday.
The board of the East Bay radio communication system which is a public agency radio system
for the two counties of Alameda and Contra Costa met last week.
We approved some changes to the bylaws and we also approved our budget for the coming
year and that budget includes a $3 per radio per month increase in our radio fees because
it's those subscriber fees with the 43 agencies that participate in it in the program that
actually help pay to fund the system to keep it going and also fund the capital
improvements that need to be made over time so that those subscription rates
however have been included in this coming budget and so we're covered there
locally so thanks to everybody on that and I would I'll let my colleague Matt
Francois report on recycled smart but I will report that the council housing and
Community Development Subcommittee met today. We had two substantive items on
the agenda. The first was we are reviewed and make a recommendation and
we've made a recommendation that will come at our next meeting regarding the
funding allocations for community grants. This covers homeless services, crisis
innovation services, a variety of services, but I'll take make note right
here that currently the state's funding for the PLHA as well as the pro housing
funds have not yet come through and so we're sitting at about a hundred and
forty five thousand four hundred and ninety six dollars short to be able to
make the allocations for homeless services that we need to make so
hopefully that funding will come through before our next meeting or we will be
looking for some other source of funding because these services are very
important they involve Trinity Center and the core program and we also today
during the committee meeting reviewed and had a substantive conversation of
what's called the transit transit orient communities strategies these are
designed to increase housing promote additional housing in your transit
oriented corridors in order to improve the use of transit services such as a
BART, but it also involves a large quantity of policies that we need to be prepared to
adopt in order to be compliant in order to secure federal funding for the one Bay Area
transportation grant programs.
So more to follow on that, but we're very concerned about it because the proposed process
framework as it stands now is awkward at best would be a gentle way to put it so
but more to follow and councilmember Francois and I are working on it with
staff so thank you to staff. Alright thank you since I'm looking this way
councilmember Francois. Thank you mayor and as one of the council liaisons to
the Recycles Smart Authority. I attended the board meeting last week. We had, this
is one of the highlights of the year when we get to recognize our student
scholarship award winners. We had two of them, Haley Takashira and Yahweh Lee.
Haley goes to Akalani's and started an environmental action plan to help with
Sorting at her school at Akalani's and also did a sorting 101 video
No, so we were just upstairs all the council members having dinner and we could have used Haley's video
And it's apparently it's gone countywide and it's it's very popular and it's very easy for people to follow along and figure out
What goes in the green can what goes in the blue can and so on?
she is headed to Cal Poly to study electrical engineering and
And Yahweh was a founding member of the Climate Action Now
Club at Monte Vista.
He's going on to study either civil engineering
at San Jose State or business at UC Davis.
So he has a decision to make here, I think, pretty quickly.
We also provided our annual performance evaluation
to our executive director, David Kruger.
And that was done in closed session,
but we took care of that.
And I serve on the ad hoc committee of Recycle Smart
that will advise the full board and make a recommendation
on the award of a new collection franchise agreement.
So our current collector is Republic.
We had two bids for a new 10-year contract,
Republic and MDRR.
And the board will be making a final decision
based on the ad hoc committee's recommendation
on July 24th at 3 p.m. in this building.
On the third floor, it's open to the public.
If you have any comments on that,
You should attend that meeting on July 24th at 3 p.m.
As the council's liaison to Walnut Creek downtown,
I attended their meeting last week or the week before.
I got to interact with Tracy Dietland,
who's the new president of Walnut Creek downtown.
She's with the Mesa Ridge Company,
which owns Broadway Plaza.
They have a lot of exciting things happening there,
including a Taylor Swift tribute band on July 31st.
So their summer concert series is coming back
and they're kicking off with that concert on July 31st.
There's also Cali Craft estimated opening downtown
above Vaudeville at the end of June,
and Original Joe's late June, and let's see.
The Locust Street Festival returns on June 11th,
And that's a fun street festival here
on Locust Street downtown with art, food, beverages,
adult beverages especially on June 11th.
And then on June 26th is the uncorked event
where you can sip, savor, and stroll
at various different restaurants
and drinking establishments downtown.
Let's see what else I got on my little notepad here.
I did have a fun time at Art and Wine Festival.
I was in the Walnut Creek Downtown booth on Sunday.
I was grateful to be there on Sunday.
I was a little bit cooler and it was just a great scene.
I think at that venue, really worked out,
I did see Nicole there, saw a lot of people.
Our booth seemed to be one of the more popular booths,
I'll have to say.
And we were pouring kind of Rosé, Prosecco, Chardonnay,
and we had a lot of fun people and great music
that pride and joy, they really, that was fun.
They had a lot of people, good people,
and there was a petting zoo
and a little train going around.
So, you know, the rides and family activities,
it was really nice to see it downtown
and see a lot of the activity in that area.
I attended the Hilton Garden Inn opening.
That was really exciting.
Have a new hotel to add to the mix here in downtown.
I know we're gonna hear about that a little bit later on,
but beautiful facility and really kind of nice bar,
nice welcoming staff, good time.
As council member Davini said,
attended the Trinity Center event in Lafayette
a couple weekends ago and that was a nice event.
And then last but certainly not least, Memorial Day,
I won't steal the mayor's thunder,
but always an honor and a privilege to be there
and honor the people that have served us
And a highlight for me was meeting Papa Jake,
whom I had never met before,
World War II survivor of D-Day.
And it's pretty moving to meet someone that saved democracy
and to be able to shake their hand.
So that was a really neat experience.
And that's my report.
Thank you.
Mayor Pro Tem?
Yeah, and the reason he's not here
is he's flying to Normandy right now.
I know, 102 years old,
The man's getting on a plane to go to Normandy.
Oh my gosh.
So I was at the Art & Wine Festival on Saturday
when it was 100 degrees.
And it was in the shade and it was fine.
Everybody should have, it was fine.
I mean, we live in wonderful.
Well, so I am in person tonight because two weeks ago,
of course, people saw me on the big screen.
I was in Washington, D.C. as liaison to County Connection.
and as chair this year, I led a delegation
to meeting with Congress and senators about grant funding
and what we could do to make sure that we are getting
what was given to us at least last year, not a guarantee.
So I'm gonna focus on some of the positives
that came out of the meetings, though,
because there was a lot that came out.
But the good news is that there's a bipartisan desire
to reach agreement on the reauthorization
of the Surface Transportation Act,
which improves roads and road safety.
So everybody can agree on that.
The other positive note was there was a bipartisan desire
to fix the mass transportation and highway trust fund.
The issue right now is that in past years,
there's been a balance of 80% going to the highway,
going to the highway portion, roads portion,
and 20% going to public transit.
We are hopeful that 20% will still come to public transit.
and as we talked about and I mentioned in the conference
with the hundreds and I guess thousand people
that were there, it doesn't matter
if you aren't taking public transit.
You want other people to still be taking public transit
to get cars off the road.
So we need to make sure that those funds
are also going to public transit.
So we'll hear more about that.
I will certainly update more people about that
as we get closer.
But so those were at least a couple of positives
that came out of that.
I also attended our former county supervisor,
Federal Glover's funeral or a celebration of life
about a week ago, very moving.
This may be the largest funeral I ever went to.
There must have been five, 600 people there
and many, many elected officials from throughout the county,
both past and present, very moving ceremony.
And as Council Member Davini mentioned
regarding the Bart Fairgates, the new Fairgates,
I do wanna stress that while the event took place
in the Pleasant Hill Bart Station,
All the county BART stations now have the new fare gates
that are really preventative to people
that are trying to hop over or skip under the fare gates.
And this will improve not just crime prevention,
but public safety as well as cleanliness
and keeping homelessness out of there as well.
So this is in our own downtown Walnut Creek station as well.
So people have asked me that over the last couple of weeks.
and we've talked about everything else.
So I'll pass it off.
All right, thank you.
Couple things, thank you, Council Member Dafinney,
for going to hit the payroll vault
so I could go play Scrabble.
That was very important that night.
So I'm glad you could stand in for us there.
Visit Walnut Creek, I'm the representative there,
and I wanted to thank Nicole Hankton and Bob Linside
for putting together a great meeting.
They covered the efforts that they put into workforce
development customer service staff is something that we've heard is very
important to our hotels that our other hospitality industries and our dynamic
duo has been putting a lot of work into that but I especially wanted to thank
them for bringing in the district attorney and representatives or that
district attorney that works on human trafficking and policeman for Mountain
Brettwood who works on it also came and did a presentation for the hotels on
what to look for and how they want people in Contra Costa County to respond
who to call for what and it was really informative to me and I think the most
of the hotel people that were there were really excited about it. I did mention it
when we were all at the Bart Farragates. Jeremy Carlson was there and several
people are interested in replicating what you guys did because they were just
really impressed with what the thought that went into it because it is where
human trafficking both sex trafficking and labor trafficking it's one of the
hot spots as hotels Memorial Day it I now have greater respect for previous
mayors who have run Memorial Day I truly understand how much work goes into it
now but it was really fun as Councilmember Francois mentioned Papa Jake
was just something. 102 years old, he's back in Normandy right now and he lives
on telling the stories. He says, I'm the last one left and so that was very
moving. We also heard from local dad who's also a colonel in the reserve and
he talked about some of his service. The Hilton Garden Inn got you covered. Those
were great. We also had collab fertility had their one-year anniversary and Dr.
Segal who runs that facility says that they have produced three babies that
have been born and 29 babies are on the way. So I'm that's a great facility here
in Walnut Creek. Glad to see it moving forward. Trinity Center we were all there
that was fun on the legislative front and the cap and trade is being
renegotiated and so I did have a short conversation with Assemblymember Rebecca
Bauer Kahan who was in the negotiating team on the importance of the city there
is money that we get out of that for high density housing affordable housing
near transportation and emphasize for her in light of everything else we've
have talked about how important keeping that
in the cap and trade deal will be.
And we did finance committee too,
but we'll talk about that later.
And that is my report.
So, do we wanna take five minute breaks?
We were all upstairs interviewing people
for a couple hours before that.
So we're gonna take a quick five minute break
and then we'll be back at seven.
Thanks.
All right, folks.
All right, and we are back.
Next on the agenda is a public hearing
pursuant to the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act,
otherwise known as TEFRA,
regarding the issuance of revenue bonds
by the California State Community's Development Authority
for the benefit of Sequoia Living Incorporated
for the Via Monte Project,
and I invite staff forward to provide the staff presentation.
Good evening, Mayor Darling,
fellow City Council members.
I'm Jennifer Yamas, housing analyst
in the Community Development Department.
So tonight's first public hearing is being conducted
pursuant to the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act,
known as TEFRA.
It is regarding the issuance of revenue bonds
for the Sequoia Living Residential Care Facility
located in Wanda Creek,
which is also known as the Via Monte Project.
Here tonight to discuss the bonds
and the Via Monte Project is Dave Latina,
who works for Sequoia Living
as the Chief Business Development Officer.
So without further ado, here's Dave.
Thank you, good evening.
As many of you are familiar with Via Monte,
we had the first bond issuance that you authorized
back in 2018.
I'm happy to report, Via Monte
reached full stabilized occupancy in 2024,
and we've now got a wait list of over 100.
So the demand has been great and it's been well received.
This bond financing is different though.
It's not for construction of Via Monte or anything.
This bond financing, now Via Monte
as part of Sequoia Living, we sponsor four other communities,
CC Continuing Care Retirement Communities,
and we are, about every 10 years, we refinance our bonds.
And now we're refinancing our bonds,
namely to provide financial support
to some of our older communities.
Via Monte's got very little portion of this
just for reserves.
But this 165 million bond placement
is for all of our communities,
and Villa Monte is part of an obligated group of those.
So without, I don't know if you have any other questions,
I'd be happy to ask or answer.
Let me check with my fellow council members.
Any questions?
All right, thank you very much.
Thank you.
And any closing from staff?
I just wanted a couple quick questions
just to clarify for people.
So although we are holding the public hearing for this,
bonds are not an obligation to the city and there is no cost to the city.
That's correct. Okay, all right. Thank you very much. Public comment. Public comment.
All right. So written comments that have been submitted have already been posted.
So we'll go ahead and close the public hearing and turn it over to the council for deliberation
action. Move to adopt a resolution approving the issuance of bonds by the
CSCDA for the benefit of Sequoia living. Second. We'll call please. Councilmember
Francois? Aye. Councilmember Silva? Aye. Councilmember Davini? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Wilk? Aye. Mayor
Darling? Aye. All right thank you very much. Next on the agenda is a public
hearing pursuant to the government code section 3502.3 on the City of
Walnut Creek's job vacancies, recruitment, and retention efforts for fiscal year
2025 and I invite the staff forward to present the staff presentation. Good
evening Mayor Darling, Mayor Pro Tem Wilk, and council members. I'm Trish
Raver, Human Resources Director, and tonight I will be providing a
presentation pursuant to Government Code Section 3502.3 AB 2561 on the city
Walnut Creek Job Vacancies Recruitment and Retention Efforts. The agenda for this
presentation includes reviewing a summary of the new legislation, reviewing
the job vacancy rates by bargaining unit and department, and providing the city
recruitment and retention efforts over the last couple of years. Effective
January 1st, 2025, in accordance with Government Code Section 3502.3, a
A public agency is required to present the status of vacancies and recruitment and retention
efforts during a public hearing before the governing board at least once per fiscal year
and prior to the adoption of the final budget.
The budget is scheduled to be reviewed after this item this evening.
Because the fiscal year has not yet ended, the vacancy information presented is based
on data as of May 10, 2025.
In accordance with this law, all city bargaining units were noticed on this public hearing
and were provided an opportunity to present if desired.
According to AB 2561, if the number of job vacancies within a single bargaining unit
met or exceeded a threshold of 20 percent of the total number of authorized full-time
positions for that unit, upon request of the recognized bargaining unit, this presentation
may also include the following information identified here in one through four. The total
number of vacancies within the bargaining unit, the total number of applicants for vacant positions
within the bargaining unit, the average number of days to complete the hiring process from when a
position is posted, and opportunities to improve compensation and other working conditions.
In addition to presenting information on vacancies, recruitment and retention efforts, if necessary,
the City will identify any changes to City of Walnut Creek policies,
procedures, and recruitment activities that may
lead to obstacles in the hiring process. As of May 10th, 2025, there are no
bargaining units with a vacancy rate that met or exceeded the 20%
threshold. Therefore, this presentation will not include the additional
presentation elements outlined on the previous slide.
Before we review the vacancy data for each bargaining unit group and apartment I want to
provide a listing of the city bargaining units or groups. There are nine groups inclusive of the
city council ranging from administrative support classes to sworn police personnel to general
management. Based on the bargaining unit groups identified in the previous slide,
position vacancies are provided for each group. The second column provides information on the
number of authorized full-time equivalent positions according to the adopted budget
at 387.25.
The third column provides the number of filled FTEs at 347.5 and the fourth column provides
the number of vacant FTEs at 39.75.
And finally, the last column provides the percentage of vacant FTE per group with a
total of 10.3 percent.
These vacancy rates can fluctuate from day to day based on separations, new hires, or
changes within budget to the FTE count.
To provide an example of how there may be unique ways to view the identified vacancy
rate for a bargaining unit group, the Police Officers Association identified vacancy rate
is 11.9% based on eight vacant police officer positions.
However, four of those positions are under-filled with police trainees, positions that are
required to attend the police academy prior to the deployment as a police officer.
Because four of these positions are filled with police trainees, the effective vacancy
rate could be viewed at 5.9 percent.
However, the police trainee must complete the police academy, which is six months, to
be converted to a police officer when the vacancy rate is then adjusted to account for
the filling of the police officer position. I also provide a slide on the
positions within any department. This slide provides an overview of the
positions and vacancies in the seven city departments which is the format
followed in the city budget. As you can see, 14.3% is the highest vacancy rate
for any department, the community development department with a low
of 5.1% in the administrative services department. Again, with an overall
vacancy rate of 10.3 percent. Now we're going to cover the recruitment efforts
of the city with an overview of the standard recruitment process which
begins with a position opening. Then a recruitment is prioritized by the
hiring department and human resources based on recruitment capacity. All
recruitment processes with the exception of at-will appointments are required to
be merit-based. Once a requisition to fill, the position is opened, the length
of the recruitment process can vary from 30 to 120 days, depending on if it's a
promotional internal recruitment or an open recruitment, which means open to the
public. The position is advertised during the application period, which typically
ranges from two weeks to one month. Applications are screened for minimum
qualifications for the position with applicant pools that can range from
several to hundreds. Then those candidates meeting the minimum
requirements for the position are invited to test through a variety of
different processes which may include a written test, a subject matter expert
panel interview, and or a practical exercise. Once candidates are tested and
based on performance in those processes an eligible list of qualified
candidates is created and presented to the department hiring manager. The
department then conducts a hiring interview for those candidates that
exhibited the best performance in the selection process. The department then
provides a conditional offer to the best qualified candidate and the
pre-employment background process occurs. The background check process can take
anywhere from a week to several months based on the position. For example, a
A police officer goes through the most lengthy
and extensive background check process,
including review of personal history information,
polygraph testing, psychological testing,
and a medical examination.
Once the elements of the background check process
have been completed, the candidate will receive
a final offer, including a job start date.
Recruitment data for the 2024 calendar year
included 32 regular job postings.
I wanna point out that a job posting
result in the filling of more than one position. For example, a recruitment for an office specialist
can result in the filling of multiple positions throughout the city. Over the course of the
calendar year, 2785 applications were received and screened. The information provided here
reflects separations for regular and limited duration positions over the past five calendar
years in this calendar year to date in the categories of resignation, retirement, and
involuntary separations. As you can see, there was a spike in separations in 2020 and 2021,
largely attributed to COVID, with staff moving out of state, retiring, or changing fields
employers. The separation trend has changed in the past couple of years to be more moderate
and typical of years prior to 2020.
The information here provided reflects new hires
and rehires and changes in positions
for regular and limited duration positions
over the past five calendar years
and this calendar year to date.
As you can see, 86 positions were filled in 2023
and 68 in 2024 as a result of a high number of separations,
mentioned between 2020 and 2022. The appointment trend has normalized to a
lower rate in 2025. We now move on to some of the recruitment process
improvements that have been made by the city to address separations. Because
sworn police recruitments as well as non sworn police recruitments have become
more competitive and challenging over the course of the last five years and in
order to attract a diverse pool of highly qualified applicants, the epic
recruitment platform was implemented by the Police Department in 2024 to
provide a full complement of services to reach a broader pool of potential
applicants by creating a police department recruitment page in a
comprehensive branding framework to assist the department to attract
highly qualified applicants. With knowledge that many applicants for
sworn positions are applying to multiple agencies simultaneously, the recruitment
process for police officer was also streamlined so that a conditional offer
of employment initiating a background check process could occur on the same
day as an interview. This modification of the process makes the city more
competitive in the hiring processes and reduces the selection process by
one to two weeks removal some additional recruitment process improvements include
removal of certain background check components that the city's third-party
background consultant conducted as the same components are part of the city
standard Department of Justice FBI fingerprinting processes by removing
these elements the background check process takes less time as well with the
process being one to two weeks shorter the typing speed for administrative
support positions was also modified to be more inclusive and remove a barrier
to employment by meeting current best practice requirements for typing. And
lastly, due to the massive amount of hiring that took place in 2023 and 2024,
human resources augmented staffing with various outside consultants to
assist with the recruitment selection processes to meet the city's needs of
city staffing. Based on these recruitment efforts the human resources team was
voted by peers as the team of the year for 2023 resulting in a vacancy rate
change from approximately 14 percent to 8 percent. Moving on to the city's
retention efforts. The city values the work of staff and in a good-faith effort
to remain competitive in the labor market negotiated successor agreements
with five bargaining units in 2024. The City is currently in the process of
negotiating successor bargaining unit agreements with the Police Officers
Association and the Police Management Association. The City has also continued
to improvement and conducts exit interviews with regular staff to learn
about potential organizational improvements. To provide some additional
retention efforts from a cultural perspective the City conducted an
engagement survey in 2024 to learn more about staff opinions to enhance the
culture of the organization to improve retention. Apex which is a learning and
development initiative where staff project groups work on designing the
future of how the organization feels and functions and participate in training and
project groups with the intention of saving the city money, increasing
efficiency, connecting, and building teams across departments, and streamlining
processes for internal and external customers. Professional development
funding is provided to many bargaining unit groups and tuition reimbursement is
provided to all regular staff. Opportunities such as participation in
the Contra Costa Leadership Academy and Chamber Leadership Academy are open to
staff. An annual award ceremony is coordinated to recognize staff milestone
anniversaries, employee of the year and team of the year. Finally, a quarterly
new hire breakfast occurs to welcome and orient new staff to the organization.
Some key findings relative to this presentation are the city prioritizes
recruitment and retention of staff. Seeks opportunities to improve
recruitment and retention processes to attract and retain staff and is
committed to continued engagement of staff to improve processes
to remain competitive and meet best practice standards.
That's all I have. So the recommendation we conducted the public hearing is to
move to receive and file the presentation on the City of Walnut
Creek job vacancies recruitment and retention efforts
for fiscal year 2025 pursuant to government code section 3502.3. Thank you very much Drish. That's
a whole lot of numbers and a whole lot of work. I appreciate it. Questions for HR? Councilmember
Francois. Okay thanks thanks Trish. I understand this is a new uh legal state law requirement so
this is the first time we're receiving this report is that right? Correct yes it's effective January
first of this year. You had some historical information on hiring and
separation do you have any on the vacancy rates as well over the last five
years? I know that it was lower I don't have that at this time however we can
provide that. Okay so it's 10.3 for last year and it's been lower than that you
think over the last four years? It was 10.3 as of May 10th of this year it was
much higher the last couple years and then prior to that it was lower. And can
you confirm, my Breck election was when I asked the city manager this, that six
percent is about the normal or typical vacancy rate? Yes. So would you say that
we're trending back down but slowly? Yes I would say we're trending back down. Yeah
and it's like I said it fluctuates from day to day so you know all you need to
do is hire several new folks and it will go back it'll go down to 9% and reduce I
think that's it for now thank you any other questions I was glad to see that
elected officials are at 0% all six of us are here and working okay with no
other questions the public hearing is now open for public comment written
comments submitted have been posted to the city's website for public review and
are included in the meeting record but will not be separately read into the
record. The recently enacted state law known as AB 2561 requires the city to
hold a public hearing to present the status of the city's job vacancies and
recruitment and retention effort. The state law further allows any recognized
employee association for a bargaining unit to make a presentation at the
public hearing. The state law does not set a minimum or maximum amount of
of speaking time for these presentations.
The Walnut Creek City Council handbook provides
that a presentation by a representative
of an organized group is limited to 10 minutes
on behalf of the group.
In addition, the presentation should relate
to the subject of the public hearing,
i.e. job vacancy recruitment retention.
Therefore, each presentation being made
by a recognized employee organization
for a bargaining unit will be limited to 10 minutes.
If there's not a presentation by a group representative,
then comments by individual speakers
will be limited to two minutes per person.
So now that we've taken this new requirement
and put some terms around it,
we will ask you guys to step forward.
I'm sure you've already done your speaker card
and your 10 minutes.
Thank you.
Good evening, I'm President Shane Blatz
with the Long Creek POA.
So I have 10 minutes,
I'm gonna try to run through this as fast as I can.
There is quite a few slides,
which I hope you guys have time to look at it later.
So I really want to get to is the state of law enforcement
in general, it's not just unique to Wanna Creek
is that we are really struggling as an industry
trying to recoup from the time of 2020 and 2021,
really dealing with the public scrutiny, the riots.
We had a huge loss of personnel
and lack of interest in our job.
And still to this day, it's been really hard
for a lot of agencies, mostly California,
specifically the Bay Area.
And so Walnut Creek has been struggling,
but we're not unique by any means.
So what you guys see here on the slide is our latest
on our total staffing for the police department.
That's our non-sworn and sworn.
So our total sworn is at 76 right now.
That includes the aforementioned academy recruits.
We have three that are currently in the academy.
Right now we have eight that are on injury,
and then we have four that are in FTO training.
We had one that just graduated the academy this week,
so he is in a two-week in-house.
He'll be joining our FTO program.
And so when you actually do the subtraction of the trainees,
the recruits, and our injuries, what
you're looking at for total sworn solo police officers
is that we have 61 of us out of the total 85.
And that goes from the chief all the way down.
So far this year, we've had three retirements,
and we will have three expected to retire this year.
So this gives a quick little breakdown of our PMA and POA, and shows you just right
here real quick of which spots are vacant.
So we have one captain spot that is vacant.
All of our lieutenant spots are filled, one sergeant that is vacant, and then shows the
breakdowns of our budgeted 62 officers and the five officers that are Measure O funded.
So our patrol bureau right now is at 32 deployed again,
due to the injuries and vacancies that we have.
Our investigations bureau,
we're supposed to have 10 detectives.
We have two spots are unfilled again,
due to our injuries and vacancies,
our specialized units.
So our traffic unit right now we have slotted for four.
That is supposed to be four motor motors.
we have one spot that is unfilled,
and then the acronym for HOP,
that's our Homeless Outreach Team.
We have two officers that are filled in that spot,
and then our one Broadway Pause Officer that's filled.
So mentioning again to our four officers
that are in various stages of the FTO program,
once they get through that process,
then they become a solo police officer,
and then our three recruits that are still
in the early phase of the police academy.
So kind of, this is just a really simplified version
of what it takes to go through the hiring process
of a new officer.
It's very long in comparison to obviously hiring
any new employee for the city of Warner Creek.
I would say that hiring a new police officer
for the city of Warner Creek is the hardest thing to do
because of the amount of time it takes
to get to have a solo police officer
and also the cost that it takes.
So really quickly, just going through the application
interview, the background process, and then the different kind of exams that a
new hire has to go through. Typically for most applicants that tend to, I'd say
quote-unquote, get washed out, is in the background process. That's where usually
hiccups that get them disqualified. So that process can take about 48 months.
For a brand new hire, they'll go through a six-month police academy.
A lateral officer, they get to bypass that.
The only caveat is if they're out-of-state police officer,
depending on what state they're certified, they may have to go
through a whole six-month California academy.
So this kind of gives you just a quick, like, timeframe as to how long it takes to get
from the time of application to actually have a solo full-duty police officer
in that amount of time, so it is a very long time
for us to have somebody that's boots on the ground
that can actually fill a spot.
These are our current expected departures.
We have two officers in the process
that are going to NAPA PD.
We have an officer that is expected to leave in July this year
to pursue a nursing career.
We have one officer that is set to retire this summer.
We have two other sworn personnel set to retire in December,
And there are several that are eligible
to retire this year and next year.
Just kind of going quickly on what happens with us
when we have low staffing, obviously lower presence,
lower clearance rates on our investigations,
and the exposure to different injuries,
which we're having quite a bit right now,
and trauma, burnout, declining of our wellness, morale,
and increases our response times calls.
One of the things that all of us are experiencing
as a department and for the industry in general
is the institutional knowledge ecosystem
that our industry has had for decades.
So I've benefited from it.
All of my colleagues here that are in the council chambers
have benefited from this.
We've grown up with our big brothers, big sisters
that have passed on all this experience from policing.
But due to that 2020,
we lost a lot of our veteran officers.
So there's a huge influx of new officers that are working,
trying to learn the job.
And policing as you get older,
you kind of come out of the academy,
you learn that it's a lot of black and white,
but as you progress in your career,
you start learning that it's more of an art
really been a science.
And so that's what we're struggling with.
A lot of agencies are struggling with this lack
of veteran officers that are there to continue that process.
That whole ecosystem has kind of been thrown off.
So prior to the pandemic, these were some of the services
that our department had.
And due to the lack of staffing, we no longer have.
And even if our chief were to bring some of these teams back,
we don't have the staffing to even produce this.
So we used to have a Met officer and we used to have two SROs, four set, and then a full
Detective Bureau, four traffic officers, and two of our homeless officers, one Broadway
Paws officer.
As you can see on our post-pandemic side there, this is what we currently have deployed.
just going over what did our set team set team do. They were unmarked units, all proactive
police enforcement helped out a detective bureau going out arresting people. They could be deployed
at different times of the week for whatever crime trends or we were dealing with. A school resource
officer, myself and my my partner we were working around the schools helping with community
partnership, crime deterrence, that kind of stuff. Our MET officer was working
with the County Behavioral Health Services and then helping train us up
and providing long-term care for people in crisis. So our current special
assignment units right now, obviously they're a lot less staffed so
they're having to deal with a lot more work than they were dealing with prior
of the pandemic. What is that the difficulty that the Wanna Creek police
department's having to deal with and the city's having to deal with when it comes
to hiring and retention sorry hiring and retention it's cost of living pretty
obvious long commutes so about half of our POA members right now live 30 miles
away from the city limits only five officers live within the city of Wanna
Creek and only three of those actually own residences. The labor market is
extremely competitive and again circling back the public scrutiny has gotten a
lot better since 2020 but it still is pretty difficult. Here's just a couple of
slides just a show of different flyers out there as you guys can see there are
cities are close to us and cities that are not near sorry a little bit outside
the Bay Area and their competitive rates are not that far behind the Bay Area.
I'm gonna run out of time here so I produced here on for PORAC. This is a
police union company that we all are part of and then the other company I
have on here is going to be the IACP. So this just gives you guys some further
their data to kind of cycle through. And I'm just gonna get to my last slide and
I'll end it. So what can the city want to create do to prioritize public safety?
Essentially being ahead of the market, being competitive with salary and
benefits, public support, sufficient funding for us for overtime, equipment,
and training. And this is like a synergistic relationship that we have as
for our department, for officers, that allows us to have more specialized units,
better officer wellness, robust staffing. This becomes a destination agency, not a
farm agency, and then you end up having the best highly trained and experienced
officers. So that that's the end of my presentation. Thank you Shane very much. I
know it's 2020. It seems like it was a long time ago now, but it's it's been a
lifetime of for all of the all of you in law enforcement any questions for thank
you very much for coming I'm a question hold on come back oh yeah councilmember
to fitting all right officer bless thank you can we go back to like the very
beginning slide I just wanted to go over those numbers again because that there
were like people injured and there were there were there were folks who had
different to understand how you came up with those numbers again yeah right here
okay so total full-time full-duty sworn police personnel 61 out of 85 so 85 PMA
POA that'd be total if everyone was hired including the chief all the way
down all the way down okay duty that are not injured that are not trainees that
They're not in the academy.
Okay.
So we're missing, so it's like 24,
but that includes, you're taking out
the full-time officer trainees.
Correct.
The recruits, okay.
All right, thanks, I just wanted to review that again.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right.
I understand somebody else might wanna come up.
Hi, good evening.
We'll just get right on in.
Annette Ramirez, Teamsters Business Agent
Local 856 representing the civilian police unit. Our Walnut Creek dispatchers have prepared a
presentation respectfully for your review and consideration and thank you in advance.
And with that I'll just pass it over to the dispatchers to begin.
All right, thank you. Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council. Thank you for the
opportunity to give this presentation on the staffing needs of the Walnut Creek Police
Department's Dispatch Center. I'm Zachary Rick Elme, a dispatcher and call taker here at Walnut
Creek Police Department and with me are my colleagues dispatcher Megan Schmidt
and our representative from the Teamsters Local 856 and at Ramirez. Megan and I
together have over 10 years of dispatching experience including with
other agencies and our particularly well-positioned to discuss the personnel
needs of the dispatch center. So today we're here to discuss our current levels
of staffing, what's lacking, the possible outcomes, and how to proactively address
these issues to ensure the highest levels of public safety and employee
wellness. I'd like to say straight away that we are not here in an adversarial
capacity, but rather as partners who are hoping to illuminate more clearly the
staffing situation and dispatch. Currently we have 12 full-time dispatchers
and a part-time dispatcher, as well as two per DM employees. This equates to 12.5
full-time employees. Until recently we were staffed at 14 and a half. Two
dispatchers left to other agencies. As you all may know, our center is a 24
hour a day, seven day a week operation, with a minimum of two dispatchers working simultaneously.
It may seem that the current staffing is sufficient, but there are many variables that contribute
to mandatory overtime shifts, as well as busy periods, priority events, special details
and other circumstances that render the current staffing number insufficient.
While we are capable of operating at our minimums, it is suboptimal to both the public and our
staff.
Beyond the vacant positions, we have a dispatcher who will be soon on maternity leave, as well
as other dispatches who are actively trying to start families and others that may be looking
to expand theirs.
Additionally, we're concerned about all of life's other unexpected turns like health
issues, family emergencies, injury that are all unplanned events that can quickly and
dramatically affect staffing.
Another quick point I'd like to make is that although two people may not seem like much
in a work group of our size, it is considerable.
That comes to a 13.8 reduction, a 13.8 percent reduction in workforce, which is not negligible.
As a quick example of how we are currently affected by current vacancies in this month,
June, we have forced overtime shifts to fill for 25 of 30 days, where we must come in on
our day off or extend our 12-hour shift.
In addition to our vacancies, our responsibilities continue to expand.
Call volume trends upward year-over-year.
Technologies evolve, advance and grow, and with them, so too do our responsibilities.
The city continues to grow, and with that, our call volume, radio traffic, and overall
workload to do too. Walnut Creek has been and continues to be a very popular destination
city within the East Bay and based on data found on the 2023 annual data dashboard which
is included in the city's biannual budget for the fiscal years 24 and 25, the population
here is listed at 70,036 with a over three-fold increase during daytime hours to 232,275.
Pulling data from the city's pipeline project list, a spreadsheet that outlines current
developments which was last updated March 24th of this year, we see 14 total
commercial projects, 16 total residential projects, with a combined total of 19
major projects and a net addition of 1,026 residential units either
completed under construction approved or under review. As mentioned earlier, the
construction of the Hilton Garden Inn, a 124-room hotel, was recently
completed. The Foundry Market, a 24,472 square foot food
Hall has been approved for downtown Walnut Creek. Massive renovations to the
Aquatic Center at Heather Farm Park are in the works, renovations
and upgrades to other parks are in the pipeline. The list goes on. As a Walnut
Creek resident, I'm excited. However, I know that with these developments our
responsibilities, the number of calls we get, the amount of radio traffic from
patrol will all continue to increase. It goes without saying that running at
minimums affects the public's experience. Delays in answering the business lines
excessive hold times, and most detrimental delays in answering 911
lines are all direct outcomes of an improperly staffed center. Once we are
able to get to the callers, we are forced to be curt, abrupt, and are unable to
deliver the level of customer service that we strive to deliver and that the
citizenry of Walnut Creek has come to expect. The consequences are tangible and
possibly severe. In our center, we answer all 911 calls in our area. Although we
we do not dispatch medical calls, we do transfer them to the fire department.
During peak hours or during priority events when at staffing minimums, a single call taker
may be fielding multiple 911 lines as well as business lines.
Should a citizen have a medical emergency and call 911, they may get a busy signal or
have to wait as the line rings.
I don't say this to be hyperbolic or dramatic, but in our line of work, even a few moments
may be the difference between life and death.
those peak times or priority events, the radio dispatcher will also be fielding 911 calls.
That means they must be actively on the phone with a 911 caller in emergency, which they
hear through their headset, while continuing to communicate and direct patrol officers
through a speaker on their desk. While all of our dispatch staff are experts and expert
multitaskers, I believe you could imagine the stress that this could cause a dispatcher.
I'd also like to highlight the fact that it can cause delays in response with officer
communication or the dispatching of a call. In summation, we can only do so much when
not properly staffed. The consequences of being improperly staffed are just as palpable
to our staff members as they are to the public. As overtime piles up, so does exposure to
tough calls. But it's not just the tough calls that are difficult. It's a cumulative
stress. Day in, day out, 12 hours a day, we speak to people, many of whom are having their
worst days. Dispatchers face many of the same mental struggles that patrol officers do,
depression, anxiety issues, PTSD, and more. Eventually, it can become too much. As exemplary
as my colleagues are, at the end of the day, we are just people. All of us want to do the
best job we can and provide-excuse me-all of us want to do the best job we can, but
if we're burnout at the end of a long string of overtime shifts, we can't provide the service
to the public or patrol that's necessary. In addition to the stresses we face, there
are logistical issues. As burnout increases, we will lose more dispatchers, either looking
for greener pastures at other agencies or who decide
to leave the career altogether.
I'm particularly familiar with this.
As that happens, we struggle and we struggle
to hire desperately needed dispatchers.
We'll hit bottlenecks in our training process.
Excluding the hiring interviews, background investigations,
lie detector tests, and psychological evaluations,
the in-house training process alone for a dispatcher is
on average six months long.
For entry-level candidates, the failure rate is high.
Staffing issues can quickly become cyclical as a team waits for release and it will become
costly for the city.
Simply what we are looking for is to replace the positions of the two dispatchers who recently
left.
We request that our budgeted positions be adjusted to include the overhired position
bringing it to a total of 14.5 dispatchers and that the city begin the hiring process
to fill the vacant positions.
We'd like to highlight that what we're asking for is what we've had for quite some time
and not a massive overhaul of our scheduling structure.
Replacing the two dispatches at left would allow us
to re-implement the additional swing shifts that we had.
Those swing shifts not only increase coverage in the room
so that everyone could take proper breaks and lunches,
but they serve as buffers that greatly reduce overtime
when either a Dave shifter or a graveyarder is sick
as the swing shifters almost always volunteer to flex
to the respective shifts that needs the coverage.
The additional staffing directly impacts our ability
to serve the public more quickly and thoroughly,
and the impact to our staff wellness is a great positive as well.
Lastly, being proactive about filling vacancies will keep us padded
should we have any other turnover.
As previously discussed, the result of recruitment in action is tangible and severe.
Increased workload causes staff burnout, decreased morale.
Workload reductions in the quality of service to the public, liability concerns,
and increased overtime costs.
In short, the safety of the public, the safety of patrol officers,
and the wellness of our dispatch team is significantly reduced
when the center is not staffed properly.
Public safety is often lauded.
It's listed frequently as a top priority to both the city's residents and visitors.
Concern for public safety is always on the forefront of city budgets.
It's ranked among the top reasons for the implementation of Measure O,
and it is a talking point often heard in this chamber.
Now we implore you to turn rhetoric into action.
We don't say that as an accusation or an insult, rather a plea.
We in dispatch are committed to excellence, and every day we strive
to provide the best service possible to the public and patrol. We cannot do it
when not properly staffed, overworked, and burnt out. As outlined in previous
slides, the safety of public and patrol depends on timely and accurate
dispatching and call-taking. We absolutely understand the budgetary and
economic concerns of the city. We appreciate your sound and finite your
sound financial decisions and management that have positioned the city for
continued growth and stability. However, I must stress that our work is not easily
quantified. It cannot be boiled down to cells on a spreadsheet. Sure, data will
show there are trends, there are busy periods, but major emergencies have
happened at any moment, at any day, at any hour. Heart attacks don't wait until the
dispatch center is properly staffed. Robberies, major accidents, shootings,
and storms don't wait until the dispatch center is properly staffed. As employees
that work in public safety, we often train and talk about disaster preparedness.
What we're asking for you is to help us be properly prepared, and to be properly
prepared is to be properly staffed. So today we ask that you help us continue
our life-saving work with the full team of 14 and a half dispatchers. Thank you.
Thank you very much and thank you for everything you guys do. I know it's one
heck of a job. Questions for the dispatchers? All right, thank you very much.
Thank you. Here's a slide of answer. Any other public comments in the room? Will the
slides from the last two presentations be available for I was gonna cover that
yeah my clothes out here no additional comments we'll go ahead and close the
public hearing I would ask I know that it would be useful for folks to get the
full presentation from both of us so if you could circulate that to the council
that would be great I'll turn it back here for discussion deliberation and a
motion I would just like to thank the presentations that we've had it's always
It's good to have information.
And I would just make a motion that we've received this
and we've got the presentation on the job vacancies,
recruitment and retention efforts for the fiscal year 2025
pursuant to government code section 3502.3.
Yeah, and this is something that we keep a close eye on.
It's something that is important to all of us
because it is important to our city.
So we really appreciate the information.
And with that, I will second the motion.
I too appreciate the presentations we received.
I look forward to getting the PowerPoints
and perhaps also some supplemental information
from staff about the FTE positions and dispatch.
The numbers didn't seem to match up
with what I had on, we had on our slides,
so just more information about that,
kind of the overtime policy and any,
there was a reference to forced overtime.
I want to understand a little bit more about that
and kind of how we capture injuries.
What's the normal injury rate?
I assume that's not captured in the vacancy rate,
but just kind of what's the normal
in police and other units.
So just a few follow-up informational items.
All right, and with that, is there anything else?
Real call vote?
Mayor Pro Tem Welliff.
Aye.
Mayor Darlene.
Aye.
Council Member Davenny.
Aye.
Council Member Francois.
Aye.
Council Member Silva.
Aye.
All right, thank you.
I do look forward to seeing the power points on that one
Next on the agenda is a consideration titled adopt the resolutions approving the assessment report and attention to levy assessments
Are FY 26 and setting a public hearing for June 17th, 2025 and I read
By the staff or to provide the presentation
Good evening, Mayor Darling pro term book and members of City Council. I'm Mike Neiman your economic development manager and
And this item in front of you today
is the resolution approving the assessment report
and intention to levy assessments for next fiscal year
and setting a public hearing for the next council meeting.
I'm excited to bring this item forward
because tourism is a huge part of economic development.
As you know, every community wants to promote tourism
and vise for tourism dollars.
It's very competitive.
The reason for that is because tourism
creates fiscal benefits.
There is a lot of revenue that's being generated,
and we'll cover this in today's presentation,
and there's not a lot of costs to having tourists
and visitors in town, so there's a number of benefits.
So the city of Walnut Creek originally established
a business district called the Tourism Business
Improvement District, known as TBID, in 2010,
and it's one of several business improvement districts
that we have in the city.
It's the only one that's tourism based.
It's managed by the Walnut Creek Chamber,
which created a Visit Walnut Creek arm,
which is known as the destination marketing organization
that will be covered in the presentation.
There are currently eight hotels that are within the bid,
and as you heard earlier,
the newest addition is Hilton Garden Inn
that just opened last year, there was seven.
And it's funded through the TOT,
Transient Occupancy Tax Dollars,
which is a tax that's levied on room stays,
which visitors pay when they visit,
and 3%, which is a portion of that,
goes to fund our district,
and the rest goes to the general fund.
Every year, this is brought forward as an annual update,
and this is the presentation you'll hear tonight
as part of the two-step process.
And then the next meeting is going to be a public hearing
where hotels have the opportunity to voice
if they have any concerns,
but there is no rate change this year.
So it's the same rate going forward.
And with this, I would like to invite Nicole Hinton,
who is the executive vice president
with the Walnut Creek Business Bureau.
Good evening, Mayor and City Council members.
Again, thank you for helping out
with the art and wine this weekend.
I'm going to jump right into it,
to our T-BID renewal and our report for 24, 25.
Here are all of our T-BID participants.
Just a little note, Super 8 was Motel 6,
was park in by Radisson for very briefly,
and now they are Super 8 by Windham.
And just in case people were wondering what's going on with the sign changes there.
Our total guest room inventory is 1,311.
So what I'm going to do now is talk about things that we're going to move forward
with for 25, 26, and then we'll get into some other items.
Our partnerships and memberships, Ultimate Fieldhouse, Helms Brisco.
We're continuing with our Mount Diablo marketing co-op,
which is Visit Walnut Creek, Visit Concord,
Visit Tri-Valley, and Stay Pleasant Hill.
We pool our money when appropriate
and contribute to larger marketing opportunities
presented by Visit California and or SF Travel.
We're continuing our membership with California Travel,
which helps us immensely with advocacy for tourism.
We're continuing with Destinations International,
where we also get to network with other destinations
from all over the world, and we talk about best practices
and how to keep our destination organization up and running
the way it should be.
Also, MPI Northern California chapter,
so we can connect with meeting planners.
And then we're also members of the Sacramento Sierra Nevada
chapter, so we can get that exposure.
and also CalSAE who recently this year
is changing their name to Associations West.
So we can get in front of that association market.
Continuing our partnerships,
we just got a new partnership that started with COPPA.
We're very excited about that.
It gives us great exposure for soccer tournaments
and footsall tournaments.
Again, with Ultimate Field House.
Of course, our partnership with Walnut Creek Chamber
specifically for the East Bay Women's Conference Art and Wine
Festival, which we did a very fun, cool hotel shuttle
this year.
I don't know if any of you noticed it, but it was a big hit.
And then also with booking incentives.
I'll get into that a little bit later,
because we have a new platform where
we were offering art and wine tickets
if they booked hotel rooms.
So I'll get into that a little bit.
And then we're also continuing our partnership
the Walnut Creek downtown, Oktoberfest, Walnut Creek on Ice, and Uncorked. And then also we are
partnering with Broadway Plaza, the summer concert series. We invite planners out to treat them to
have a great evening in Walnut Creek. The Art and Wine Hotel shuttle. So we partnered with the
Livermore Valley Wine Trolley to bring out two very beautiful white trolleys that they have.
and we did two separate routes, two trolleys that went around to all of the hotels, we got a total
of about 67 riders, that's a total for both days and we think that's pretty good for the first year.
We had more folks on the Renaissance and Embassy Suites side and we think that's because those
apartment buildings that are near those hotels, we believe that the residents figured out
that that trolley was going to art and wine. So they jumped on and we're happy about that.
We also did a stay and play. So we promoted the trolley about the stay and play and if they booked
a hotel room for more than one night they would receive two glasses and two drink tickets.
Digital marketing that we're going to continue just so we can stay in the eye of travelers is
Google. We had over 97,000 impressions, almost 9,000 clicks through to our
website, and then of course social media, meta 900, almost a million impressions
and then almost 17,000 website clicks from Facebook and Instagram combined.
Something we also did that was very successful is some blogs with SF Gate.
They call them story studios and it gives you an opportunity to include photos and also
it goes with a theme. So the first one we did was Walnut Creek's hidden gems and we gave them
a guide cool spots to visit in Walnut Creek and then we did it was a very cool perspective of a
parent that was visiting Walnut Creek for sports. So my family just rediscovered Walnut Creek, the
e-space best kept secret for game day weekends. So trying to attract that traffic from UC Berkeley,
youth sports, and also St. Mary's. And they were very successful. 1.12 million impressions
and over 2,600 click-throughs to our website. And we found that people actually read these
articles. I believe the second one, they clocked it. People stayed on the page for about three to
four minutes so we were really excited about that because that doesn't happen these days.
Our new publications of course we had a new 2025 visitors guide so we'll be moving forward with
that also potentially exploring a digital version of this. I'll get more into that on our next
assessment report and we're updating our meeting planner guide to include the changes in our
properties the Super 8 and also the new Hilton Garden Inn which I don't know if you all got to
to see the meeting space there, it is very nice.
It's very updated, very techie-looking.
And what's huge with meeting planners is natural light.
And that meeting space has natural light.
So we're super excited about that.
Our data platforms, we've got some new toys.
So Arrivalist is a local intelligence program
that tracks market trends and visitors' behavior.
and visitor spend data we'll be having soon.
So, for example, we just tracked a basketball tournament
that happened at Ultimate Field House.
Just picked a weekend and tracked that basketball tournament
and we were able to see how many people stayed,
how many people visited Walnut Creek,
what states they came from, how far they came,
how many nights they stayed.
Very valuable information for us.
And then we also kicked off RIPE,
which is a direct booking engine
that is on the Visit Walnut Creek website
and we can offer deals.
So that's the best part is, for example,
we're kicking around for holiday.
If you book two, you know, one or more nights
or maybe two nights, you get a $50 lift credit.
And the cool thing about that is
RIPE will fulfill it for us.
We don't have to worry about anything.
When people book the room,
it goes right to the hotel system.
We don't have to worry about processing payment
or anything like that.
But the cool thing is, is we get to track
how many people booked our hotels
after they visit Walnut Creek's website.
We're also working with Noland,
which gives our sales manager meetings market intelligence.
So he can go on there and see which meetings
were booked in our comp set.
And he can look and see who those planners are,
how many people there were.
So we can pull those meetings that were a good size for us
and he can go after those meeting planners.
So those are some of our new toys.
Arrivalist example.
So this was the Bay Area spring classic.
It was May 3rd and 4th.
It was an average one night stay,
but right behind that was three nights.
And then we still got some four plus nights.
We get the trip volume,
which is the day of the week pattern that they stayed.
And then we also get the average of nights,
the destination by month.
So that was the average in May.
And then as you can see,
the majority of the overnight guests
came from different places in California.
But then Pennsylvania and Ohio were in there too.
And obviously the folks from Ohio stayed the longest.
So we can pull all of that from Arrivalist.
So we set up points of interest in Arrivalist
and they track them by their phones.
We will actually have data
for the Art and Wine Festival that just occurred,
but we have to wait two weeks
because what Arrivalist does is they don't only track
the data from when they visit us,
but they also wait until they get home.
So we can't track the device until it goes home.
Sorry for breaking up, I'm getting intrigued.
So I'm in from out of town, I came in from Napa
to come to the Art and Wine Festival.
And there's something, when I get to the Art and Wine Festival,
it'll, something will ping that it knows that I'm.
We will pick up your device, yes.
We'll pick up my device and you'll.
You will creep him out.
Yes.
Kind of your monitoring, kind of where I'm headed there.
Correct.
And if I'm headed to a hotel in Walnut Creek or.
If you're in Walnut Creek for more than two hours,
we will track.
Yes.
We'll arrival as well.
Yeah.
It's all very innocent.
It's all for data purposes.
So, we have this information and it's helpful for us not only for to find out what time
of year people are visiting and when we can offer offers on RIPE on our website, but also
it helps us with sponsorships.
You know, when tournament organizers reach out and say hey, can Visit Walnut Creek help
us out with this, we can track their previous guests and find out if it's worth it for us.
So, we're very excited about this.
Bob is super excited about this.
So this is ripe.
Ripe, we're new to it.
But we did sell four packages to Art and Wine.
I was actually on the trolley with one
of the couples that booked it.
They were a cute, young married couple.
They got a babysitter, and they booked a package,
and they took the wine trolley to Art and Wine.
They were very excited to spend a weekend.
And there are so many things that we
can offer that other destinations use this platform.
You can offer Lyft ride credits.
You can partner with new restaurants in town
and offer gift certificates if they
book a certain amount of nights.
The hotels love it because it doesn't take away
from their room rate at all.
And it's just a really good way to promote the destination,
get those rooms going, and not take anything away
from the hotels.
Sure, absolutely, yeah.
Some upcoming projects that we're really excited about,
I believe that Cindy spoke about it a little bit,
hospitality workforce development.
What we heard from our hotels at a board meeting last year
was they were having a really hard time recruiting talent.
Just, you know, as in several industries,
there's been a lot of turnover in the hospitality industry,
especially after COVID.
A lot of the older folks that built a career in hospitality
have moved on and it's been a little tough recruiting that younger demographic to go
into hotels.
So what we are doing is we're partnering with our local institutions, DRAA, Cal State East
Bay with their hospitality programs and we are sponsoring this program from Walnut Creek
hotels.
We're also coming up with a certification program for sales people that will be sponsored
by the Walnut Creek Hotels to just get young people excited about the hotel industry again
and hopefully funnel some jobs in our region as well.
So we're excited about that.
We're also going to be out actively looking to bring a new signature sports tournament
or event to Walnut Creek.
As you probably know, we lost the half marathon with Revel, which was a blow.
But we're going to have someone going out and actively bringing back another signature
event to Walnut Creek. And then the Human Trafficking Awareness Training was very informative
with the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department, their Human Trafficking Task Force, and also
Freedom Insight and Arm of Care. We're partnering with all three agencies to bring together
some specific training specific to Walnut Creek Hotels for Contra Costa County. Each
Each hotelier, their front desk staff has to go through a quarterly webinar where they
kind of just click through an overarching training, but I wanted to make it more specific
to our area.
Who do you contact directly?
Can we get those direct relationships going?
Because it is not something that only happens in urban cities.
It happens, unfortunately, here too.
So like Cindy said, the hotels were very responsive, so we're looking forward to that.
So if you were at the State of the Chamber and I gave the tourism update and I gave the
California travel spend forecast, forget everything I said because they sent us an updated version
and we are going to be down for the coming years.
The previous forecast, it looks like we're going to be around $6 billion down going forward.
But one thing I noticed when I went to Cal Travel a couple of weeks ago is it depends
on who you talk to, on how much we're going to be down.
As we know, right now California is the number one travel destination in the U.S.
We kind of flip-flop between us and Florida.
Florida and us, we trade spaces on number one and number two.
Now if you talk to the state of California, Emily Desai, Chief Deputy Director of Governors
Office of Business, she said that we're going to be down .5 for the following year, but
Visit California says 1%.
So I'm assuming it's somewhere in between, but we are going to be down.
So Visit California is running some pretty intense campaigns to bring Canadians back,
folks back from Mexico, and we're keeping an eye on that to see if there's any place
that Mt. Diablo Region can participate.
Speaking of that, we want to continue to support our hotels any way we can, so we're kicking
off a small meetings campaign.
Our goal for this is to be the go-to destination for small meetings in Northern California.
We're just now starting the brainstorming, starting the offers, talking about our hotels.
Primarily we'll be promoting on LinkedIn, but also through MPI and PCMA and really speaking
to those meeting planners, not just meeting planners, but executive assistants, admin
assistants that get tasked with planning those small meetings.
And the purpose of the campaign will let them know this is where you need to have your California
meeting.
It's easy.
Our hotels will take care of you.
So more to come when we come up for the, with this specific marketing for this small meetings
campaign.
Streaming.
So, going into new fiscal, we're going to be working with Hulu and Peacock, an NBC Sports
Bay area specifically for women's soccer.
We'll have some ads for them.
We're excited about this also because we're going to be running some ads with ABC 7 during
pride.
They start on June 9th and they run through the pride parade.
We came up with Visit Walnut Creek as a sponsor of the pride parade.
Celebrate pride and sunshine in Walnut Creek.
So keep ears open for that during the parade.
And then we also get impressions up to July 6th after the parade.
So we're really excited about that going forward.
So I'll let you know, I'll remind you guys when they start running.
We are looking to stimulate business for the hotels as usual.
We offer the hotels a new business incentive.
Each hotel is offered a certain amount of money depending on their percentage of the
total rooms inventory in Walnut Creek.
And they can, if they come across a meeting planner that is trying to decide between Walnut
Creek and another destination, they can offer an incentive. Hey, we'll give you
$2,500 towards your food and beverage bill. We'll give you $3,000 towards your
total master bill. So the hotels have been offering that. The only caveat is
the planner cannot be considering another Walnut Creek hotel. If they're
considering a Walnut Creek hotel, then the hotels cannot use it because
obviously we don't want to cannibalize our business. We're looking towards
something for booking your banquet this summer. The hotels are looking for more
banquets. This is no rooms just a social event. If we get a referral on an event
from $3,000 to $6,000 we're offering a $250 visa gift card. If you refer a
catered event for $6,000 plus you get a $600 gift card. The contract must be
signed by July 31st, 2025. So we're doing whatever we can to incentivize business
and help the hotels through this expectedly hard time.
We're also going to be venturing in to some public relations,
which we haven't done in the past.
Bloggers, we're going to partner with some influencers.
We're going to be doing some media tours,
speaking of which we've started conversations with COPPA,
having some sports media do media tour at COPPA for World Cup.
So we're just starting talks about that
probably in the coming weeks.
we're trying to get something on the books for next week.
So it's really exciting because we haven't done this before.
That's it for me.
Any questions?
I'm exhausted.
I am.
Me too.
Questions for Nicole?
The only question I actually had was something
you brought up regarding the 67 people that
were in the shuttles that were coming from downtown.
I'm just curious in relation to how many
used buses last year for Heather Farm coming from Shadelands.
So I'm not sure of that number for BART
Because we did a separate trolley for the hotels only. I see. Yeah, so we didn't have a hotel trolley last year
This was our first year doing it. I see. Okay. Yeah
Yeah, I was wondering the
1311 hotel rooms that we have
Where is that like sit on your?
How many we should have for a city our size for the business we're trying to do like yeah
What do you think about that number?
You know, we are right-sized for a city that does not have a conference center. So so we're we're right-sized
I mean if it was up to me, we'd have another boutique hotel, but
But we are right-sized for our destination size. Now if we had a conference center, we would definitely need more rooms
But right now we don't so plans for our conference center or thoughts of how we might recruit a conference center
Public, private.
Yeah, yeah.
That is a long conversation.
It is a long conversation.
We're going back a decade or more.
It's expensive, especially now.
Yeah, it's a long conversation.
But I appreciate you bringing it up
because it's something that would benefit us greatly.
People want to come to Walnut Creek, meeting planners do.
Especially with that goal of being the number one
destination for small.
Yeah, and we know who we are, right?
So that's why we're promoting small meetings
from 50 to 100.
We know what our space is.
So we're really going to aggressively go after that space.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Thanks.
One more.
I didn't get to see the meeting space at Hilton Garden Inn.
That accommodates 50 to 100?
It accommodates 100 people, yes.
Is it on the ground floor?
It is.
So when you walked, if you kept walking past the bar, it's in the back and it's windows
all the way around, which I know I've said that before, but more and more meeting planners
are specifically asking for natural light.
So yeah, please do.
It's a great space.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The discussion about what is a small meeting.
It was interesting because some of the hotels, small is 50 and some it's 150.
Yeah.
Technically, it's like anything under 200,
but we think our sweet spot is like 50 to 100.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, thank you very much for your presentation
and for everything that you guys do.
Absolutely.
All looks like you have something else.
Sure.
I resist coming to the podium after Nicole
did such a great job.
I don't want to turn a 5-0 and do a 2-3.
But to the question about Conference Center,
one of the things that we believe
is that since we don't have a typical convention center,
that the Lesher Center has the potential.
And when we moved the women's conference from St. Ramon,
which was in a conference room, or I should say,
yeah, a major conference room,
we had to change the focus of the event
in order to accommodate,
but it was much more exciting for speakers.
they felt they were getting a greater participation.
And so the leisure is, in our view,
our equation for that, right?
And the good thing about it is we actually have some ideas
on, as Nicole mentioned,
bringing additional meetings to Walnut Creek,
not withstanding statewide associations in particular,
qualify for that small meeting space.
So not to supplant what she said,
but to add some to that question.
Yeah, it looks like you've sparked the interest
on Council Member Sillis' part.
Well, I remember in February of 2022,
when I was president of the League of California Cities,
our board meeting was held at the Lesher Center
and the entire board, which is 57 people, sat on the stage.
So they know how to do it.
And they spent two nights here as well.
Some of them spent three nights.
Some of them went to the Lesher Center headliner series
on the Friday night.
So it was, people were very excited to come to Walnut Creek.
Thanks for the opportunity.
Thank you, Nicole and Bob.
So a lot of very exciting things happening
on a visit to Walnut Creek.
And with that, the recommendation in front of you
Is to adopt the resolution approving the T-BID annual assessment report for last fiscal year and adopt the resolution of intention
To levy assessments for the upcoming fiscal year for T-BID and set a public hearing for the next
Council meeting coming up on June 17. All right. Thank you. Is there any public comment? Mr. Jann. No, you're all good
All right
With that we will close the public hearing and bring it back up here
based on the amount of, other than enthusiasm
for all the work that you do.
Does anybody want to make a motion to do this?
I will do it.
Move to adopt the resolution
approving Walnut Creek Tourism Business Improvement District
annual assessment report for fiscal year 24-25,
and adopt the resolution of intention
to levy assessments for fiscal year 2026
for the TBID and set of public hearing for June 17th, 2025.
Second.
All right, roll call.
Mayor Pro Tem, welcome.
Aye.
Council Member Davini.
Aye.
Council Member Francois.
Aye.
Council Member Silva.
Aye.
Mayor Darling.
Aye.
There you go, we're in business.
And I'm gonna take, thank you for everything that you did,
I'm gonna call for another five minute break,
I just gotta get up and stretch my back.
Okay, meanwhile, back at the ranch.
Next on the agenda is a consideration item titled,
fiscal year 2026 and fiscal year 2027 proposed operating
budget and master fee schedule.
And I will turn to staff for the presentation.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor Darling, Mayor Pro Tem Wilk
and members of the council.
I'm Randy Azzavito, budget and procurement manager
for the city.
And we're gonna be discussing, as the mayor said,
the proposed operating budget for fiscal years 26 and 27,
as well as proposed changes to the master fee schedule.
So first, we'll do a quick overview of the 26 and 27
general fund.
We'll also discuss other funds, including measure O,
the parking fund, and the Boundary Oak Golf Course funds.
Then we'll talk about authorized positions
that are included in the proposed budget,
as well as the master fee schedule.
The requested action is that the council provide feedback
on the proposed operating budget and proposed changes
to the master fee schedule.
So first I wanted to briefly recap the information
that's been presented at prior meetings,
including at the May 6th City Council meeting.
During the budget development process,
staff identified a projected ongoing deficit
of 4.97 million in fiscal year 26
and 6.33 million in fiscal year 27.
And that was before any budget balancing actions,
before one-time costs were added
and without contributions to reserves.
This projected deficit is primarily driven
by slower revenue growth and increases in costs.
And I also just want to acknowledge
that there is a lot of uncertainty right now,
and so this represents our best guess
with everything that's going on,
and we're continuing to monitor for changes.
The majority of the increases are being driven
by non-discretionary costs, things like utilities,
insurance premiums and legal services, contract costs,
CalPERS, pension costs, our current labor agreements,
and minimum wage increases that departments
aren't able to absorb without service-level impacts.
Additionally, staff are proposing budget augmentations
to add one-time and ongoing funding
to support council and department priorities
and to help maintain existing services.
And these were presented at the prior meeting
and are discussed in more detail
in Attachment 3 of your packet.
Using the adopted council budget policies,
staff have proposed a variety of ways to close the deficit
while seeking to minimize impacts to staff
and the community.
There are no proposed changes
since the last council meeting,
and additional detail is provided
in attachment to of your packet.
At a high level, these include revenue increases
of approximately 822,000 over the two years,
proposed operations and maintenance reductions
of just over 2 million each year,
and personnel reductions of about 1.3 million each year,
as well as the use
of some short-term budget balancing actions.
The majority of operations and maintenance reductions are coming from professional services travel and training and services and supplies staff.
With these changes staff would prioritize essential services and strategically use existing resources to minimize service level disruptions.
The proposed actions would bring some contracted services in house would reduce planned maintenance activities leading to more reactive responses.
But, and though generally programming would continue, there would be less funding available
for marketing and advertising supplies and contracts.
Notably center rep proposes to have five shows instead of six, and travel and training would
also be reduced, but essential training would continue.
Overall, there would be minimum ability to extend service levels and response times could
increase.
On the personnel side, 3.75 full-time equivalent positions
have been recommended for reduction,
and three other positions were reclassified.
All but one of these positions is currently vacant.
The one filled preschool position is being partially reduced
as related to business changes,
related to the expansion
of universal transitional kindergarten in California.
The budget for hourly staffing has also been reduced
by about 140,000, with the majority coming
from the Arts and Recreation Department.
This could result in reduced hours,
longer wait times for customer service,
and regular staff may need to fill gaps in coverage.
The city's overtime budget is approximately
1.62 million in fiscal year 25,
and the proposed budget would reduce overtime
by about 477,000 citywide,
with the majority coming from the police department.
While reducing overtime could slow investigations,
increase processing time in records,
may result in overspending if there's a large number of significant events.
Salary savings from vacant positions is expected to offset the normal use of overtime to backfill
vacant positions or to respond to unplanned disruptions.
Lastly, funding reallocations are proposed to move positions between funds which would
save the general fund approximately $70,000.
Staff also propose to use short-term budget balancing strategies to help minimize service
level impacts. And the vacancy rate which approximates normal staff turnover would increase
from 5% citywide to 6%. And just for comparison, the actual vacancy rate has been between 9
and 11% in recent years as we heard earlier. That would result in approximately 580,000
in savings annually. Staff is also proposing to use the 1 million of the pension resources
in fiscal year 26 and 2 million in fiscal year 27 to help offset CalPERS UAL cost increases.
But I just wanted to say it's not all bad news. Despite the challenges, the budget proposal
prioritizes new and enhanced funding requests that help address recently adopted council
priorities, sustain core programs that support our community and also address regulatory
mandates. And so a few of the highlights and these are like new additions include a general
plan update. So approximately 3.5 million is allocated to support a multi year community
based effort to update the general plan, which is one of the city council's identified priorities,
including the addition of a limited duration assistant planner to support the work. And
this is across all funds, I should say in development services, which is across departmental
team that coordinates the city's response to projects and development. The proposed
budget includes funding and positions to identify potential improvements to the city's development
review process, support permit streamlining improvements,
and process improvements, and to develop
technological enhancements.
A new senior plan check engineer position
to serve as the team lead for the plan check engineer team
is also added with a focus on high profile complex projects.
In public safety, another council priority,
the budget includes added funding for bodyboard cameras,
public safety software services and the higher costs for the East Bay Regional Communication
System or e-bricks which standardizes public safety communication.
And then there's also 250,000 that would be allocated to the Clark pool and pool house
repurposing master plan in the capital fund.
And that is to help determine the future of the location.
Regarding housing and homelessness, the proposed budget includes additional support for the
core homeless services program and also includes extension of limited duration position that
supports the city's housing program.
One time funding is included to conduct a community survey to gather feedback from residents
and to support the city in meeting new DOJ requirements requiring accessibility to local
government websites and mobile apps.
Funding was also increased to support price increases for essential community services
including the library hours, election costs, and animal services, and a part-time office assistant.
One position in general government would increase to full-time to support public records requests
and contract administration, and that's, of course, in addition to everything else that our city budget
funds, which helps make Walnut Creek such a wonderful place to live. Any questions there,
and if you have any questions during, please feel free to interrupt me as well if you prefer.
Any questions on the first part
Thanks, go ahead. Okay. You've gone ready. All right, so we're gonna jump into the numbers
So no changes to revenue have been proposed since the May 6 City Council meeting
After including projected revenue growth proposed fee increases and transfers in from reserves
general fund revenues would be a hundred and seven point three six million in fiscal year 26 and a hundred and eleven point one five
million in fiscal year 27
Excluding the budgeted use of reserves this represents modest increases of approximately
two to just under four percent
Nearly three-quarters of the city's revenues are general revenues which include property tax sales tax and transient occupancy tax
general revenues are projected to grow modestly over the next two-year budget cycle and
Department revenues which include fees for services with an account for about a quarter of the city's revenues
Development activity overall has slowed in the city. However, there are several significant projects that are expected in fiscal year 26 and 27
Arts and Recreation is also expecting revenue grains from greater rental availability and increases to registrations
As well as increased ticket sales at the Lesher Center for the Arts and Center Rep
performances
And I just wanted to note that transfers in that includes transfers from other funds for staff support
provided in the general fund as well as proposed use of reserves
general fund expenditures are projected to be a hundred and six point nine four million in fiscal year 26 and a hundred and
Ten point nine nine million in fiscal year 27
There were a couple of proposed changes to the general fund expenditures since the May 6 City Council meeting
Which include personnel reallocation and an adjustment to the transfer out to the open space fund
So during the pandemic portions of a landscape maintenance worker and a senior park maintenance worker
We're moved to the tree replacement fund and this fund collects tree removal mitigation fees a development fees to support tree replacement in the city
After further analysis of the fiscal year 25 projected revenues
The fund is not expected to be able to support the cumulative 1 FTE over the full budget cycle in the next two years
And so staff proposed to reallocate the positions to the general fund beginning in fiscal year 27, which adds approximately
133,000
Additionally, the open space fund is supported by our eight property tax revenue and the general fund contributes the difference required to balance the fund
Staff have received updated projections from the city's property tax consultant, which have lowered the need for general fund support
Accordingly the transfer out for projected general fund support has been reduced by 45,000 in fiscal year 26 and 40,000 in fiscal year 27
The pie chart here shows the percentage of expenditures attributable to each department
And one thing to note is that the city's larger public facing service departments which include public works arts and recreation and the police
Department account for just under three-quarters of the department expenditures
There are two main categories of expenditures for city departments
Operations and maintenance which includes all non personnel costs ranging from office supplies and utilities to contracts for professional services
and then personnel expenses which include the cost of salary and benefits over time and hourly staff and
including pension costs
The two charts on this page help visualize the split between personnel and operations and maintenance costs
Both citywide and on a department specific level in total
Personnel makes up about 68% of the general fund
Expenditures and operations and maintenance makes up about 32%
This ratio does vary by department as a result of differing department functions and costs
So in summary after accounting for the all proposed budget changes including both the increases and the reductions
The proposed or the expected contribution to fund balance is four hundred and fifteen thousand and fiscal year twenty six and one hundred and fifty nine thousand
in fiscal year 27 of that only a portion of it is ongoing funding and that
ongoing portion is approximately a hundred and forty four thousand in
fiscal year 26 and a hundred and fifty two thousand in fiscal year 27 this does
provide an opportunity for council to consider funding of other priorities
contributions to reserves or changes to the budget balancing actions or can be
left as is to mitigate any unforeseen circumstances.
Additionally, the total contribution to fund balance
could be, including the one-time funding,
could also reduce the use of the pension resources
or other reserves.
In light of the reductions required
to balance the general fund budget,
staff is recommending no contributions to reserves
as part of this budget.
Instead, the Catastrophic Emergency Reserve contribution
could be funding using FY25 available fund balance
at year end.
And the chart on this screen includes those
plan contributions from fiscal year 25
distributed over the two years.
The city's fiscal emergency reserve balance
exceeds policy requirements,
and so no contribution is required.
Also, as discussed at previous council meetings,
staff is recommending use of the general fund contingency
in fiscal year 26 to support the general plan update,
and use of the pension resources of 3 million
over the two years to offset increases to UAL.
This is in line with Council's adopted pension trust
and use policy.
Any questions on the general fund
before I move to other funds?
I just wanted to walk through,
just because the pension trust is the first time
we're using it, and we had a discussion in finance committee
about when we laid out the policies surrounding it,
the way those were laid out and what this means here.
And so we said if we are going to use,
planning on using a million dollars,
we don't prepay that at the beginning of the year.
We hold off on it till the end of the year.
And then if we have a significant unallocated fund balance
in the general fund, we could reduce the actual amount
we're taking out of the pension reserve by that fund amount.
And that's the way the policy is written right now.
We obviously have the discretion to do that
when we get to the end of the year fund balance,
but that was the way that when we did the pension reserve,
you keep from siphoning money out of the pension reserve
into the general fund.
Yes, yeah, so as it's projected here,
so we have the two,
we have the PERS liability reserve account
and we also have the pension trust.
This would propose to use the PERS liability first if needed
and then the pension trust.
And as you said, we would not make that withdraw
until it was clear that we needed to do so
to allow it to continue to gather interest.
Okay, thank you.
Council Member Silva.
So I did have a couple of questions.
It might as well as long as you're on the slide.
So the general plan update is projected
to cost 3.5 million dollars.
Seems to be coming, that 3.5 million
seems to be coming from multiple sources,
all of which have the word general in them.
And so I had to really stare at this.
So the general fund contingency is not the reserve account
for the general plan update.
Correct.
So there is the general plan update fund, which
has a fund balance, which we are proposing to use,
as well as the revenue that's generated in that account.
And then this general fund contingency
is a separate reserve.
So it's two separate funds.
and the general plan account is almost like the housing account.
It's a separate account with a separate.
Yes, it's a ID number.
It's a separate fund that accumulates developer fees
that are related to the general plan update.
My second question.
So thank you for the clarification.
My second question is the catastrophic emergency.
What would we be?
What's the formula that we use to fill the catastrophic emergency
and what would we be required to do
if we were a little more flush with cash?
And so how much are we going to be
looking toward the unfunded, unallocated fund
balance at the end of the fiscal year?
How much are we looking to augment
the catastrophic emergency account with?
Sure.
So over the two years, it's about 829,000.
So 423,000 in fiscal year 26, and 404,000 in fiscal year 27.
Actually, it's right there.
So the formula for the catastrophic emergency,
can you remind me what, how it's revenues, or expenses,
or personal and cash administrative services
director, it is 10% of general fund revenues.
So that's is that department revenues as well as that's correct.
It's all. So the 420 is about basically is the reflection
of the 10 percent of the projected revenues for the it's the that actually is reflective of the 10 percent change.
And so it's really what the 10 percent is what the total of funding amount needs to be to bring it up to the change.
Okay, and the PERS liability reserve account,
that's kind of a holdover.
We put everything into the pension trust
except for there was a straggler 1.9 something million
that so now we will no longer have a PERS liability
reserve account after the use of this over the two years.
Correct, if we do end up needing to use it, that's correct.
Okay, thank you.
Any more questions at this point? Okay. Onward. Other funds? Other funds. So on November 8th,
2022, Walnut Creek voters passed Measure O, the 10-year half-cent transaction and use tax,
to provide funding to maintain and enhance City of Walnut Creek services and facilities.
And since the May 6th City Council Meeting staff is proposing to remove the budgeted vacancy savings
From measure oh fund which would increase personnel budgeted personnel cost by approximately 80,000 each year
And this is because as eight of the nine positions in the fund are currently filled the city is not expected to realize
the budgeted vacancy savings and
Additionally, this change would provide a more conservative estimate for the projected contribution to fund balance at year-end and just kind of given the uncertainty
With this change the projected contribution to fund balance is approximately
470,000 in fiscal year 26 and nine hundred and twenty thousand in fiscal year 27 as of
projected as of June 30
2027 staff is projecting a fund balance and measure of four point five six million and this assumes that the
reserves for the new aquatic and community
Center at Heather farm will be fully spent on the project by the end of fiscal year 27
which that's accumulatively 36 thou or 36 million that would be would have accumulated by the end of fiscal year 27
the estimated
June 30th 2025 balance is based on the third quarter projected results and no changes have been proposed since the May 6
2025 City Council meeting
The downtown parking and enhancement fund supports parking operations and downtown enhancements and no significant changes are proposed in fiscal years
26 and 27 when compared with 25 and no changes are proposed since the City Council meeting
Two PSOs would remain frozen and the fund would send
350,000 each year to the capital fund to support parking garage improvements and repairs
the projected contribution to fund balance would be three hundred and seventy nine thousand in fiscal year 26 and
209,000 in fiscal year 27
The Boundary Oak Golf Course operates as a self-sustaining
City Enterprise Fund and revenues are generated by golf food and beverage sales and are projected to increase in part due to the
reopening of the newly renovated
driving range
Expenditures are also expected to increase based on many of the same drivers as other funds including increases to labor
insurance facility and equipment costs and the repayment of the general fund loan for driving range improvements
the net contribution to fund balance is projected to be a hundred and nineteen thousand in fiscal year 26 and
63,000 in fiscal year 27 and there are also no changes since the last council meeting
Do we want to just double check? Is there any more questions?
Yeah, I have a question on slide 22 is it our current policy
Yes, is it our current policy that the net contribution to fund balance that's left over is to be held for
the
aquatic center so each each year of the proposed budget includes a nine million
dollar contribution to the aquatic center and then that four hundred and
seventy thousand the net contribution to fund balance is the remainder that could
be allocated depending on councils but i thought you had you'd mentioned that we
were going to earmark that extra money for the pool finance committee's
recommendation when we looked at it was given the uncertainty and going out to
bid that we not look at that net contribution to fund balance and start
making plans for it. Right, okay. Yeah. Actually I had a question on slide the
next slide after that right there. Okay so there's the 21 million on fund
balance reserves and unallocated reserves as of the end of this month
projected yes and then there's nine and nine so that's a total of thirty six
million actively accounted for in the aquatic and community center and then
another four and a half million just in case or just in case yes the assumption
Just so we're not, what this doesn't show is that we continue to have a debt
service that will start to incur in order to pay what it really costs to,
we're borrowing the money to pay for the construction costs and then the nine
million will start being used for the debt service. That's correct.
Yes, so the intent was to put the nine million aside in reserve until we went
out for financing so that would help us with cash flow in the beginning of the
project and then that nine million would be set aside and used to pay the debt
service once we've gone out. So if we run this out for the full ten years that
there's a second line item that hasn't actually been added to this chart which
is the debt service correct which is thank you. Councilmember Francois. So on
this slide then is is all 36 million coming from measure O or some of that
coming from the facilities reserve? That 36 million is from Measure O. There was a
separate but was there was a separate reserve that we have been using to fund
planning. There is a facilities reserve in the general fund which has believe
go ahead. I was going to say the balance is approximately I believe it's 13
million however there was money that was taken from the facilities reserve
Previously and put towards the larger project and I believe that was about 7 million that we used from the facilities reserve
toward the Heather Farm Project
So what does what design services?
Bit would be part of phase one all of that work. That's being done. Okay
Okay, I think we're good
FTE time
Okay, so this the slide the table on this slide includes FT changes across all funds in the city
the three point seven five regular FT positions were reduced which we discussed at prior meetings and
The detail of which is also included in attachment to in your packet
one limited duration position also expires on June 30th of 2025 and
Additionally the proposed budget adds two point five regular FT and one limited duration FT
It is important to note that when proposing after you changes the staff considered current city priorities and operational needs
And so while some positions are being reduced and some positions are being added
the recommendations were made independently to best meet the needs of the city a
Full list of authorized positions by classification and department is included in attachment six, but overall the total
FT you would be reduced by 1.25 in fiscal year 26 and 27
The proposed budget also reallocates positions between funds.
Some of these changes are recommended as part of budget balancing actions, and some are
a result of operational changes or budgetary needs.
The reclassified positions include the office specialist moving to the general fund from
the IT internal service fund.
And this is essentially cost neutral as the ISF charges other funds, including the general
fund, to recoup costs.
An office assistant too that supports housing is partially moving out of the CDBG fund and
as it will be supporting housing loans rather than CDBG eligible activities.
The landscape maintenance worker and senior park maintenance worker will also be moving
in from the tree replacement fund beginning in fiscal year 27 as we discussed earlier.
Moving out of the general fund are portions of a program manager position and senior program
assistant position in arts and recreation.
Both of these positions support the city's public art program and a portion of their
salaries would be charged to the public art and loo fund.
Half of an assistant planner position is moving into CDBG fund for eligible program support
and 10% of a senior planner position would be allocated to the development technology
fee fund to support technology improvements related to development.
accounting for these reallocations of the 386 total authorized FTE 332.05 of
them would be in the general fund 9 and measure 0 22.2 in the parking fund and
22.75 across other funds any questions about FTE yeah just going back one so
all of those movements I feel like there's a chessboard out here and there's
just a lot of reclassification if you go back one more that's then those are the
numbers that are that are all were all of that movement is reflected in here as
well as that is correct this is all FTE by department across all funds okay
thank you mm-hmm so attachment 7 to the report includes the proposed
adjustments to fees and charges for fiscal year 26 and 27 and I've captured
some of the notable fee changes here. So in arts and recreation several changes
to fees and across all services provided by the department are proposed in fiscal
year 26 and 27 in addition to updating fee ranges to reflect increasing costs
help and helping to maintain cost recovery goals or to reflect changing
conditions in the market.
Many of these fees are also proposed
to widen to allow the department increased flexibility
to adjust fees as needed to best meet its financial goals.
New fees have also been added in aquatics
for recreational swim admissions for the two-year-old
and underage group category, the new synthetic turf fields,
and the Bedford Gallery for additional services related
to art installations.
And I also wanted to mention that the Arts Commission
and pros commission have reviewed and recommended
the applicable arts and recreation fees.
In community development,
proposed increases for various permit planning
and inspection services are proposed
primarily due to increasing costs.
In general government, there are adjustments
to align with the community development fee changes.
And in public works, engineering proposed increases
for planning and inspection services are proposed
based on cost increases.
And those are beginning in fiscal year 27.
All proposals are in compliance
with city adopted council policies
or direction previously provided to staff.
And if approved by city council,
adjustments to fees and charges
will become effective upon adoption.
In closing, staff will incorporate any feedback from today
and bring an updated budget, the full bucket jet package,
including capital budget,
to city council for adoption on June 17th.
And the requested action is to provide feedback
on the proposed budget, as well as proposed changes
to the master fee schedule.
And with that, I will answer any questions.
All right, I think we've been asking our questions
as we go along.
So given the lack of questions, I'll
go ahead and open this up to public comment
and see if there's anybody here that wants to do that.
Jan Warren, Woodlands, good evening.
This is really complicated, and I certainly
didn't have time to look at it before I came.
A little overwhelmed at the moment.
Do I get this straight that for a while we
were using tree replacement funds
to pay some person's salary?
Did I understand that correctly?
We'll double check that when we cost out.
OK.
And I just want to comment.
It's silly, but the two-year-old will be paying swimming fees.
I don't think you're going to raise a lot,
and I just think it's ridiculous.
Come on, families got enough costs.
In terms of the people we heard here this evening,
the dispatch people and the police force
sounds like we're still cutting.
We're not going to find any money somewhere
to help, like with the dispatch people,
or we're going to wait and see how we end up with the budget.
We'll go ahead and I'll ask the question of the staff.
Yeah, okay. All right. Thanks anybody else?
Looking around them. I see no additional public. So bring it back up here. I
Think you heard Jan's questions. So the tree replacement fund
Yes, so
We have been doing that and we're gonna stop doing that
We had been funding parts of two positions and who were doing work related to tree replacement in the city
okay, and then
Dispatch and police I believe like the number of FTE and police in the police operations is consistent at
128 FTE and we're not
Correct. We did not make any changes to we didn't reduce any FTE and the police department
It is the same as in fiscal year 25 and then when we have this in finance committee
We talked about there is a reduction in the amount of overtime
Budgeted to police and when we asked the question and finance committee about that reduction we were told
that
Yes, what were we told I I realize I'm answering my own question, so
Yeah, so the the salary savings that results from the vacant positions is expected
To cover overtime costs related to backfilling those positions
So although there is a reduction in overtime budgeted,
the salary savings is expected to offset that.
And my understanding is, is that in previous years,
there had been money budgeted for overtime
that had ended up not getting used.
And so that's where that made staff feel confident
in making that recommendation.
Yeah, so historically there has been salary savings.
Weren't we also having to budget over time
for the private, the separate contract with Nordstrom,
which is now being reduced.
So those hours don't,
I think that was a good 450,000 out of 470,000.
If I-
It was around 200 and,
just around 250,000, I don't have the exact number,
but that is also being reduced to the overtime budget
and that has a corresponding revenue reduction as well.
any other questions can I ask a question about the swim fees because I didn't
read it that two-year-olds were suddenly going to be charged it was that they
were being charged at a higher rate with the three to five-year-olds that's why I
interpreted that good evening Carolyn Jackson and I'm arts and rec director and
you are correct previously six and under all paid the same fee and so this is
breaking out a lower-cost fee for two and under instead of charging the same
six and under fee. Okay, thank you. Thanks for asking the question, Jan. Yeah, all
right. Any other questions? All right, this has been a lot. Thank you very much,
Wendy. Now we'll turn to the council for any direction that we want to give to
staff. I know councilmember Francois was... Yeah, first of all I want to thank staff.
there's a lot of information and I thank Jan. Jan was here. Jan was here at 830
this morning at our housing committee so that's quite a commitment. We should have
taken you to lunch. Yeah but thanks staff and obviously thank members of the
Finance Committee for all the hard work that went into this and I appreciate the
diligence and thoughtfulness. One item that had come up at our May 6th meeting
was trying to think creatively about incentives related to outdoor dining, and
I know that several of us seem to be interested in that, and I understand
we're, we've got a pretty tight budget here, but I would also, you know, I think
we have a little bit of time until June 17th to see if we can, I guess my thought
would be kind of to come up with a, and it's some sort of incentive program,
maybe like a rebate program similar to the ADU program where maybe we allocate
something like a hundred thousand dollars toward that program. It could, you
know, up to ten thousand dollars for each business. They would have to apply by the
end of the year. Staff could come up with other benchmarks that we'd want to see
actual, you know, structures in the ground by some date and, you know, put other
parameters around it in terms of safety and aesthetics, but I just don't want to
lose that opportunity because it is one of our two-year priorities. We embedded
it in the economic development priority that we're going to enhance downtown
through attractions like outdoor dining and I'd like to see us give some
consideration of that. In this budget it does, I see, I understand now that the
The finance committee is saying,
let's keep the Measure O surplus for cost increases,
which I think is right and prudent,
but we still do have some surpluses
in the Downtown Parking and Enhancement Fund,
which I think we could use a portion of that
to allocate towards outdoor dining.
Thoughts by?
Well, I'm just gonna build on this
and I watched the May 6th meeting,
so I wasn't here and I didn't have an opportunity
comment and I heard what all of you said I think it's a good idea but I think
assuming that that's going to happen by July June 17th such that we could
document is unrealistic given what it took us to get to the outdoor dining
program to begin with I think we know where there are funds available whether
it's the downtown parking fund could be a little bit of measure oh but I think
we also have to give staff time and it's in their economic development are our
priorities so we could say something like and part of this would be to come
back to us with an approach that doesn't trigger inequity it doesn't trigger
prevailing wage I mean there's a whole bunch of things that you know we want to
do but I think we can do that the other thing I would mention here what you and
I learned today in the housing and community development committee meeting
is that we may be short funds for the homeless services and it's it's all in
the homeless services area because the state has not been able to figure out
what to allocate and right now it's about it's precisely a hundred and
forty five thousand four hundred ninety six dollars according to the estimates
and but it's in the homeless services area and so right now it could have a
gap when we come back on June 17th that we're going to have to decide whether we need to
fill that. And there are contracts for those services that need to be covered that we're
in my mind have a higher priority than a program that is as yet it's a it's a vision and an
aspiration but we will have unfunded programs on the 17th if we're not careful and mindful
of that so I will mention I think that that's a really good point. I think we'll have more
clarity from the state, hopefully, by then. They have to adopt the budget by June 30th.
But we do still have that surplus fund balance in Measure O, and that, you know, with Measure
O was one of the priorities was homelessness. To clarify, my thought was that we make the
policy decision that we want to allocate money towards incentivizing outdoor dining. I wasn't
suggesting that staff come up with a full program by June 17th but my
understanding was we're adopting the budget on June 17th so that we make that
policy determination that we want to allocate X number of dollars towards
incentivizing outdoor dining and then to the extent we want to give direction to
staff on timing on the program and applications and how you would qualify
for the rebates we could do that too but that was what just to clarify and I
think that's what we did the first time we established the grant program that we
had in 2021 yeah was we said that we set a dollar amount and we went out and
figured it out I just wanted to make sure we weren't trying to craft a
program in two weeks although I do believe and since we've all talked about
the outdoor dining and that's part of the priorities we want we don't live in
San Diego where there's going to be 12 months of outdoor dining. The sweet spot
is truly March or April through September or October. I mean there are
those four months in the in the winter that it's just not really amenable for it.
So if we're going to get behind it and if we want to encourage restaurants to
have outdoor dining then we're gonna have to come up with something within
in the next six weeks because if we wait until July or our only meeting in
August, it's too late. I mean at that point we're in October for anything would
be done anyway. So we're either gonna get behind it or we're not and if it's
something that we can put some kind of a carrot in to get some amount of ability
to do that then then great because just because we're allowing outdoor dining if
restaurants don't do it. We might as well not even have it. So I obviously we
have to have a budget that makes sense. I would love to see staff come back with
an idea on that but it but we're not known for moving on a dime and I think
in this particular instance if we want outdoor dining by this summer then we're
gonna have to move. So I think that the proposal on the table is an incentive
type rebate program one-time funding allocation in the neighborhood of a
at $100,000 potentially coming out of the parking fund.
Council Member Finney, do you wanna weigh in on this?
Yeah, no, I think the parking fund as the money goes
towards the downtown, it was intended for that,
that's a good place to get it from.
The way I might calculate that number is
if we take that $48 per square foot for the parking spots
and we assume two per business
and we set a goal of 10 businesses
And we think about like maybe giving it,
not that we're doing this exactly,
but what would that look like to give them a year of free?
That'd be about 140,000.
So that was a number I came up with for the incentive.
I think we don't have to determine
how exactly it's gonna be distributed just yet,
but to Council Member Wilkes-Pointe,
I think we should at least set it aside.
And Council Member Francois-Pointe set it aside
so that it's there and it can be,
I mean, we have the program,
so they can, the businesses can use the program
we have now.
Now we may wind up tweaking that in the future,
but there is something that they can move on now.
I agree with it being, needs to be built,
come up with a timeframe in the next four months,
six months, by the end of the year.
I also think there's an opportunity
And to look at that $48 a square foot as an additional incentive, I think that was probably
based on the parking spot being 100% occupied and also on the assumption that if the person
doesn't park in that spot, that they would somehow leave town and not park in town at
all, not just move to another spot further out or park in a parking lot.
So when we calculated that $48 a square foot, I think there's an opportunity to revisit
that. And maybe it doesn't actually look quite that high. So and then I'd say my
message to the businesses out there is that you might be looking at this as well
how many people are going to eat in these spots outdoor dining and that's
how I'm going to generate my calculation of whether this makes financial sense.
But remember when people are eating out in some of your restaurant that's the
best advertising you can have. So if they're consuming your product out on
the street that's going to drive not just the people that are eating there but
more people into the restaurant. So I think the businesses may find it more
profitable than I think. I think there's an opportunity for us to reduce our per
square foot charge. And then I think putting aside some money my proposal will
be $140,000 and then we can we can have a future discussion about how we how we
exactly distribute that. My take on it is interesting this last week I donated
lunch with the mayor to the Merwood school and a young couple with young
kids bought it and and their one ask of me as mayor at lunch was and what are you
doing about outdoor dining? And they were not paid by the
restaurants. I paid for lunch and it was all good. And so I've been interested in
And thinking about this, I would rather,
I would just as soon keep the amount
that we're allocating to this,
not tie it to our lost opportunity cost.
I think I would like to tie it into,
this is what we think it would take for a restaurant
to make financial sense out of it.
And so, you know, I think with the goal
of having maybe 10 of these, 10,000 each,
should be enough of an incentive to get them.
So I've been thinking in the $100,000 range
because we've talked about 10,
$10,000 incentive provides it.
And I also wanna make sure people understand
that if they are doing this,
that the money that we as a city are losing
from the parking spot is money that we are losing
in our budget in the future.
And we're going to be looking for that to be replaced
because it's...
so maybe building on your idea.
What we really need to do is not tie this to meter rates,
et cetera, because that opens a whole can of worms
in the discussion of equity.
And those who the restaurants love
that they are using the space
and the retail establishments
that don't have the opportunity to do that
are not so thrilled.
I mean, there are pros and cons,
So maybe separating it, which is what we did with the grant program, and you make it about
startup costs, not ongoing costs, because that is the big risk.
Because once you start opening and sharing money, it becomes expected every year.
Oh, we can't make it unless you do it.
So if we tie it to the startup costs, then, but, I mean, there are any number of risks
also including how do we we're giving public funds and it's a gift of public
funds. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves I mean I like the
direction you're going and I agree with you that I would I envision this as kind
of a rebate program right and an incentive program to recognize that the
the capital cost of the structure is 50 to 75,000.
So that's an initial, huge upfront cost investment
that a business is gonna have to make.
And the 10,000 goes towards that
or towards the lease of the parking space.
However, it works out, but it's trying to offset
kind of mostly that big capital costs that they're incurring.
It's not offsetting the whole amount.
I mean, to Mayor Pro Tem's point about,
we don't move on a dime.
but I did talk to the Wanna Creek downtown
and I think we can play a little bit more
of a longer game on this that if we at least say,
you have to apply by the end of the year
or you have to hit some benchmark by the end of the year
so that the money's not just sitting there
that it's really serving a purpose of being an incentive.
Like it's not gonna be there forever.
The first 10 are gonna get the advantage of it,
but they have to go out there,
apply and actually build the structures.
So I appreciate what you're saying.
But if you make it a first 10, then it's not strategic.
Yeah.
OK.
I misspoke with the first 10.
I'm trying to get people to move,
but I want them to have a track record.
So make your competitive grant request.
I mean, that's the things you have.
Otherwise, we're going to have them all between block A
and block B on Locust Street.
And that doesn't actually do what we're striving to do.
And when we did the emergency fund for the restaurants,
there we just said, come in and we'll give it to you.
Here I would want to use some strategically
and talk about is it a restaurant
that lends itself to outdoor dining?
Is it a good location?
Have some discretion on staff's part,
not just an automatic part.
So I think today though, the most important part
is just setting the money aside.
Yeah, no, I think that's what we're trying to get at.
and how we distribute it, we can determine,
I do think that it, at least from a set aside standpoint,
and then we can determine how it's gonna be used,
maybe we could set aside just a little bit more.
Again, that 140, maybe 150.
All right, let me try a motion.
So I would move that we ask staff to come back next time
with $100,000 plus or minus incentive rebate program
to encourage outdoor dining.
We would look to staff to identify the source of the funds.
We are looking at the parking fund is the most logical,
but we would rely on staff to do that.
I would add it into that,
that we ask staff to recognize the uncertainty associated
with homeless services, and we look for a report back
on that at the next meeting.
We're actually approving the whole community grant program.
That's on the agenda as well, so we'll know.
We'll know.
And that we, that the original finance committee
recommendation that measure O unallocated
end-of-the-year fund balances and continue to hold those
until we know how much community center is going to cost
and not allocate them to some other use in any time.
And they're just clarification.
So we're not making changes to the current budget,
but you're instructing staff to come up with a program
to incentivize outdoor dining at a future date
with a budget of about 100,000.
I think we're asking for that budget,
that number to show up in the budget.
For the 17th, June 17th, okay, we can do that.
And we're not expecting the program
to be fully fleshed out by June 17th
because there's only so many hours between now and then,
but we have- So you can breathe again.
We've identified some interests
in making it a one-time program,
making it competitive,
looking towards our strategic objectives.
Yeah, I agree with that.
And I just add to friendly amendment
that if the objective is to have maybe like 10
with a pot of 100,000,
then it'd be a cap on 10,000 per applicant.
Yeah.
Okay, so.
Just to get clarity, with a 10,000 that why,
where did that number, was that just nice round number or?
Round number.
You know, this is where we had originally asked
for a pro forma so that we could be more strategic about it.
We're still, that's still coming through the process.
If there is, we would be open before this comes back
if there is something that Walnut Creek downtown
can provide us to perhaps changing that.
But I think right now that's where I am.
So that's my motion.
Second.
Roll call.
to clarify to that motion include the friendly amendment?
Yes, it did.
What was the friendly amendment?
So does my second, that it would be envisioned
as a 10,000 per applicant kind of cap.
Mayor Darling?
Aye.
Council Member Frenzela?
Aye.
Council Member Davini?
I would like to add on that,
we talked about having to move quickly on this,
and if we want to incentivize people to move quickly,
then looking at the whole program as holistically as we can.
And I think that we should also spend some staff,
spend some time looking at that $48 per square foot rental
moving out that I don't think that's what it actually costs us
because I don't think that the idea that someone
who's parking in a spot that's taken by
is going to leave the city.
They're going to park somewhere else.
I think right now we're voting on this.
I understand that.
and so let's go through this motion and then if you want to make a subsequent
motion relative to directly staff or something. Okay. Council Member Silva. Aye. I
Alright, so you got that piece of work. So it sounds like. I'd like to make another motion that we that we direct staff to
revisit the $48 per square foot, find out what assumptions that was based on, and
you know, who understand the idea that if someone doesn't park in that spot they
may just park a little further out or they might park in the parking lot. We
still might recoup that revenue. It may be just slightly less so that each that
we don't allocate the cost of each spot as if it's going to be fully parked in
365 days a year. And if they didn't park there they just leave the city. And maybe
a different way to think about this is you know when we last talked about this
we talked about getting a better understanding of the economics of this
and then so this could be an additional ask to that to better understand the
impacts fiscal impacts on the city associate and the assumptions underlying
the fiscal impacts because I think right because I don't remember for them I
I think when they look at the cost of these,
it's not just the construction cost.
The best way to do that is actually go watch the meetings
where we discussed it,
because there was a lot of data driven in there.
It wasn't that easy.
Can you extrapolate that on for me then?
Was it, what were the $48 based on?
Hang on, hang on.
Let's, let's, we're not gonna, we're not gonna,
a lot of time went into designing the program,
and so I think what you're asking for is staff
to go back and help.
You understand.
under help going through those numbers
and it sounds like the folks downtown
are concerned about the numbers.
We would like to see some proforma numbers
from the folks downtown.
So there's a need for information to flow
and to bring back some of those original assumptions
about the impacts on parking
that people can update their understanding.
But yeah, and just to summarize,
because obviously there were a lot of media
went into this and there was the downtown, the rebound committee and
everything and everything else and I was involved in a lot of that too. When we
looked at, when we looked at two dollars an hour times ten hours at twenty
dollars, this is the way I looked at it, that's money that is going into the
downtown parking funds and it's not that people are going to leave the city but
that if it's taking up, first of all there's customer convenience by there
being a parking spot there. But the other is that my feeling
really was that if a restaurant isn't able to make enough to
pay for $20 a day, to have all those extra outdoor seats and
tables, I'm not sure what how their business model is. Now, I
understand completely understand about some of the
coffee places because that's a whole different story. But if a
restaurant can sell an extra meal, one day by having an
outdoor dining place that pays for the $20 a day, which
comes to $600 a month, which comes to $7,200 a year,
sounds like a lot.
It's $20 a day.
That's how it's based upon.
And so that's how I looked at it.
I think that's how we kind of discussed
when we were looking at some of those numbers as well.
And so I really want to make sure
that we continue the Downtown Parking Fund that
pays for the free shuttle and all the amenities
and the beautification of downtown.
And I am a huge proponent of outdoor dining.
That is how I saw it.
So can I also augment that we also
looked at and had a conversation about the cost per square foot
if a restaurant was to lease a space next door?
This is in lieu of a free space.
Giving them space in the right of way
is the lease cost for the floor area. Am I not?
Am I getting too tired to make sites?
I think we're all trying to.
We're also outside the scope of the of the budget.
We are we're there is some history here
and there's some some methodology that went into the numbers.
And so as this program that we are just asking for a dollar number
to go into the budget as it gets developed,
I think you have some really good questions
that we can work on as we go forward with it.
I don't think we are noticed here tonight
to start adjusting the details of that program.
I think what we are noticed to do
is to put a dollar number in the budget
and then identify things for staff to come back to us.
Does that sound reasonable?
Yeah, I just wanna take the opportunity
to try to move the program forward.
I know it's we're all trying to get it going in in a way that's equitable works
and gets them out there dining downtown so what else does anybody how is staff
feeling are you feeling like you have your direction okay and everybody's good
and happy and now in that case thank you very much I know the budget is a heavy
lift every year and this is a heavy lift because it's a year where we don't
have money for everything so we really appreciate it and now we're gonna
adjourn so Matt can go home and start packing for Ireland. Thank you all. Thank
you very much.