I'm City Darling, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek and welcome to the regular meeting of the
Walnut Creek City Council. The City Council is conducting this meeting from the City Council
Chamber. This meeting is being video streamed and can be viewed live or later on the City's website.
As some attendees may be participating in their first Walnut Creek City Council meeting,
I wanted to welcome everyone and talk briefly about the public comment process.
For each agenda item, there will be an opportunity for public comment on that item.
Thus, if you desire to speak to an item on the agenda this evening,
please hold your comments until the City Council considers that item.
Additionally, we have a section on the agenda titled
Public Communications, which is for public comments for items not on the agenda.
Any comments during public communication should not relate to an item that is on the agenda this
evening. Consistent with section 9.5 of the City Council handbook, 30 minutes
will be initially allocated for public communication for items not on the
agenda. Additional time for public communications for items not on the
agenda will be provided at the end of the open session portion of the meeting
if necessary. If you desire to provide a public comment, please complete a speaker
identification card and line it behind the lectern at the appropriate time.
Wait your turn and then when you approach the lectern please state your
name, city of residence for the record. You will have two minutes to address the
City Council. Please keep in mind that this is a city business meeting. The City
Council has adopted rules of decorum to ensure that meetings are conducted
efficiently and effectively and that all members of the public have a full fair
and equal opportunity to be heard. The City Council Handbook outlines decorum
expected in the council chamber and can be found on our website.
All remarks should be addressed to the City Council.
Please do not use threatening, profane, or abusive language which disrupts, disturbs,
or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of the Council meeting.
Again, each speaker will have two minutes to make your remarks.
Written comments submitted and received up to two hours before the meeting have been
posted to the city website for public review and are included in the meeting record but will not
be separately read into the record. All right you know I'm waiting for my Oscar on that one.
Good evening I am Cindy Darling, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek and welcome to the Tuesday,
September 2nd, 2025 regular meeting of the City Council. Please rise and join me in the pledge
of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic
court, which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice.
Thank you. City Clerk Susie Martinez, would you please call the roll? Councilmember Davini?
Here. Councilmember Francois? Here. Councilmember Silva? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Will? Here.
And Mayor Darling? Here. All right, at this time we are going to be doing a proclamation
on disaster preparedness and this is something it is emergency preparedness month and it's a great
opportunity for us all to think about what our plan is and what we can do to be ready.
We as a community are committed to emergency response we have some tremendous volunteers here
that I'll call up in a minute to to accept the proclamation but in the case of an emergency it
It really is going to be residents helping their fellow residents, looking out for your
neighbors and making sure that everybody comes through this safely and together.
We promote public awareness, we educate about how to prepare your home, and it's incumbent
on all of us to sit down with the resources and make sure we have our go bag.
We know what our plan is.
We know what not just our plan A, but our plan B, and maybe even a plan C, because that's
a thing with emergencies you can just never tell. Anyway, some of our local volunteers
with the CERT, I would like to call up Don Prosnitz and Mark Peters to accept this proclamation
and share a little of the information about CERT with us tonight.
Well, thank you for inviting us today. It's an important month. I thought I'd mention
one or two things about CERT. CERT started in 1985 in Los Angeles. People there learned
some lessons from what happened in subsequent earthquakes in Mexico City and a number of
other places that had a lot of volunteers, untrained volunteers, which resulted in probably
not as efficient use, and some of the volunteers also got hurt. So it wasn't as best situation.
So they started training their volunteers. A few years later, FEMA picked up the program,
and that's where it sits today. It's an official program. Our volunteers are California Disaster
service workers covered so it's an official program. Cert today still serves
the same function as we all know in an emergency the first 24-48 hours are
critical and these days it's not clear when we're going to get help from other
places so it's the local volunteers that are going to be there first. Cert will
provide, we hope depending on what happens, situational awareness will
survey the city. We have communications to provide that back to the EOC. Basic first
aid, that's all we're trained for and that's what we can do. Communications in Walnut
Creek, SERT runs a very robust emergency communication system that's based on amateur radio. It'll
work in the absence of anything else. Once other help arrives, the SERT folks will turn
into volunteers at shelters and to support the Red Cross who I guess is not here today.
I guess not, but that's sort of VR function once things settle down.
And in Walnut Creek, we've also supported the police department and searching
for missing people, missing persons.
And we've helped Rich who's, I guess, sitting behind me here with sandbagging.
So there's a number of other services that the CERT folks can provide.
So we're happy to be here, our volunteers love this city and we hope we can keep doing
the work.
Hello, and thank you for having us this evening.
I'll be very brief because Don has given a very good summary.
Thank you for this proclamation.
I'll just let you know that I joined CERT in the fall of 2017 at that time.
My son was in training to become a firefighter and one of the courses that he had to go through
was CERT.
you should do this you're gonna love this well he was right he's now a
paramedic firefighter in the city of Fremont so I did that I took many many
courses I worked with a number of very amazing dedicated people here in the
city we you know march through the muck and sometimes we find ourselves in
places where we didn't want to be but it's for the purpose of training we do
what we need to do I think the most interesting time you may not like this
was when I found myself on the roof of your public works building. But I had
good reason to be up there. Anyway, anyway we feel very committed to what we do and
we ask that you help us so that we can help you. Thank you. Thank you very much
I wanted to enter or share this with you guys and thank you both for what you do
It's an honor to be here.
And invite my fellow council members up
to do the picture thing.
The photo op.
It's picture thing time.
Photo op.
And that's very timely for us because we lost our go bag
this week when the washing machine water line broke
and sprayed the entire cabinet.
And I opened up the drawer where the kit is.
I thought, oh, there's an inch of water all over everything.
So we need to go work on that.
Now, next on the agenda is the consent calendar.
Does any council member wish to pull any item for discussion?
And does any staff member need to pull an item?
Seeing nobody pulling anything,
does any member of the public wish to comment
on an item on the consent calendar?
As a reminder, each speaker will have two minutes
for the consent calendar to make their remarks.
Written comments submitted have been posted
to the city's website for a public review
and are included in the meeting record,
but will not be separately read.
So, hi, good evening, Jan Warren.
I can't figure out, I think it's maybe I on the consent
having to do with the pension.
I can't find it on my phone.
Just wanted to comment about our good track record
of making sure our pension fund is fully up and ready
to help people when they retire.
And I did the, you know, review on it
and saw the years that we had last put in.
And I remember the whole spiel about,
We needed to do this because it was going to be a tough six
or seven years with the budget.
And so I was just curious how we are percentage-wise
in terms of our percentage of how funded we
are with our employees.
Anybody else for public comment?
I think, Jan, what we can do is we can get you the number.
I've got the number somewhere, but it's not
at the top of my brain.
But we will get you.
We are doing well with our pension.
And that's item 2J was the one that you were commenting on.
All right seeing no additional public comment does a member of the council
want to make a motion? Move to approve the consent calendar items 2a through 2j.
Second. All right roll call please. Mayor Pro Tem Wilk? Aye. Council member Silva? Aye. Council member
Davenny? Aye. Council member Francois? Aye. Mayor Darley? Aye. Motion carries. All right next on the agenda is public
communications this portion of the meeting is reserved for comment on items
not on the agenda. Under the Brown Act, the Council cannot act on items raised
during public communications but may respond briefly to statements made or
questions posed. We can request clarification or refer the item to staff.
Consisted with section 9.5 of the City Council Handbook, 30 minutes will be
allocated this time for public communication and for items not on the
agenda, additional time for public communication will be at the end of the
meeting if necessary 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 read separately into the record at this time it is 6 12 and so we will
go now till 6 I can do the math 6 42 so anybody that would like to address us
for public comment please step up and take your turn everybody gets two
minutes. Hi, Dan. Hello again, 40-year resident of the Woodlands. I see my
buddy Barbara out here probably came up here to speak too. I went out to look and
see who had sent public comments and here it all is. I haven't seen one of
these signs yet. They look great and I haven't gotten my nutcracker and so I
haven't gotten the updates on all this stuff, but I am aware of the confusion
with all the different kinds of bikes, and all the scooters, and all the kids that are
chasing each other, going through stop signs coming from Northgate, and so it's not just
a matter of educating the kids, we really need to educate the adults, because the adults
don't know what's allowed where either.
And unfortunately you get some people who are being dismissive of young people sometimes,
and they know more than the person who's calling them out.
So I just think just a general good, you know, that we used to do trainings at the, the police
would do trainings at the schools.
I don't know where you're going to train all the rest of us, but maybe videos or some night
out when we're all out to see a movie and you put it up there first, I don't know.
But be creative because we could all use the education.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Hello.
My name is Barbara Gannes and I've been a resident since 1996. My comments are
similar to what Jan just talked about. I got the fall nutshell newsletter and I
saw the police department launched a campaign to improve by e-bike safety and
I want to thank the police department for doing that and for anybody else
that's involved with it. Over the past few weeks I've observed the posting of
the ride safely signs, which maybe Jan just showed you,
on the Nashio Canal Trail and also at the entrances
to our open spaces.
So it makes me wonder, and other people have asked me,
does this mean the police department,
because it has a police logo on it,
will begin enforcing the municipal codes
in the open spaces?
Question.
And also the ride safely signed points to a website
which has a lot of e-bike information.
and we all know our valuable open spaces have been inundated with mountain bikes, e-bikes,
and other e-vehicles. We all know our parks and open spaces are regulated by municipal codes
that I have listed in the email that I submitted, and they do not allow the usage of e-bikes and
e-vehicles. So although, but the ride safely sign being posted at our open space entrances outlines
class 1 and 2 bikes as allowed on bike trails, and class 3 as allowed on bike routes, not
by paths.
So with this Ride Safely sign prominently posted our open space entrances, you can be
assured that the e-bike riders will look at this and see, oh, allowed on bike trails and
bike paths in the open spaces.
And there they go.
So I have some suggestions on how we may change the website.
You don't have to change the sign.
And you can look at my email if you'd like to know that.
I know this is a complicated situation and it's wonderful that the police in the city
are taking this issue seriously.
Thank you, Barb.
Okay.
Thank you.
All right.
Any additional public comment?
Step on up.
My name is Julia Maxwell.
I own the house behind the library.
I come here way ahead of the fact.
I'm going to be 87 a week from today,
but I want to talk about three years and one week from today
when I turn 90 because my daughter is going
to want to pull out all the stops and have a huge party.
I have to submit myself to that.
But parking, we always used to have our parties
on Sunday, free parking, no tickets.
Is there some way?
Who do I talk to ahead of time to get maybe 20 things
to fit over parking me to just say four hours free parking
and celebrate my 90th?
I guarantee you I'm gonna be here.
Who should I talk to?
We can have somebody from staff reach out and talk about that
because I know your daughter and I know.
There will be very fine china at this event, too.
So we're ready for this.
Well, we've lived now as a family in that house
six generations since 1933 to talk about the stuff
I need to do in Swedish death cleaning on that.
Thank you very much.
I'll await some help.
Thank you.
Happy birthday.
And I'll tell your daughter to go easy on you because sometimes
daughters get a little excited. Anybody else? And Captain Slater is in the back
of the room and he might be able to step out with you. Okay with that we are to
the end of public comment and I miss flip the page and get to we are at city
attorney any report outs from any closed section? No there was no closed session
and no reportable auction.
City Manager.
Yeah, good evening, Dan Buckshi.
City Manager, two things.
One, just a quick follow-up to Ms. Warren's question
about the pension and funded ratio.
It varies from day to day,
depending upon the status of the investments,
but we're basically in the mid to high 70s
in terms of percentage for a funded ratio,
just to close that out.
And then some of the public comments about e-bikes
are well-timed.
As we know, we're receiving a lot of correspondence
relative to e-bikes and for good reason.
there is a lot of concern about how they are being ridden
in some instances and whether it be on sidewalks
and parking lots on streets and trails,
whatever the case may be.
A lot of folks who are just not observing, you know,
appropriate behavior in terms of safety.
So just a few updates I wanted to mention,
similar to any other type of enforcement
or PD does enforce e-bike or any bike riding,
not just e-bike for that matter.
There was a targeted enforcement event a couple of weeks ago
on August 23.
Improve the customer experience.
To assist us in these efforts, we've
chosen our consultant, Partners in Public Innovation.
Partners in Public Innovation specializes
in public sector process improvement,
utilizing project management methods like Lean and Six Sigma.
They work side by side with staff,
embedding skills and tools so improvements
sustainable long after the engagement ends, and the program with us provides
leadership certifications. They hold a California Multiple Award Schedules
contract, also known as a CMAS, and they are a registered public benefit firm
with the state of California. And now I'd like to bring up Brian Hunter from
Partners in Public Innovation who will share more about the organization,
partnerships, and walk us through the key highlights of the agreement we're looking
to secure. Well, good evening. Thank you all for inviting me to come and be with
you tonight. My name is Ryan Hunter. I am the co-founder and principal at Partners
in Public Innovation. I was a 12-year resident of the East Bay. I'm up in
Sacramento now, but it's nice to be back down here with you all today. I came
at this work first from time that I spent working for the City and County of
of San Francisco where I co-founded and then built
our first city-wide program in lean process improvement,
which is just a fancy way of saying we kind of found places
where there were real bottlenecks to the public services
that the city was trying to provide
and built a program that was designed
to break those bottlenecks down.
While I was in San Francisco,
we trained over a thousand city staff.
We did strategic improvement
in about a dozen city departments,
built that program out to the point where I started to have other cities and counties
calling us and saying, how do we do this kind of thing in our city?
So out of that, we co-founded Partners in Public Innovation.
I built Partners in Public Innovation with my co-founder, was the chief people officer
at the SF Public Utilities Commission.
She was my favorite client at the time.
we had done work on the SFPUC's hiring process
to cut two months off of their time to hire,
now that the pandemic said,
do you want to come and do this work with me
to help other cities do the same kind of thing?
So our mission, as you see up here,
is to transform public services by empowering staff
to create a culture of continuous improvement.
So, you know, what that means,
when I talk about transforming public services,
I really mean about how do we make a measurable impact
the kinds of services that our citizens are expecting us to provide.
And I think what's unique about us is that we really believe in doing that through empowering
the staff who do that work every day and understanding that real change, long-term change to the
way that we deliver our services as a government only happens when we have the people doing
that work every day on board.
And then we do that in a way that creates a culture of improvement, which is to say
It's not a one-shot deal.
We improve this one thing and then it's done.
But to say, how do we build the skills and the habits
of improvement into everything that we do so that work
continues even after an initial project is over?
And the primary ways that we do that
are through training and capacity building for staff
and understanding how to do that kind of in the weeds process
improvement work.
Because if you really believe that the people who
do the work every day have to be the ones
at the forefront of changing that work,
then you'd better give them some skills in problem solving
and innovation.
And then facilitated process improvement.
And that doesn't look like us coming in and writing
a report with recommendations.
It looks like getting the people who do this work every day,
even if they're from, as Kathy said,
multiple different departments, getting them around one table,
focusing together on what's not working
and building a future state that works better
for both staff and the people that we're serving.
We do this work exclusively in the public sector
and primarily with local government.
So most of our clients are cities, counties,
and special districts.
And our roots are here in Northern California.
That's most of the folks that we've worked with.
And we work on a variety of issues,
but I like to say that our big three are the three
that I hear most folks complaining
about in their own municipalities
are permitting, civil service hiring, and procurement.
So those are kind of our biggest bailiwick.
So lean is a little bit of a jargony word.
It's the sort of foundation of a lot of what we do.
It's a process improvement methodology
that came originally out of manufacturing.
But we've also done a lot of work
in trying to figure out what works
from a lot of different methodologies,
whether that's Six Sigma, whether that's
design thinking, human-centered design,
results-based accountability, any of these things.
I like to say that at their core, any of them
that are doing their work right are really boiling down
to something like this.
It's just a way of systematically saying, first,
what's the problem that we're trying to solve?
Can we define that problem really clearly?
And by the way, if we're defining it clearly,
we should also be able to say how we would measure it.
And I would argue if we can't figure out how to measure it,
we're not actually sure what the problem is yet.
But if we know what we're trying to do,
what it would look like to do it well, and then
where we are now, then we say what's
the gap between where we want to be and where we are,
and what drives that gap.
And let's look carefully at not just the sort of surface level
problems, but what's really driving those things underneath.
And then try stuff to get better at those things.
Try implementing some solutions and see what works.
And then some of it will work, some of it will get better,
some of it will not, and that'll be feedback
for the next iterative cycle.
This is really the core of what we do
and implement a lot of tools at each step of this process
to help people go through these cycles of improvement.
So for Walnut Creek, I've been really excited
by the conversations that I've had with city staff
about improvement in development services.
The sort of 30,000 foot level of the scope
that we've talked about with the city
is sort of fundamentally about improvement
in development permitting.
What that often looks like for us
is kind of going through that cycle I just showed you,
so defining and measuring
what does a world class development permitting process
look like, and then can we sort of lay out
what this looks like for us now?
Can we map that current process?
Kind of understand what the biggest obstacles
in that process are, try to get at why
those obstacles are happening, and then co-create
a future state that's gonna work better
for staff and for your residents.
And then we stick around and coach people
through the implementation of that work too.
In that, we're also building capacity for staff.
So the scope includes introductory process
improvement training for really everybody
who's touching development services, and then can have an in-depth improvement certification
for emerging leaders who could actually then lead sort of smaller scale improvement projects
on their own.
So that's what we call our Lean Leaders Certification.
Actually everyone who does that will own some subprocess piece of development services permitting
where they'll be focused on solving those problems
while we give them some skills
and coach them through implementation of those solutions.
And then finally, embedding that improvement culture.
So that's again, making sure that that sticks.
I always say that the best indication
that we've done a good job
is that things continue to improve after we are gone
and the staff that we've worked with
are able to innovate further
in the thing that we're working on
and in other city processes as well.
So we have some tools that we use to do that,
including giving people a huddle, which
is like a small, regular meeting where people come together
to understand progress against their strategic goals,
to develop new ideas, and to rapidly implement
new ideas for staff at every level.
And then we'll also work with the executive leaders who
are on city staff in the relevant departments
to talk about how do we build this
in a way that's sustainable for the city.
I think with that, I'm gonna give it back to Kathy.
Okay, thank you, Ryan.
So next, here are the outcomes
that this initiative is designed to deliver.
First is a permitting process that's not only faster,
but also more clear and more predictable,
so applicants know what to expect at every step.
Second is a stronger coordination
across departments, reducing delays
and improving communication.
Third is staff will be equipped with proven tools
and methods to tackle challenges effectively.
And finally, we're building long-term capacity
so the city continues to improve and adapt over time
rather than treating this as a one-time effort.
And together, these improvements position the city
to provide more efficient and consistent customer service.
And so in conclusion, staff recommends
Council authorize a city manager to execute a consultant services agreement with partners and public innovation for this work
We believe this investment will significantly improve both the customer experience and the city's operational efficiency and development services
Thanks and staff is happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. It's an interesting presentation
questions that we might have
Councilmember Francois. Hey Kathy. I think I had one for you and maybe one for Ryan
So I know recently we've invested in software improvements in the development services. Is this work
Complementary to that or how would these two initiatives kind of work together and it is complementary to it
there is a separate effort to that and I could defer it over to
Our director to provide more detail
Hello, Erica Vandenbrandt, community development director.
So yes, these pieces are intended to work well together
so that the process improvements are intended to deal
with the physical interactions, et cetera,
but then also to take a look at the online experience.
The online experience consultant effort,
there's some work that's being done right now
to take care of the low-hanging fruit,
but then the next tranche of that will happen
subsequent and in parallel with this, so that we're, you know, undoing all the pipes to
get them right for the process improvements.
Okay.
That helps.
And then, for Ryan, I'm wondering if you could speak to kind of some of your work with other
agencies and kind of at the end of the process, sort of, what would be the metrics for success
once we've gone through this program?
What should WOOP, would we expect from having gone through it?
Yeah, I mean, so what those success metrics are is one of the things we'll define right
at the very beginning.
I would say almost every project we do has some measurement of time, right?
So the, well, not always the easiest to measure, but the sort of easiest thing to put a finger
on is to say, can we issue this permit faster?
Can we get people building the thing that they're trying to build, you know, appropriately
for the city more quickly.
So, I don't know, I mean one example, we did a permitting project that was actually on
childcare licensing for new in-home childcare facilities.
We did that a few years ago with the city of Boise and spent some time with them looking
at a few different metrics.
Some of that was the fees that people pay when they get a permit.
Some of it was how much effort is taken from staff and from the public, how many hours
they have to spend going through the process, and then how long it took them in days to
issue a permit.
So in that project, we were able to work with them to design a process that I think it took
90 days originally to issue those permits, and we ended with a process that took 25.
So that's just one example of what that can look like.
Does that help?
Yeah, it does.
In terms of the delays, that makes perfect sense.
And I think that's something that we're hearing from our business community in terms of wanting
to be able to measure success in terms of reducing the time to permit.
What are the other kind of major obstacles that you see in most agencies that are preventing
them from timely issuing permits?
No, that's a big question.
I mean, in some ways it, there's, I feel like in some, certain kinds of things are idiosyncratic
to every agency, but then I think commonalities are things like, I don't know, one of the
things I think a lot about is, have we given people the right roles?
Do we expect someone who is applying to have the sort of knowledge about laws or permitting
that only staff would have?
Something like that.
Can we make this process as easy as possible for the applicant?
Often, there's a lot of just getting the right people around the table together.
in just the process of unpacking what a permit process looks
like end to end, not just my department's piece of it,
but getting everyone there to see it all put together by itself
can be quite powerful.
You say, oh, I didn't realize that we made the applicant do
that Boise project.
They had applicants, they had to have two different inspections.
but it turns out those inspections were about 80% the same.
But the agencies, one was internal to the city,
one was an external public health agency.
They never really talked to each other
or even had a venue to interact, right?
So being able to see all of that in one place,
giving them a place to talk together,
and then doing the sort of hard work of,
okay, well then what would it take for,
in that case, the city to delegate
its inspection responsibility to an outside agency
working through the like legal pieces of that. Again, those are
just some examples.
That's helpful. And typically, how long does it take for you to
see some kind of measured improvement?
Oh, the I think the scope of work, I think we scope this
thing to be a year long project. So, you know, big picture
changes can take some time, but we're always looking for what
the sort of quick wins are,
the things that we can do in the short term
that start to free up time for staff and for the public.
The quicker that you can implement some of that,
you both kind of get staff's time back
and that helps them have some more time
to be invested in the work
and you can sort of show the power of the improvements.
So I'm thinking about work we did on time to hire
with the city of San Diego last year.
Through the huddle, one of the city staff identified
a problem on their conviction history form
that long story short was requiring basically
every job applicant to fill out this form twice.
And we sort of did the math on how much staff time
that was taking it was like a third of an FTE, right?
And they were able very quickly to make a simple
changed to that form that suddenly freed up
a third of an FTE's worth of time
that was just spent correcting something
that could have been done more simply in the first place.
So those kinds of things,
just done with solving problems
and then figure out how we support them
to get those things done.
I don't know, but you know what,
I want a stronger thing about that.
You'll be here for a year, so you can come back
tell us what we should be doing. And once you've seen us in operation too, I know that.
Yeah, well, and I think, you know what, there was, I don't know if any of you
read Jen Polka's stuff. She was, she worked in the Obama administration, she
ran the US, oh, digital services agency, but she had a newsletter a few weeks ago
that had a tweet from the mayor of San Jose.
It was actually about permitting, because someone on Twitter had like tagged the city
because their like major permitting project had been rejected from the city because the
margins in their submittal were the wrong size, and they rejected it with a picture
of their submittal and a picture of a ruler, and they like sent that back to the person.
So this person was pissed, right, and sent that, you know, like tweeted that at the mayor,
right.
And the mayor, to his great credit, said, that's concerning, let me get back to you.
And then later that day, had you should go find this thing.
It's like the most thoughtful response that I'd ever seen.
because he said, okay, I talked to my staff and I found out that the reason that my staff rejected
that was because when we approve things like that, the county turns around and rejects them
because the county will reject your submittal if the margins aren't jumping to the conclusion
of either defending the thing that the city was doing or throwing your staff under the bus.
We would never do that.
We would never.
Such a, I lived in Oakland for 10 years.
Your council meetings are so much calmer
relative to the ones that I'm used to.
AI's taking notes now we found out.
Yeah, but just, you know, it demonstrated curiosity,
it demonstrated trust in staff,
holding them to a high standard,
but also really genuinely understanding
why they were doing what they were doing and actually enlisting the public in productive change.
I don't know so do do that. Okay we'll do that. Other questions? Councilmember Silva.
Thank you very much and thank you very much for taking the time tonight not only to make a
presentation to us but to answer these questions and to answer them as thoughtfully as you have.
It speaks volumes as to your level of experience and what we can expect to get, so thank you.
I do have a couple of technical questions.
Tell me about the training, the Lean 101 training for 50 staff.
I'm not sure I consider 50 people in a room.
Are these separate sessions?
How long is that training?
Or is this one big lecture hall?
I don't know if we've determined whether we're going to do it all at once.
I think we can probably do it either all at once or in two sessions, depending on what
makes the most sense for the city and your facilities.
That's usually a full day, which we'll come and do in person.
We teach the psych, here, can I click back to the cycle?
Oh, it worked.
Are you turned it off?
It's real.
Identify, define a problem, identify the causes.
At Lean 101, we move people through this cycle,
teach them a little bit about problem definition,
teach them some things about how they can define some metrics
to understand how to measure a problem.
We teach them some tools on obstacle identification.
So we teach them process mapping, some root cause
analysis tools.
And we give them a couple of tools in solving problems.
and then how to brainstorm and prioritize solutions.
It's one day, and we challenge everyone
at the end of Lean 101 to implement one small change
to their daily work.
And that's Lean 101, that's the outcome of Lean 101.
I think it's useful for building a common language
for improvement among everybody who's doing the work.
Plus, people like it, they get excited.
these must be cross-functional across these six work areas,
engineering and planning and all of that.
They're mixed together.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think these tools are really broadly applicable.
In one of my trainings back in San Francisco,
I had a group of people from the Department of Technology
who were working on Microsoft Office 365 licenses,
and I had a group of people from Public Works
who were a bunch of plumbers who were trying to figure out
how to organize their space better.
And I had them sitting at the same table,
and they told me, do you know how our processes
are exactly the same?
We're working on the same thing.
Because even when the topics are really different,
the kinds of problems that people encounter
are often quite similar, and there's some real benefit
to getting people from different domains
unpacking that stuff together.
So I'm glad the mayor brought up the other agencies
that are directly involved in the permitting process
in relation to Walnut Creek businesses
and residential projects.
I suspect you're not being charged to go help them
solve their process problems.
I don't think that, am I doing that?
I hope not.
But hopefully people from our organization will discuss the fact that the more things
break down at our end with our customers when they think that we're involved in the problem,
it's almost like the story of the San Jose Mayor being able to admit to the customer that
this is the county's issue but we need to tell you about it, we need to not mask it.
And I think sometimes that is a problem in itself at our level.
Yeah.
I mean, I am sure that you will have issues in your permitting processes that are primarily
the responsibility of some of these other agencies.
And I am sure that once you sort of open all of these cans of worms, you will find plenty
of issues that are your homegrown ones that are yours to fix, too.
Exactly.
Is there an opportunity during this one-year process to engage with us as a council to
get reports and success stories?
Because this is going to be exciting for the business community and exciting for our residents
and homeowners who have projects and have frustrations.
But if we go off and do things for a year and then come back and say, okay, we're done
now, I'd love to hear about it iteratively a little bit so that we can celebrate the
successes as they're going along? I mean I think the short answer is yes. Thank
you. Yes and and I will say good answer, just the one other context I'll throw in
there is that I think I mentioned earlier I'm sort of allergic to writing
reports with recommendations. I like to say that our our main deliverable is an
improved process. But what we do usually do is present back here's the work that, you
know, here's the problems that we uncovered and here's the solutions that people are working
on and I hope that you mostly won't hear from me about that. I usually cue those presentations
up so that the staff who do that work every day are the ones who are able to talk about.
I hope I'm not telling you right now, I'm throwing your people under the bus. But those
should be really primarily driven by by staff. So that's who you'll hear from.
Thank you. It's gonna be a fun year. I think councilmember Definney had a question.
Yeah, thank you for the presentation. I think you you get the sense we're excited that this
work is going to be done. It's something that we've been hearing about for a while and I'm
glad we're at this point. Just a question about scope and how we, you know, I know we
we set aside some money in the budget for the program,
but sometimes like when you go shopping
for something that you haven't shopped for before
and someone says, what's your budget?
You don't really know,
because you don't know where the value lies.
So you might be willing to stretch
or you might need to downsize.
And so I heard you talk about,
you're still working on defining the scope of work,
but what is that?
I just want to make sure that our budget aligns
with what is the most we can accomplish with this process.
And so I guess that's not something that would need to be
like necessarily answered right now,
but is this a like best case scenario
from the services provided
or maybe staff would like to speak to that.
I think I can address that.
Good evening, mayor, member city council Charles Chaim.
assistant city manager.
The scope of the work is defined already.
I think what Ryan was eluding to was
on how the work will be delivered.
Just get, this is gonna be a process,
getting to know who staff is,
how big the team is in all of that.
The scope of the actual work is already defined.
And was that made independently?
Was that, was the scope of work tailored to the budget
or did the budget just happen to match the scope of work?
So we've been talking to Ryan in his firm for a while now.
And we've been talking about, you know,
the issues that we're encountering and whatnot.
And so even through the two year budget cycle,
we were already anticipating that this would be
around the amount that we would.
So you already have that defined?
Correct. Okay.
Yeah, because I think this like,
I'm excited for the program.
I think the benefit is, I hope to end a second.
Council member Silva's sentiments,
I'd love to hear updates as we go along too.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right, thank you guys very much.
Now we'll open up the public comment on this process.
The gentleman that stood up
was not coming forward to do public comment,
so I'm assuming no public comment.
And we'll close that and bring it back here
the council for deliberation. I'm very excited about this we've tried to do
this internally ourselves a couple of times over the course of time but
sometimes bringing in experts to guide the process and teach you how to have a
better process are going to be more effective and so I'm happy to make the
motion to authorize the city manager to enter into an agreement with partners
and public innovation to provide process improvements in development services in
in an amount not to exceed $290,720,720.
Second.
All right, I think all of us are generally
really looking forward to the year
and we will get things updating us as we go along
so we can hear more and now we will call the roll.
Council Member Silva.
Aye.
Council Member Davini.
Aye.
Council Member Francois.
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Will.
Aye.
Mayor Darling.
Aye.
Motion carries.
slightly delayed 6a which is a public hearing for the consideration a
consideration of a mitigated neg dec general plan amendment waiver of reading
and introduction of planned development ordinance mayor could we take a five
minute while they're resetting up yes we will take a five because this is the
community development department show tonight all right five minutes and we'll
be back at 722. All right and with that we are back and I am not going to read
5a again because I've started through several times now but I will turn it over
to staff for the presentation on item 5a. 6a. Jesus sorry it's been a long day.
Hi. Hi thank you mayor mayor Pro Tem council my name is Chip Griffin I'm an
interim planning manager here for the city Walnut Creek and I'm here to talk
about or present a general plan amendment, a PD rezone, for 1200 Rossmore Parkway.
The project is legislative in nature and includes a general plan map amendment from one parcel
from office to general retail and also includes a rezoning of that parcel from what's currently
PD 1140 to PD to be determined. There is no land development application with this project.
A little context. You can see my fine artwork there. I'm not a very good line drawer, but
you can get the idea of where it is. That's 1,200 Rossmoor Parkway, circle in yellow.
You can see the one building on that 1.35 acre site.
It's surrounded to the north by more medical office
to the east to Grace Presbyterian Church.
South is Rossmore, we have new lights.
Or Tice Valley where we have new lights.
And the shopping center is to the west.
A little background.
The project is currently zoned PD1140.
That was adopted in 1972, which includes both.
Let me go back, both 1200 and 1210.
So 1210 would be right behind him,
you can see that long linear building
with the square in the middle of it,
that's the second story.
Yes, right there.
So the current PD encompasses both of those properties.
And 1994, PD 1834 was adopted,
which was really addressed,
the property at 1210.
But what it did to 1200 was really lock in the use
that the prior, the PD, I'm sorry, PD 1140 allowed,
which was the bank use.
The next PD 1834 locked it in when they said
it will be a bank and a bank only.
It's kind of, it's what it, the intent of what it was.
So it left the parcel just really limited to what it can do.
And that's to this day is the same.
In June, 2023, the city council heard a pre-application
for this general plan amendment and said,
sure, it makes sense, go ahead and apply,
which they did in August of 2023.
And then this year, earlier this year,
we filed a notice of intent to adopt a MND,
which you're considering this evening.
MND went through its noticing period,
now it's complete in June.
August this year, the Planning Commission
provided a positive recommendation.
There was not a lot of discussion, it just made sense,
and they recommended to the Council
to a positive recommendation with no changes.
So that's where we're at tonight.
This is what the General Plan Map Amendment looks like.
On the left, you can see where it's blue,
and that one corner parcel,
it's land use designation of office, OF,
and the proposal is to change it to GR, general retail,
and you can see that the shopping center across the street
and then the other parcel, Caddy Corner, which is Savers,
is both general retail as well,
so it's not really a spot designation,
or we'll get to zoning here, here,
wouldn't be spot zoning.
And you can see here where we just go from PD 1140, 1834 to,
and that's parcel alone, 1200 would have a new PD number
to it.
What are we doing here?
Well, the plan development ordinance is modeled
after the city's community commercial zoning ordinance
with a few changes.
And those changes are to the land use table
and to the development standards table.
And they're lined out right here.
specifically, would allow without a conditional use permit,
a bank of over 1,000 feet, ground floor medical office,
ground floor office, and a standalone restaurant
with a walk-up takeout service, that's not a drive-through.
A drive-through would still require a CUP.
For the development standards, the FAR has changed here,
where community commercial allows a .3 FAR,
this would allow a .5 FAR,
which is well within the GR land use designation.
Also the building height,
the community commercial zone allows 20 feet
unless otherwise specified.
This new PD would incorporate the current allowance
of 35 feet, which is similar
and it's the same as a shopping center,
same as 1220 Rossmore up the street
where there's been some entitlements there recently.
CEQA. There was a mitigated negative declaration was prepared for this project. It identified
in the initial study, it identified six categories where there might be substantial impacts,
but with mitigation measures, and those mitigation measures are outlined in the MMRP that's attached,
They are lessened to non-significant.
And those items are air quality,
cultural resources, geology, and soils.
All of these items are construction related.
And also greenhouse gas emissions,
transportation, and tribal cultural resources.
Some of the greenhouse gas and the tribal
are also associated with construction,
whereas the transportation VMT is really an operational item
and as well as a greenhouse gas.
I should also say that we have
the applicant's representative, Eric Erickson,
is here with Collier, he's got a short presentation,
and Liza Debbie's here from PlaceWorks
for any CEQA questions that you might have.
With that, staff would recommend for the council
to make a motion to adopt the draft resolution,
adopting the MND and the MMRP first,
and back that up with the resolution amending
the general plan map amendment,
and then introduce the plan development ordinance
for the subject property.
If there's no questions of staff, Eric Erickson is here.
All right.
Why don't we go ahead and hear from the applicant
and then we'll see if there's any questions.
I believe he is going to use this, maybe this slide.
You want that one?
Good evening, everyone.
Thank you for considering this change of use
and the general plan amendment.
We started this a couple of years ago in 2023 with the pre-app.
And we've been collecting interest on the property
and not totally decided what we're gonna do with it,
but the general plan amendment and the new zoning
for the new PD is gonna really open up this corner
to allow for some really interesting development to happen
and potentially some new businesses
to show up on that corner.
And that's a really important corner
for the Rossmore community to think.
I didn't really have too much to add.
I just wanted to say thank you for hearing us.
Any questions?
don't feel like you have to know going on our account thank you and questions
on the part of staff or on part of council whoever are you guys a council
member Silva and I think my question is for staff thank you very much chip so if
you could go back to the chart that says the uses that are will be allowed or
these are in addition to we're taking this to gr which is general retail these
use is plus these is that plus these that are listed here on the land use
table no this general retail would be the land use designation okay and but
the zoning is based on the community commercial zoning okay and the community
commercial zoning has a list of land use or land use table and development
standards table right and these are the only changes could somebody put in a
boutique. Yes. Okay so I have a question. On the standalone restaurant with take
out for locally serving businesses and it's the phrase locally serving
businesses. Somehow in the way that's phrased, it actually is talking about
businesses that are locally serving. What do you really intend to say there? Well
Well, this was a discussion with the city engineer and the traffic engineer and the,
well, I guess the traffic consultant from PlaceWorks, was that done in house?
It was not, right?
And it kind of came down to what kind of traffic do you typically attract?
In-N-Out Burger is not a locally serving business, but Amy's might be.
So you're talking about a restaurant that is locally serving, not a restaurant that
is with take out for locally serving.
It's the structure of the sentence and I'm sorry.
So this would not be appropriate for an In-N-Out, besides that there's no drive-through, or
a Chick-fil-A?
Correct.
correct what what are the ones in the in list and what are the ones that are in
the out list I I do not know where that line is I don't know where the threshold
is is it clear in the land use table or is this what's in the land use table I
mean how will the owner know what they can and cannot well that that would be
that that would be for that's for the CUP I mean that's that's if it if a if a
restaurant comes in and it's determined that it's not a locally served
business, then it would require a CUP and the VMT analysis that goes with
it. So there's another step in the approval process for what this will
eventually be? Excuse me? There's another step in this process they're gonna have
to come back for whatever of the first businesses that will be tenants.
Maybe the way to ask this question is if they have a restaurant that they want
to bring onto the property, it will go to staff and staff will determine whether
or not it fits this category, in which case no CUP is required, but if it
doesn't fit this category, then a CUP is required with the additional traffic
analysis right correct there's a bit of medical that's still in demand up there
there's really only one dentist that's at the shopping center there's we think
there's room for more dentists serving that community part of the community
there's there's other medical services that I I meet all the time and they're
looking to land in Walnut Creek and they can't particularly go downtown and they
don't want to go all the way out to Shadeland so the Rossmore area is
actually a good in between and it does give them access to the la marina
community from a retail standpoint you know we just seem to think that this
parcel is is gonna act more or less as like another out parcel of the shopping
center and draft off with the shopping center could add you know the the local
serving restaurant could be something as as large as a family restaurant like a
hickory pit for example or but it really is probably gonna be something more like
like a small takeaway restaurant to fill in.
I mean, the applicant, the owner of the property,
we've talked about going as large
as a 20,000 foot commercial property
that would have mixed commercial office
on the second floor and retail on the first floor.
This is sort of project he owns and conquered,
but it could be as easy as just retrofitting
the existing shell, maybe doing a small expansion on it,
preserving existing parking ratio, parking map that's there.
We're not really sure yet.
We've been holding off on making any commitment
to interested parties until we actually got through
these steps, thinking that we didn't wanna have users
come up to staff or come to the city
and say, well we're gonna land our flag here,
we just didn't wanna do any of that yet.
And the market's changed completely.
I mean, for when we first met in 23 to now,
I think generally offices in a little higher demand,
there still aren't banks looking in for 5,000 foot locations,
But they're looking for 2,000 foot locations.
And there's a couple banks that want to come to Walnut Creek.
So I could very well see another little bank there
and half the space.
At 20,000 square feet,
if it were used exclusively for medical office,
how many spaces, individual doctors,
dentists would you expect?
I always think in terms of ratio,
that's sort of how my business works.
I think about a 5 per 1,000 ratio
to make it park comfortably out in Shadelands.
We have a four per 1,000 net usable,
which is like five per 1,000.
I think we can make it park comfortably.
I've been involved with commercial development.
We've been under parked.
We've stayed to the line of development code,
and it's just really not been operational.
So, you know, if we do get that large of a user,
we definitely size the parking
to service all the people who need to come to the property,
both employees and clients would be able to park on site.
Okay, yeah, thank you.
I had a quick question.
Don't go anywhere.
Is there anything besides an in and out
that you would want, that you've had interest in here
that is not allowed by the land use table.
The McDonald's double car drive through, right, no.
We're not doing that.
Yeah, no, that's not the sort of project
that the applicant wants to do.
That's really not in line.
Really wants to keep it conforming to the neighborhood.
You know, if we come to the city with the use
that needs a use permit,
you're sure gonna hear from the Rossmore community.
And we're sensitive to that.
So we want something that's gonna be successful,
something that community is gonna want to go to.
So no, we wouldn't plan anything
that wasn't going to be fitted to that.
Thank you.
Any more questions?
Councilman Daffini.
I live around the corner,
so I just want to make a plug for a restaurant.
You want a restaurant?
You're also right across the street
from the gym and that park facility,
so you'll get a lot of walk traffic
from all the families and visitors
that go into the Tice Gym, which is substantial.
That's great.
Yeah, we, thanks for sharing.
We definitely are going to hit the ground running
as after we get the approval of the PD.
Could we go back to the slide that shows the general land
use?
Not the one with your beautiful yellow line, but that one.
No, no.
Yes, that's it.
So right now, it's office use.
You just are looking at that one,
just that one area to general retail, not-
It's one parcel.
The one parcel.
The rest all remains office.
There's no suggestion of changing that
to also general retail.
The other parcel, 1210?
Yes.
It would remain in what it is now.
And by moving to general retail,
does that also continue to offer the office opportunity
for land use designation?
Could it be one or the other?
or are we just taking away office and it's all retail?
Well, if we go back to here,
it would allow ground floor office
and ground floor. Both.
Great, that's it.
All right, thank you.
With that, thank you.
And I will call for public comment.
Anyone?
Anyone?
Hearing, seeing nobody getting up.
I'll bring it back here for discussion and potential motion.
Yeah, I think that we heard this on a gatekeeper item
2023 and it made a lot of sense.
Then we were patrons of the bank.
It was super convenient.
I'm not sure I quite understood how restrictive
the zoning for that site was.
And I kind of scratched your head
and that probably didn't make sense
when it was imposed and certainly doesn't make sense.
Now I could see this being reused
for a higher and better purpose,
probably of a medical variety.
And I understood kind of the building being located more
toward the intersection,
which I think provides that good pedestrian connection
and access to the shopping center,
depending on where the building's situated on the site.
So I'd like to make a plug for that, or at least,
I'm sure that activity is gonna happen already,
but like to see it happen safely
for people crossing the street over to the shopping center.
And if that slide comes back on,
prepared to make the motion. I can wing it with the staff report. So I'd move to
adopt the draft resolution adopting the mitigated neck deck for 1200 Rossmore
Parkway and the draft resolution amending the general plan map from
office to general retail and introduce and waive the first reading of the plan
development ordinance for the property. Second. Roll call please. Councilmember
Francois. aye. Councilmember Silva. aye. Councilmember Davini. aye. Mayor Pro Tem Wolk. Well I'm gonna
vote aye but I didn't even have a chance to have any conversation about it before
you made the motion so I just want to say that while I'm on the record as
typically stating that changing zones is one of the areas that I think is most
important on this council because people buy their homes next to areas based upon
the zoning so changing any kind of land use designation I really take a
sacrosanct but this makes perfect sense I went to high school right across the
street when there was a high school ride across the street. It's next to a retail
shopping center and I think that making this into a general retail makes a lot
of sense so I will be voting aye. And I too will be voting aye. When I was at the
Golden Rain Foundation I mentioned this to them and they're like oh yeah that
needs to be something. So yeah. No. All right and now we are done with 6A and I
will turn the thing and we are now on 6B which is consideration and adoption of
a resolution to approve FY 2425 CDBG annual action plan substantial
amendment and I invite the staff to come forward and provide us with a staff
presentation perhaps your first staff presentation to council third I'm not
paying attention that way okay my name is Allison rustic I am the housing planner
with the Community Development Department. As mentioned tonight's presentation will be on an
amendment to last year's fiscal year 2024-2025 annual action plan. This is for our community
development block grant program. So tonight we will just quickly go through a few things
to cover this. We will discuss the annual action plan process for the community development block
grant program, our 24-25 annual action plan and the substantial amendment to
that 24-25 action plan. An annual action plan is a document that's required by
the US Department of Housing and Urban Development for the community
development block grant program. It's a one-year plan that addresses the needs,
goals, and priorities that are set in our five-year consolidated plan. It lists
projects, scopes of work, funding allocations, and anticipated outcomes, as
well as opportunities for public participation in the project selection
process, which is based on competitive requests for proposals. Once an action
plan has been submitted to HUD, it can be modified through an amendment process,
which is outlined in the city's citizen participation plan. Amendments, whether
they are minor or substantial are not uncommon and they can even happen after
the fiscal year ends. This is because scope and objectives of projects may
change throughout the year. Allocation amounts may need to be adjusted and
sometimes occasionally we add projects or programs to the list of projects in
the action plan. Specifically though the citizen participation plan identifies
changes with the use of program funds from activity to activity when there is
an amount of $25,000 or 10% of a project, which if ever is greater. So any amount
over those would trigger a substantial amendment. In addition, a substantial
amendment does require a public hearing and a 30-day public notice. So last year's
Plan was adopted by the Council in June in 2024. It included a placeholder
project to meet HUD's submittal deadline because at the time there was CDBG
funding for economic development, infrastructure, and public facility
projects that required a competitive RFP to allocate that funding for the fiscal
year. Staff posted that RFP immediately after that June council meeting and
returned to council in September at which time council authorized two new
projects one for Trinity Center's employment pathways program and one for
the city's civic park community center ADA improvements on the exterior of the
community center. The addition of these two new projects to the action plan as
as well as redistribution of funds from the placeholder project to the two projects, which
is greater than $25,000, means that this change qualifies as a substantial amendment.
The amendment shifts funding from placeholder project to the new projects, which brings
our action plan into alignment with the actions that the council has already approved on our
funding allocations.
And the proposed changes to the annual action plan do not impact the placeholder project,
nor does it change or impact the budget for fiscal year 24-25 of CDBG funds.
This is essentially just an administrative exercise to bring our action plan into compliance
for HUD.
The edits to the action plan are provided to you as red lines in attachment to the staff
report.
So with that, staff are requesting that City Council adopt a resolution approving the substantial
amendment to the 2024-2025 annual action plan for the community development block grant
program.
Thank you.
Available for any questions you have.
Sorry, I just wanted to be clear, the placeholder project was the 699 YVR.
Yes, it's listed as 699 YVR site improvements.
Site improvements and we have found other funding because 699 YVR is under construction
And so right we're good there. Yes the funding that that's the technical term for that. We're good there. Exactly
All right other questions
clarifications
Councilmember Silva. Thank you for doing all this work. Just a quick clarification. Have we allocated these funds already and we're just
Correct in the records. Yes, correct. It's got it appears to be after the fact
But it was approved last September and the funding was allocated to those two projects in September. Thank you. Yeah
All right, seeing no further questions, thank you for that, and we'll open it up
for public comment. Please step forward and tell us who you are.
Hi, I'm Molly Klopp, Walnut Creek resident and board chair of Trinity Center of
Walnut Creek, and I just want to take a moment to thank the council for your
ongoing support of our organization. It's invaluable to us, and this is the perfect
example of performance improvement, as we talked about earlier this evening, finding new ways to
address the needs of our members and helping them get on the pathway to employment. So the funding
for last year and again this year is greatly appreciated and important to our members. So
thank you all. Thank you. Anybody else? Jam? I just also want to say thanks. I heard about the
program and how well it was doing and I had no idea where the funding came from, so this is great.
Thank you. Anyone else? All right with that we will close the public hearing and
we'll turn it over to the council for discussion deliberation motion. Kevin do
you have anything you'd like to share about this? No no no I was just last time
we just whipped through it so fast. No thank thanks for the information this is
really helpful and obviously the I mean these are the kind of projects that we
are happy to, we're happy to see have these conversations and as somebody who
comes down Ignacio and makes that left turn on the civic every day, I'm very
happy to see 699 Ignacio at this phase and I'll be really glad when one of the
lanes isn't taken up every single day but in the meantime I'm glad to see it
raising from the ground. Any other comments or a motion? Move to
adopt the resolution approving the substantial amendment to the 2024-2025
annual action plan of our community development block grant funds.
Alright thank you, roll call please. Councilmember Silva? Aye. Councilmember
Francois? Aye. Councilmember Davenne? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Willa? Aye. Mayor Darling? Aye. Well thank you all
tonight that is it for our meeting and so now we are adjourned before 8 o'clock.