I'm Kevin Wilk, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek, and welcome to the regular meeting
of the Walnut Creek City Council.
The City Council was conducting this meeting from the City Council chamber.
This meeting is being video streamed and can be viewed live or later on the City's website.
As some attendees may be participating in their first Walnut Creek City Council meeting,
I wanted to welcome everyone and talk briefly about the public comment process.
For each agenda item, there will be an opportunity for public comment on the item.
Thus, if you desire to speak 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.
with section 9.5 of the City Council Handbook, 30 minutes will be initially
allocated for public communications for items not on the agenda. Additional time
for public communications for items not on the agenda will be provided at the
end of the open session portion of the meeting if necessary. If you desire to
provide a public comment please complete a speaker identification card and line
up behind the lectern at the appropriate time. Wait your turn and then when you
approach the lectern please state your name and 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's website for public review and are included in the meeting record but
that will not be separately read into the record.
Good evening.
I'm Kevin Wilk, mayor of the city of Walnut Creek
and welcome to the Tuesday, April 21st,
2026 regular meeting of the Walnut Creek City Council.
The first item is the Pledge of Allegiance
and I understand there are some Buenavista
elementary school students here
and I would like you to help lead us
in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Everybody please stand up.
The Pledge of Allegiance is to the flag
of the United States of America
And to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.
City Clerk Susie Martinez, would you please call the roll?
Councilmember Darling.
Here.
Councilmember Davenny.
Here.
Councilmember Silva.
Here.
Mayor Pro Tem Francois.
Here.
Mayor Welk.
Hi.
Hi.
Here.
I'm already getting ahead of myself.
Our next item on the agenda is an oath of office.
And I would like to invite up Robert Cursley,
who's going to be taking the oath of office
for the Iron Horse Corridor Management Committee.
And Robert, you are familiar with this,
having been a Prose Commissioner for many years.
Would you like to say a few words?
Sure, come on in.
You've...
I just want to say it's a pleasure and an honor
representing the city for this particular committee
with the county and I hope to fulfill the best
abilities of the responsibilities of the position. Thank you very much.
Thank you and we're certainly glad to have you back as one of our appointed
representatives. You want to face the cameras? You want to face this way? Please
raise your right hand and repeat after me. I state your name. Do solemnly swear
That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution
of the State of California.
Against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance
to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California.
I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion,
and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter.
Congratulations.
Welcome aboard again.
All right, we now have a proclamation for Fair Housing Month.
And April 2026 marks the 58th anniversary of the passage of the Fair Housing Act, which
enunciates a national policy of fair housing for all who live in the United States.
The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, gender
identity, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, and national origin.
And whereas California additionally prohibits discrimination based on usage of Section 8
or other public assistance and our subsidies, fair housing creates a clear
benefit to our community. Economic progress, community health, and human
relations in all communities are improved by diversity and integration,
and whereas acts of housing discrimination and barriers to equal
housing opportunity are inconsistent with our values of decency and fairness,
and the City of Walnut Creek has committed the mission and intent of
Congress to provide fair and equal housing opportunities, and therefore I,
I, Kevin Wilk, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek, on behalf of the Walnut Creek City Council,
do hereby proclaim the month of April 26th as Fair Housing Month. And I sign this proclamation.
I would like to invite Raquel Gonzalez from Echo Housing forward to accept the proclamation.
And Raquel, if you'd like to say a few words? Terrific. Come on down.
So thank you for having us here today. On behalf of Echo Housing, we would like to say
happy Fair Housing Month. Fair Housing Day was recognized on April 14, 2026, and we'd
like to take a moment to reflect on the history of fair housing, both in California and across
the nation. In 1963, California passed the Rumford Fair Housing Act, the first major
state law to prohibit housing discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin,
and ancestry. However, in 1964, California voters approved Proposition 14, which overturned
the Rumford Act and allowed discrimination in housing once again.
In response to this rollback, a group of dedicated volunteers from Hayward and Castro Valley
came together to form ECHO Housing.
The organization was officially incorporated as a nonprofit in 1965.
In 1966, Proposition 14 was ultimately ruled unconstitutional, restoring fair housing protections
in California.
At the national level, the Fair Housing Act was passed on April 11, 1968, just one week
after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and was signed into law by President
Lyndon B. Johnson.
This landmark legislation expanded protections against housing discrimination across the
country.
Today, ECHO Housing continues to carry forward the mission, partnering with Walnut Creek
since 1977.
With 49 years of partnering with Walnut Creek, we remain committed to advancing fair housing
and supporting our communities.
We would like to thank you again for having us here today.
Terrific. Well, thank you for being here. Why don't we do a picture?
Next we have a proclamation for National Library Week. And I'll first read it and then we will
be inviting Alexandria Binbach and Addie Spanbach from Contra Costa Library forward.
Whereas libraries spark creativity, fuel imagination, inspire lifelong learning, offering a space
where individuals of all ages can find joy throughout exploration and discovery.
Libraries serve as vibrant community hubs, connecting people with knowledge, technology,
and resources while fostering civic engagement, critical thinking, and cultural enrichment.
And whereas libraries empower job seekers, entrepreneurs, and lifelong learners by providing
access to resources, training, and opportunities that support career growth and economic success,
libraries nurture young minds through story times, steam programs and literacy initiatives
fostering curiosity and a love of learning that lasts a lifetime. Whereas dedicated librarians
and library workers provide welcoming spaces that inspire discovery, collaboration and
creativity for all. And libraries, librarians and library workers across the country are
joining together to celebrate National Library Week under the theme, Find Your Joy. And I,
Kevin Wilk, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek, on behalf of the Walnut Creek City Council,
do hereby declare the week of April 19th to the 25th, 2026, as National Library Week.
And I now invite Alexandria Birnbach and Addie Spenbach from the Contra Costa Library forward
to accept the proclamation, and please provide a brief presentation.
Thank you, Council members.
Thank you so much to the Council for having us here.
My name is Allie Birnbeck, and I'm the manager of the Ignacio Valley Library in Walnut Creek
on Oak Grove Road.
And I'm Addie Spanbock.
I'm the manager of the Walnut Creek Library just across the street here in downtown.
So as we said, we're here to celebrate National Library Week, April 19th to the 25th.
It's an annual celebration highlighting the valuable role libraries, librarians, and library
workers play in transforming lives and strengthening our communities.
And we also want to acknowledge that today is National Library Workers Day.
And Allie and I are so thankful to work with such incredible staff and incredible team
at both of our libraries, Ignacio Valley and Walnut Creek.
So we really want to thank them.
You see them as our frontline workers, library aides, shelving, librarians and library assistants
providing program and outreach throughout the community.
So if you see them, please thank them for all they do.
They really are dedicated to their work and all they do for the community here in Walnut
Creek.
So this is just a slide that talks about total circulation.
Circulation of library materials continues to increase and is up 9%, demonstrating the
continued usage of public library physical materials.
We circulated over 7 million items as a library system in the past year, so it really shows
the impact libraries still have on the county.
Circulation of digital collections continues to rise as well.
It is up 39 percent over the 23-24 year, and this is due in large part to a bulking up
of the collection.
The Walnut Creek Library Foundation and the Friends of the Walnut Creek Library continue
to make contributions to this collection, so we greatly appreciate their support.
The three covers shown are the most popular ebooks for 2025.
So The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins had almost 6,500 checkouts in one year.
On this slide just talks about our physical visits to the library.
They continue to rise.
They're up 10% from the prior year.
All right.
And so the most popular books for 2025, we broke them down by age range, but as you can
see, should I share my ice cream?
Debutable.
Dogman, A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, and The Women by Kristin Hannah were all the top
books from 2025.
We'll see what 2026 holds.
Our rolling reader is our early literacy van and it's been on the road for two years now
and it travels weekly to various sites throughout the county.
And you can see it's served over 11,000 people with more than 7,700 books distributed.
So we are really proud of it.
We introduced some new digital services in 2025.
We're always expanding our digital offerings and all of these resources are always free
and available with your library card.
The newest one is PebbleGo Science, which is designed for students in kindergarten through
second grade.
And it offers easy-to-read articles, games, and educational videos to teach them about
math, engineering, technology, and life, earth, and space sciences as they learn to read.
We also offer expanded all access subscriptions to New York Times, which now includes cooking,
games, sports coverage from the athletic, and expert product reviews from Wirecutter.
And then finally, we updated our messaging system.
So all of our notices now have graphics and book covers when possible.
You get a due date reminder notice, and then you also get an overdue notice if your item
is past due.
So summer 2025 was a good one for us, lunch at the library.
This is our program that's aimed at preventing a summer nutrition gap while providing fun
educational activities for participants.
It's offered at nine locations throughout the county, and this past year we served over
13,000 meals.
Our summer reading numbers also continue to rise, participation was up 14% from the previous
year.
Sorry, our notes got jumbled together here.
And then these are just some other new initiatives for 2025.
We updated our community languages collection, our collection development works with new
vendors to make sure that we're keeping the collection relevant.
We carry materials in eight additional languages, Chinese, Farsi, Filipino, Hindi, Korean, Russian,
Spanish, and Vietnamese, and Walnut Creek Library is the only library in the county
house a Russian collection which was recently updated and enhanced. Read
Contra Costa is an annual event where we encourage community members throughout
the county to participate in reading the same book. This year that title was James
by Percival Everett. We had an in-person conversation with the author and had
over 800 community members attend that event. And then I wanted to mention our
tech exchange program. This is funding from the Measure X Innovation Fund and
and the library partners with Tech Exchange to provide drop-in tech support.
They do that twice weekly at the Pittsburgh Library,
San Pablo Library, and also across the street in Walnut Creek.
Please spread the word if you know anyone who needs tech support.
They are an amazing group. You can, yes.
It's from 10.30 to 4.30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
It's a non-profit organization and they're dedicated to
building digital proficiency throughout the Bay Area.
Okay, and then just a little bit about each branch, so the Ignacio Valley Library, as
I mentioned, is the one on Oak Grove Road.
There were 215,236 visits to our library in 2025.
Our 110 story times included two regular weekly story times, monthly bilingual Farsi and bilingual
Mandarin story times, and special story times with partners from Ruth Bancroft Gardens,
Contra Costa County Ballet and a local dentist's office for dental health story time.
We're continuing to connect with our schools and local community through concentrated community
outreach.
We held 10 preschool and elementary school visits, class visits.
Schools included Eagle Peak Elementary, Walnut Acres, and KLA School of Walnut Creek.
We brought in-person digital resource tutorials to a local senior living community, and we
tabled at Carondale High School.
A few of our most memorable programs from the past year include, of course, our 50th anniversary
celebration, which was last September and drew in 411 people in attendance, stories
of Hawaii and Tahiti, Lunar New Year, and African Village Experience were all highlights
from the past year, and our College Readiness Workshop series for high schoolers and their
parents drew a strong turnout.
We had a number of other incredible events, and we're bringing that same programming passion
to the library for 2026.
All right.
And just some updates about the Walnut Creek library.
Our branch continues to be very lively and active.
We had almost 300,000 visitors in 2025.
And story time always continues to attract a really large crowd.
It's the bread and butter of libraries.
We offer three story times every week.
And we saw a 14% increase in attendance in 2025.
And we average around 300 combined attendees
every week for story time.
We also have continued our outreach efforts
working with local organizations
and attending annual city events such as Trunk or Treat,
Family Art Day, National Night Out, and many more.
This time of year is also when we see an increase in class
visits from local elementary schools.
Second graders from Indian Valley
stopped by this past month to receive a tour and obtain
library cards, and will be visited by second graders
from Buena Vista in May.
We started a new program geared towards the aging population
by offering free tax preparation through AARP,
throughout tax season this year, making us the only public site
in Walnut Creek to offer this service.
And they've told me they'll be back again next year.
Our monthly program called Insiders,
which reaches adults with developmental disabilities,
has gained such traction that we've
added an additional monthly program offering chair yoga.
And we see about 30 to 50 attendees every month,
depending on the day.
And finally, a statistic that we're very proud of,
the Walnut Creek Library users checked out
more than 350,000 e-books and e-audio books
in 2025, which was the highest number of users
throughout the county by 60,000.
So we'll see if we can top that number next year.
And then we just wanted to put on your radar
summer reading this year.
It'll begin in June.
We really want to see more community involvement
in this event.
So please make sure that you're signing up,
sharing it with your friends and family and stopping by one of our locations to pick
up your log, turn it in. You can also participate online as well. So thank you so much for your
attention and we hope to see you at your library at the library soon. Let us know if you have
any questions. Thank you very much and I will say living right around the corner from the Ignacio
Valley Library while the downtown library gets all the publicity, the Walnut Creek, the Ignacio
Valley branch is incredibly busy and utilized. It's amazing. Every time I go in there, there's
kids or there's people that are middle school students that are doing homework after class,
whatever it is. So what a resource. Thank you both for being here. Any questions or
comments?
Yeah, just a comment. It was very encouraging. It gives me hope to see that not only is your
in-person, usage, checking out books online, some are reading programs, they're all up and my
perception prior to this presentation was that with AI and people spending time on their phones,
especially kids, that maybe readership had gone down. So it's really great to hear that. I guess
it's not the case. Very, very encouraging. I would echo that. Thank you for all you do and all the
the staff does at both libraries I was there today and I go to the downtown
library more frequently but I've noticed it seems the new cafe there seems to be
drawing in a lot of people that are not you know they get their boba tea they
put something special in those coffees drinks and then they're going to the
library and kind of staying around and mingling and going to story time so it's
nice to see that level of activity I wanted to put in a plug because the
Library Foundation has their annual fundraiser this Saturday. There's still
tickets available for that and maybe if you could just speak to what those
funds mean how they you would put them to use what kind of services you could
use those dollars for. Sure so yeah the foundation does so much for both of
our libraries. They fund things like furniture replacement but most
importantly they they really fund almost all of our programs besides our
friends group some there they're the other large group that funds all of the
events that we hold in downtown and I think they see a valley but they also
contribute like I said to our collections they contribute to the e
collection and frankly we're able to do all that we can with our services in
large part due to the funding support that they offer the other question was I
know that there's some improvements plan for the YV branch. What kind of
operational challenges is that going to pose for you and our residents? Yeah, it's
a great question. So there is a plan for deferred maintenance. It will finally be
addressed and we are thrilled for that. So we don't have an exact date yet but
we've been told around fall of 2026 the Ignacio Valley Library will be closing
for about eight to ten months.
That's because it has significant upgrades that are going to be done.
So that includes a new HVAC, a new roof, and a new electrical upgrades.
So it won't be a refresh.
It's not going to be like a refurbishment, but it is going to be capital improvement
projects that we're really looking forward to.
During that time, staff will be reassigned to other branches based on where the need
is, but we're all looking forward to coming back and returning to see our
community and we're really gonna miss you all, you know, while we're closed
for that period of time, but we will be back and better than ever and we'll have
even better AC and, you know, cool lighting system maybe. So, but these are
really important upgrades that we're looking forward to getting completed.
thank you thank you eight to ten months that's first I heard that you can come
visit us instead I do that yes thank you guys and thank you for sharing with them
because that sounds like an interesting book I just added it to my list so
thanks for all you do thank you very much I can't I remember when we opened
the downtown library in 2010 and it's hard to believe that it's almost 2016
years. And thank you for the work you do in keeping these libraries vital part of
the community. They truly are. So thank you. Thank you. Let's stick around for a
picture here. Right. Moving right along. Next in the agenda is the consent
calendar. Does any council member wish to pull any item for discussion? Does any
member of staff wish to pull an item for discussion? Okay. 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 to make their remarks written comments submitted
have been posted the city's website for public review and are included in the
meeting record but will not separately be read into the record this is for the
consent calendar only and it looks like we have a speaker for the consent
calendar, Jan? Yes. Great. C-E. Yes. Okay, thank you. Jan Warren, 40-year resident of
the Woodlands, and I am going to miss the library as well. My comments tonight are regarding
the Lesher Fire Alarm Replacement Project, which I wasn't aware of it, of course, but
When I went and looked at some of the information I was concerned because I don't have the details
and there was this planning, 22, 23, and it seems like it either started late or we spent
four years working on design and permitting and now we don't have enough money left to
actually pay for it.
And one of my thoughts had to do with what I think is my memory on Lesher and the city
property here being part of the loan that we capital loan we got from for the Heather
Farms project.
And so I'm not trying to be an alarmist.
I assume we're still safe and we're not going to have deep problems that way.
But I'm just concerned about the delay and how much time, when it was originally put
in, how much life was expected and where are we now and those types of things.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jim.
All right.
So I'll ask that question afterwards of staff.
So let me pull that item in response to a public comment.
And do we have a motion on the other consent calendar items?
Move to approve consent calendar items 2A through was that E? D and F and G.
Second. We have a motion and a second so you could go to the roll please. Councilmember Silva? Aye.
Councilmember Daveney? Aye. Councilmember Darlene? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Francois? Aye. Mayor Wilk? Aye.
All right for item 2E let me ask staff if there's any comment that could be
provided on on the Lester fire alarm replacement project I see we have folks
here from Public Works and Arts and Recreation looks like Alex Wong is
coming to the podium Alex Wong senior engineer for the capital improvement
program is a lesser a fire alarm system there's an existing fire alarm system
there that works but it's a proprietary system and we were moving toward using a
system that wasn't proprietary that gives the city better service better
response time and that's that's a reason why we were doing this there's an upgrade
on the system back in 2017 wish that did a lot of work on that system already so
it's that's it is working system out there and so was it just that we was we
were anticipating and expecting a lower bid for what eventually it came to are
are we going to put out more bids for this?
We're going to wait and look at our future capital
improvements and see where it fits in.
The system is working.
Due to the height of the building,
it takes a lot more work than anticipated
to replace all the sensors and components in there.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
I'll move to approve item 2E.
Second.
Motion and a second.
Sue, could you call the roll, please?
Mayor Wolk?
Aye.
Council member Darlene?
Aye.
Council member Diveny?
Aye.
Council member Silva?
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Francois?
Aye.
OK.
Next on the agenda is public communications.
The 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
the statements made or questions posed, request clarification,
or refer the item to staff.
Consistent with section 9.5 of the city council handbook,
30 minutes will be allocated at this time
for public communications for items not on the agenda.
Additional time for public communications
for items not on the agenda will be provided at the end
of the meeting if necessary.
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.
And this time, I will note that the time is 6.33.
And we'll take public comments and items not on the agenda
until approximately 7.03.
And then the remainder of any such comments
at the end of the open session portion of the meeting.
And so this is the time.
If you have any comments to make,
or if you filled out a speaker card,
please line up against the wall here.
You'll have two minutes.
Please don't make me cut you off.
And we'll start with our first comment.
Hello. My name is Kathy Dunn. I live in Walnut Creek, and the subject is about the continued
harassment at Planned Parenthood. Last year, I attended a City Council meeting regarding
the protesters at Planned Parenthood on Oakland Boulevard using amplified sound to harass
the staff and the women who are using the services provided by Planned Parenthood.
At that time, a decision was made to limit the use of amplified sound, as it was considered
disruptive to the medical clinic as well as the neighborhood. While they are back at it
with six-foot-tall speakers right at the Planned Parenthood driveway entrance.
I live nearby and have to drive past this disturbance several times a week.
This past Friday, I stopped to video the situation and I have it on my phone
if you wish to see and hear it.
At that time, I was three buildings away and could clearly hear an amplified voice saying,
they are killing babies in there and pray to stop abortion.
This behavior is harassment of women seeking their legal right to
access safe abortion care. This behavior is also contrary to Walnut Creek's
own noise ordinance and nuisance codes. Walnut Creek's
noise code, nuisance code, prohibits excessive noise
including amplified sound that can be heard clearly more than 50 feet away
without a permit. The Walnut Creek's noise ordinance
states yelling and shouting, et cetera, on a public street at any time or place with
the intent to annoy or disturb the quiet, comfort, or repose of a person or persons
in any dwelling, office, building, or structure, or of any person or persons in the vicinity
is prohibited. I request that action be taken to stop this breach of our own noise regulation
Because rules and laws are useless if they are not enforced.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And what I'm going at,
are you gonna be speaking on the same topic, sir?
Okay, then, and then after that,
I'll actually direct you to somebody
in the police department as well.
Perfect. Thank you.
First of all, I want to say the Walnut Creek Library
and that and all that,
so I just found them get that in there.
My name is Michael Beckio.
I live in Walnut Creek.
here to talk about the continuing issue at the Planned Parenthood there on Oakland Boulevard.
I've dropped down that street almost daily to get to Ace Hardware, CVS, you know, Safeway, that type of thing.
And I think everybody appreciates the concept of First Amendment rights.
That's why you've let, as of a year ago, the people to be out there to say what they want to say.
But when they put up their 4 foot by 6 foot, very specific,
almost pornographic pictures of fetuses being dismembered,
things like that, and now they're
doing the 6 foot top tripod speakers.
I measured it.
I'm an engineer, so I like to measure things.
5, 600 feet away, you can hear it,
even with the windows closing your car.
The police were called.
They went there.
I guess there wasn't too much they could do about it,
because they're outside the 100 foot away.
But the Waller Creek Noise Art, and it seems to be pretty clear about that that tactic
that they're using shouldn't really be allowed.
I know it may not be that simple, but I'm hoping that somebody
and maybe already is starting to be addressed somewhat already.
But with their speakers, it's just another assault on not only planned parenthood, visitors,
employees, people who live and work in the area.
Like I said, you can hear three, four, 100 feet away
and it's really unnecessary to do that,
but we still can maintain their civil liberties
for the First Amendment.
So I'm hoping we can get somebody to talk to,
keep abreast of the situation for the months coming ahead.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
And of course, this is written into our ordinance
as voted on by the City Council
a few times over the last few years.
What I'm going to ask you to do is I see our chief of police, Chief Hibbs, if you or
Captain Slater actually could meet in the back here, this becomes an enforcement issue
at this point and so they'll be able to work with you on this and perhaps at a future meeting
we can hear back from the police department on what the situation is and our city attorney
as well.
Thank you.
Mayor, I'd like to bring up another point, obviously the noise associated with the Planned
the parenthood protests is infinitely more disturbing
than the other issue I'm going to bring up.
But we've also, I've been getting increasing reports
and like downtown just again, noise ordinance related.
People playing music or cars that are so loud,
they stop the block from functioning for the time
they're driving through.
I wonder if there's an opportunity to sort of look
at our noise ordinance again and just see
if we have an opportunity to enforce or improve on
how we're handling noise issues.
Yep, we can take that up with staff.
Thank you very much council member Davini.
Next public comment.
Well good evening, Mayor Wilk, City Council and staff.
I'm Ellen Osmundson, I'm a 35 year morning Creek resident.
I'm also the founder of Mount Diablo Village.
We just launched in February this year.
We are now accepting members and volunteers.
And Mayor Will was there to support us
at our pre-launch reception, as well as our launch party.
And we are very grateful for your support.
And Mount Diablo Village is a nonprofit organization
that with our mission is to help seniors age in place
for as long as possible.
We provide programs to enhance or support
seniors' social, physical, and mental well-being.
And the light is down.
There we go.
OK, because we are a nonprofit organization
and we provide programs and such, we need funding.
And for that, we are going to have our fundraising concert
coming up on May 20 at Lesher Center.
And the music is going to be performed
by the Ross Moore Big Band. The directors are here. They will speak a little bit more
about it. And tickets are available with the QR code. And you have a postcard that I just
passed over to you. So with the funding that we hope to be able to provide more programs,
to be able to pay some stipends, and also to reduce the membership fees. So I hope you
You will support us and again it's on Wednesday, May 20th, at 7.30 at Lesher Center.
I hope to see you there.
Thank you.
And do you have a website?
Yes.
Oh yes.
We have our website and we have a full calendar up.
This is our website, mountdabloevillage.org, and our full events calendar is now up.
Check us out.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for doing what you do.
Thank you.
Good evening, Council. My name is Mo Levitch, and I'm the volunteer original director of
the Rossmore Band for 30 years. My best friend and the co-director for the last 10 years
is Greg Brown, and those who know student music in Walnut Creek know that he is famous
at Northgate High School for winning Monterey Jazz Festival Generation Next five years in
a row so there's a monster next to me. We're addressing all of you in support of what Ellen
is bringing to the table, which is the village. As a volunteer for 30 years up at Rossmore,
I see the beauty and the magic of that, but we're going to do our own magic. We're going
to take students who are 13 years old all the way to 86, and as the Rossmore Band has
done for 30 years, intergenerationally mixed the music for this special event.
We're asking your support for this and also recognition that what Ellen is doing here
in your community is just magic alone.
So we want to lend our support and one little note, we're not very that famous, but we helped
tear down the Walnut Creek Library.
They gave us a call because the old library was the opening was with account Basie.
If you look at there was there was music in the library lobby and they called us and they
said it's time to tear it down and we need a big band.
We came down there.
It was 2007 and we sure enough played the last music and the next day the wrecking ball
came along.
So we have a lot of history with libraries here.
Why don't you turn it over to co-director Greg Brown.
Thank you, Mo.
So I have been a resident of Walnut Creek.
I'm currently living in Concord.
But I was a music educator at Northgate High School
for 24 years to the end of my regular career in 2021.
I want to tell you a little bit about the band itself.
Our mission is to bring the generations together
for music and especially jazz and to support other nonprofits.
We are a nonprofit and our performances outside
of Rossmore are almost always in support of other nonprofits.
So that's what we do.
It's our mission.
One of the things that I do as part of the mission is to go
out to schools, middle schools and high schools.
I've been to about 20 middle schools and high schools
in the last five years to give clinics.
I wear my polo shirt.
I recruit young people to be in the band, and then I clinic the jazz bands or other
bands in the programs throughout the central county.
We are thrilled to be playing at the Lesher Center for the very first time, and we hope
to see as many of you there as we can.
We'd love supporting other non-profits, especially Mount Dabla Village.
Terrific, thank you.
Next.
Hello there.
Good afternoon. Our names are L, Karen, and Rocco, and we are fifth graders from Buena Vista Elementary in Walnut Creek.
We are competing in Odyssey of the Mind, a program where teams from all around the world find creative ways to solve problems.
Our team has been together since first grade.
We wanted to come today to share some exciting news with the City Council and all of Walnut Creek.
Our team has qualified to compete in the World Championships. The World
Championships will be held at Iowa State University on May 27th.
Getting there took a lot of work. We competed in the Classics Problem area
this year where we had to write our own tall tale. We came up with our own story,
wrote our own script, made our own costumes and props, and practiced our play hundreds
times until we got it just right. Each year that we haven't competed, we have improved
and placed higher and higher. This year, we got first place in regionals and second place
at the state championships.
We are so excited to represent Walnut Creek in the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals, but
getting there is expensive. The total for our trip will be about $20,000 for our seven
team members and our two coaches to go.
We have gotten a little more than half of that from our school and district.
We are trying to raise about six thousand dollars, and any amount from the community
would be really helpful.
We have a donation page on Give Butter, where people can donate to help us make it to worlds.
If any community members or businesses want to help support our cause, we would be so
grateful.
At the world competition, we will be paired with the Buddy Team from another country.
We are looking for Walnut Creek local merchandise
to share with our international friends
that could help us represent our city and people.
Thank you.
It's OK.
Keep going.
Thank you so much for your time.
We are proud to represent Walnut Creek at the Odyssey
of the Mind World Finals.
Terrific.
Are you going to wrap it up, or is it?
No, that was it.
OK.
So we'll come up to the diet, hold that up
so people can see the QR code at home.
And then if you can give the website, again,
you said givebutter.com.
Yeah, so if anyone from the community
would like to donate, this is the QR code,
a little bit small, and it's called givebutter,
and our team is Buena Vista Odyssey of the Mind team.
Terrific, well, good luck,
and I'm sure people at home will see this.
And if you're looking for a few things
from Walnut Creek that have Walnut Creek's name on it,
our city clerk has your information.
I think we can probably get a little bit of swag in there for you to be able to pass out
some things, pencils or something like that with Walnut Creek's name on it.
Thank you so much, councilmembers.
Thank you.
Congratulations.
Good luck.
Wow.
That's a hard act to follow.
What a great presentation.
Hi, my name is Charisse Kound, and I also want to say thank you to the big band of Rossmore.
That's going to be an awesome performance.
My daughter's performing in it.
It has been a wonderful opportunity for such a multi-generational band to exist here in our city is just really wonderful so thank you directors for doing that especially for Mount Diablo village, but I am here as a
as a field rep for Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer Kahan and tonight during this busy legislative session I just wanted to share one thing, which is an event that we have coming up tomorrow night.
And this is going to be at Creekside Commons from 6 to 7 30 p.m.
Doors open at 5 30 serving some dinner bites.
It's called from aware to empowered,
navigating the online world as women and girls.
And so the assembly member will be there speaking about three
of her bills related to this.
And she will also have three guest speakers.
So we'll have Sneha Revanoor who is a Stanford student
and founder of ENCODE AI,
which is a nonprofit organization she founded at age 15
that's still going strong
with a vision of a human-centered AI future.
And then we have Nikki Ayer,
who is a UC Berkeley student
and co-chair of Design It For Us,
which is a nonprofit advocacy organization,
looking to make sure that online spaces
and our social media are really human-centered
and healthy spaces for us to be and not just sort of motivated
by profit and addiction models.
And then Carrie Gallagher with Connect Safely
has a really great website called Connect Safely
that provides all kinds of information
about how to stay safe online and provides really
up-to-date information, things like what
are the most recent financial scams that
are targeting our teens and what's
happening with gambling addiction for our young boys.
So we'll pass this out and hope to see you there.
Thanks, Surese.
And thank you to our assembly member, Rebecca Bauer-Cad.
Any more public comment?
It doesn't look like it.
So I'll close the public comment at this time.
And next, we have council member and staff
and applicants reports on activities or requests.
And so do we have any closed session announcements?
Mayor, I would defer to you
for the closed session announcements
given the two evaluations.
Yes, so just to alert everyone,
the council has completed both the city manager
and the city attorney evaluations.
City manager report?
I do not have an update this evening, Mayor.
Okay, and so next we have city council member reports
on AB 1234 activities, council member assignments,
and various activities.
And you look like you're ready, council member Darling.
Mine's relatively short tonight.
MCE was proud this week.
We did recognize Habitat for Humanity
as one of our McGlashan award winners
for their Esperanza Place project here in Walnut Creek.
It is a net zero energy project.
And it's the first one that they did.
And that is an important part of MCE's mission
is equity in helping people electrify
and become more conservative.
So that was really, I was proud to see them win that.
The chamber met last Thursday,
couple things coming up, art and wine
is coming up on June 6th and 7th,
and that's gonna be another fun event.
They're looking at different ways
to make it even more exciting.
The chamber is going through a leadership transition,
and so they are currently recruiting for a new CEO,
and we are hoping that that search goes well,
and we have a new leader coming into the chamber
in the near future.
But that's really my report,
lots of other fun things going on,
but that's my highlights.
Thank you, Council Member Silva.
Thank you very much.
Building on my colleague to my right, the other Cindy.
She and I serve on the Council Subcommittee
on Housing and Community Development
and the committee met last week
and we will be bringing forward
or we've recommended to move forward two items
to the May 5th city council calendar.
The first, last week, is we reviewed two proposals
from 100% affordable housing developers
for some grant funding that we have for affordable housing.
We have about $2.9 million available to be awarded.
We reviewed the proposals and staff's recommendation,
and we're moving that recommendation forward
to the council.
And the second item we reviewed was our annual action plan
for the community grant and community development block grant programs.
It's about a million dollars per year in community grants that we do, some of which is funding
from the federal government, about 400,000.
So we are moving that forward on May 5th to the Council for review and approval, but also
a recommendation on how to address a gap in housing for the homeless services, particularly
the core services and we have a number of interesting options that we have in
front of us. I will say that council member, Mayor Pro Tem Matt Francois and I
had an opportunity to meet with the Youth Commission last week. It was
hair-raising. They asked such thoughtful questions and it was like being in a
candidate forum for City Council. They asked about homelessness, they asked
about e-bike policies, they asked about recycling and they did not ask about
about cereal. We were disappointed. So I'll let the Mayor Pro Tem elaborate a bit more.
Next I want to say thank you to the community. Last Saturday was our 16th annual community
service day. And with the help of organizations across the community, including a couple of
organizations within the city infrastructure, we had 33 projects and over 900 volunteers
of all ages that came out on Saturday for two to three hours of volunteer effort.
Those volunteers planted 45 trees at Heather Farm Park.
They put together, under the auspices of the CERT Group and the Police Department, 500
backpack emergency preparedness kits that they're going to be distributing.
So thank you to those volunteers.
There were 12 school projects involving 400 or more volunteers across the city.
There were four pianos that were painted along the downtown streets for the summer months
that are coming up.
And there were 30 yards of bark that were spread at Larky Park and Pool with the help
of there were 50 people out doing that and 20 of them were Walnut Creek Aquanaut artistic
swimmers and their coaches and families because the aqua nuts use the larky pool
regularly. So thanks to everyone who came out and thanks to the three parks
projects, three creeks projects, one public works project on the downtown
streets, arts and rec projects, etc., and twelve school projects thanks to
everyone who helped make it a great day. I am the liaison from the council to the
The Diablo Regional Arts Association, which is the nonprofit, almost 30 years old, that
is a major fundraiser and producer for the Lesher Center for the Arts.
Their regular board meeting was last Monday, and I had the opportunity to present updates
about the city, but they also had a lot of updates to talk about their programs.
The Dance Theatre Harlem is this week, Thursday and Friday evenings that we'll be performing
at the Lesher Center.
The College Notes was sold out, Sarah McKenzie was sold out.
San Francisco Jazz at the Lesher Center is under a new contract, so things are moving
forward there.
And October 3rd, Saturday evening, is the annual On Broadway Gala, which will raise
funds to help support those programs at the Lesher Center.
The Bedford Gallery has a new show, it's called Aztec Stories in Modern Mexico.
It is a retrospective on the works of Insancio Jimenez Chino.
It's very vibrant and it runs through June 28th.
And this last Saturday evening, the California Symphony had its annual fundraising gala and
they honored our former Mayor Luella Haskew and her husband Ralph who have been very strong
Supporters of the California Symphony for more than 20 years and with that I will say thank you very much for everyone what you do
Thank You councilmember Silva next why don't we go to councilmember to Vinny?
Alright, good evening
three activities to report on
The first I think most of us are we're at the Employee Recognition
Awards last week
We recognized employees from the city that have been here for 10 15 20 and 25 years
So I want to give a shout out to
Captain Jeff Slater for 25 years of service
Thank you, and we just missed our senior engineer Alex Wong who was also on for 25 years
And so a number of others as well, but we appreciate your service to the city
In addition, Ben Shuster, from the Community Development Department, won Employee of the Year, so congratulations to Ben Shuster for that.
In addition, I was fortunate or honored to give the opening remarks for a sustainable event that Sustainable Walnut Creek put on last week.
was called the story of plastics and I think it's just a reminder that we all
need to be aware of our own public our own use and to try to cut down on our
personal use and then also sort try the best we can to sort the plastics that we
have. I know right now we are working on cutting down on single-use plastics so
we're working with businesses in the community to transition them from
single-use plastics to reusable materials. And we'll be more to report as
we have more businesses that join the program. I finally staffed the farmers
market this past Sunday. What I wanted to say about that is I always enjoy
engaging with the community and what I appreciate even more is how helpful
staff is here at the city that we can take. All of us I think have had similar
experiences we take these comments and send them off to our department heads
and they are so excellent about following up with folks and the the
the residents really respond favorably and send you know nice
comments back about how well their issues were taken care of so thank you
to the Walnut Creek staff for that. Yeah following up on that I also attended the
employee recognition event. Uh, very meaningful to see the longevity of
service. Uh, 25 years obviously, but we had several people at the 5 10 15 year
20 year mark. And I think it really speaks to this organization and the
city being a place that people come and they stay for a long time because
there's a culture that is here that they want to be part of. And now they're
part of that culture. And so I I too am appreciative of their service to our
city. It was a nice event to recognize them. I thought the city manager did a
nice job. And seeing it and all the department directors did a very nice
job recognizing employees in their departments that had been there for
several years and including recognizing each of those individuals that had made
the quarter century club.
And congratulations also to team Apex,
who was the team of the year, the internal team
for the executive leadership that
is building a better mousetrap, shall we say,
in terms of trying to streamline our processes,
be more forward facing and customer service oriented.
And also want to echo congratulations
to Ben Schuster in the Community Development Department
for being named the Rosie Cone Employee of the Year.
So that was a really fun event.
It was either that evening or the next evening
that I attended the big band
of Ross Moore's annual concert out in Ross Moore.
And a really fun event.
They have not only does a big band play,
but they have Stanley Middle School,
they have the East Bay Band playing.
I was happy to hear a cool in the gang song played.
It wasn't just jazz and some of these young musicians
are extremely talented.
There was a saxophone player from Stanley Middle School.
I was just pretty amazing that you were listening
to like an eighth grader play the saxophone.
So great to see that mix of generations
and there was also very cute,
some folks were up dancing during the numbers
and really enjoying themselves.
So, nice to see that mix of ages
and everyone having a good time at the Big Band.
So I'm gonna try to make it to their concert
at the Lesher on May 20th in support of Mount Diablo Village.
Let's see.
Great community service day.
I was out at Heather Farm Park way back out there,
past the Equestrian Center,
Planting some of those 45 trees.
And what struck me was our great public work staff,
number one, being there to greet everyone.
And there was a lot of activity going on
in the park that day,
but they were very warm, welcoming,
helping people get all their paperwork filled out.
And kind of most importantly too,
they had dug the holes for the trees to be planted.
The tree was right next to the hole.
They had already installed the irrigation system.
And so it was light tree planting, I would say.
And I think that was just fine for myself
and the rest of the volunteers.
And it was kind of, it was cool to see,
I met someone from Concord who, and his young son,
who just said he looks for opportunities to volunteer
and tries to come to our community service day.
I met a woman from the Heather Farm Community Association
who lives nearby.
And just neighbors meeting neighbors
and building community over an event like that was great.
I also ran into our planning commissioner, Molly Kopp,
was out there helping put in trees, too.
So thank you to everyone who volunteered.
And it was a fun event.
Well, you know, they have to be sure that you
get the tree in the right place.
Yes, and we learned that.
Nothing to chance.
Well, it has to.
Yes, it has the root ball has to be kind of at grade.
And then the steak, I'm told, has
to be facing north for maximum tree growth potential.
So we had a little bit of debate about which direction
was north and true north.
But I think we've got it close.
I mean, they didn't white paint it on the ground for you?
No.
Maybe next year, Rich.
I, too, enjoyed meeting with the Youth Leadership Commission.
And it's fun now because the Commission's been going on for at least the entire time
I've been on Council since 2018.
And now we're seeing the second generation of the younger siblings who of some of our
initial youth commissioners and hearing how their older siblings are doing, but just,
yeah, it was, it was, the questions they asked were, were hard, but of a, like a deep policy
level interest and they were not softball questions they were thoughtful
questions they were kind of sophisticated questions and so I was
impressed talked about leaf blowers we talked about the Heather farm park
affordable housing they asked us how we were going to reduce the cost of housing
I'd let her take that one. Parking Challenge is downtown and the fun
question was what's your favorite restaurant in Walnut Creek and so we we
got the opportunity to turn that around with them and ask them what their
favorite restaurant is and I'm not going to name mine because I don't want to
make anyone unhappy so that'll just stay in the room but I like all the
restaurants downtown I think they're all great and I try to get to as many of
them as I can. Let's see. I also attended the California Symphony Gallo with
Councilmember Silva and it was nice event extremely talented musicians. They
they were playing during the event and they also played a piece that was
composed by a composer in residence and it was extremely interesting and it's
neat to hear the music live in a small setting like that and to hear a piece
that you've never heard before and hear it the composer was like sitting at the
table next to you and so it was a good event and it was obviously nice to
recognize and honor for former mayor Loella Hascew and her husband Ralph who
who had been the president of the California Symphony.
For many years their new season, I believe,
kicks off this summer or fall,
and they'll be playing at the Lesher Center,
so you'll have the opportunity
to see them live and in person.
I think that about does it for me.
All right, thank you.
Lots of arts things,
so I'll throw in an arts thing in a minute as well.
We have lots of openings for businesses and services,
And we love them coming to the city.
It's probably the favorite thing that mayors
get to do across the country.
But I wanna highlight one that Cindy Darling,
Council Member Darling and I went to last week
and it truly makes me feel proud about Walnut Creek.
And that is the Summa Academy opening.
It's in Shadelands,
where the Contra Costa School for Performing Arts was.
And this is a school that specializes
in special needs students with autism for ages five to 22.
and it's designed to help them
to get into the local workforce
and lead full and productive lives.
And this is their third campus.
I mean, talk about something that is worthwhile.
And I'm so happy to see that our team
and our planning department helped to work with them
to be able to open this up.
So that was truly a special opening.
And then an opening today that has to also do with music.
It was the opening of the Diablo Ballet Studio in Shadelands.
Congrats to the Diablo Ballet Artistic Director,
Lauren Jonas, who worked with our staff
and actually was really complimentary to Mike Nieman
and to the team to really helping get this going.
And so she talked about, again, the playing department
and big shout out to Erica, she mentioned by name as well.
And so just congratulations to them.
They're going to be having their performance
at the Lesher Center on May 15th and 16th.
And great to see them in truly a home after 32 years
of operating without one.
As the representative liaison to County Connection,
I did wanna mention that the Youth Ride Free
returns on June 1st through July 31st,
offering free fare rides on County Connection buses
for youths ages six to 18.
It was first launched as a pilot in summer of last year
and will return for a second year with funding secured through transpac and SWOT, which is
the Southwest Area Transportation Committee that's responsible for developing transportation
programs in the southern region of Contra Costa.
So the soft launch of the Community Outreach Plan begins next week and a broader announcement
will be planned in May.
And so beyond increasing ridership, why is this being done?
It's a program that helps young people build confidence and public transit familiarity,
learning how to navigate routes and read schedules and travel independently while connecting
them to jobs, recreation, community events, and different opportunities.
And of course, once somebody is familiar riding public transit as a youth, the hope and the
idea is that they ride it then as an adult.
And so there's not going to be any application or idea that's required for this.
It's a barrier-free approach, combined with strong community support, continues to drive
the program's success.
So that's June and July, and while that's the summer ride program, the past to class
program, which is also free for students, is then slated for August and September.
So essentially, use the writing free on County Connection from June through September.
So good news from County Connection.
And more information, if any parents want that, is on countyconnection.com.
I do want to give some other quick transit information on Sunday, April 26th.
That's this Sunday, right?
Yeah, I think it is.
BART will be replacing lights in the Transbay tube, which
will require single tracking and slower service than usual.
So the yellow line train, that's our line on Walnut Creek,
will run between SFO and Milbury all day.
But passengers traveling beyond SFO must transfer.
The work takes place also on June 7 and July 19,
so just prepare for longer transit times
if you're taking BART.
And then lastly, I'm sad to announce
the passing of two former longtime city employees.
Danny Boyle, who worked for the city from July of 87
through 1999, he started with the city
as a municipal service aide and quickly moved
into the role of ticket clerk before becoming a community
arts coordinator.
And Gary Schaub, who was a cultural services and arts
director from 1974 to 2001, I actually
got my start in the arts commission under Gary Schaub.
And both had lived in Rossmore and passed away two days ago.
So our condolences to them and their families.
And that ends our reports.
Okay.
Anybody need a break?
Are you, everybody okay?
All right, onward we go.
Next is the consideration item for the direction
to initiate the elections code 9-2-1-2 report
on the Walnut Creek Senior Housing
Transit Village Initiative related to a 2.4 acre site
located at the northeast corner of North California Boulevard at Ignacio Valley Road and enter
into a cost payment reimbursement agreement with friends of Walnut Creek Senior Housing.
And I'd like to invite Assistant City Manager Charles Ching, who's here, forward to provide
the presentation.
Thank you, Mayor. And good evening, Mayor, Member City Council, Charles Ching, Assistant
City Manager. The item in front of you tonight is the initiation of the Election Code 9212
related to the Walnut Creek Senior Housing Transit Village Initiative. So in
March 16th of this year the city received a notice of intent to circulate a
petition for the Walnut Creek Senior Housing Transit Village Initiative. The
initiative proponents are Stephen Koska, Marlene Farrell, and Haley Murphy, all
residents of the City of Walnut Creek, and the relevant properties related to
the initiative is owned by Hall Equities Group. So the initiative essentially does two things.
First is it amends the city's general plan, north downtown specific plan, zoning ordinance,
and zoning map by creating a new zoning district that allows for senior multi-family development
with commercial uses, and senior is defined as 55 and over.
And the commercial uses are required to be compatible
with the senior housing development.
Another difference to this new land use designation
is it allows for 0.6 floor area ratio for commercial uses
compared to the 0.3 for just mixed use commercial.
Second is it it changes the land use for a 2.4 acre site at the corner of North California
and Ignacio Valley Road.
So this is an area of where the site is.
To the west of the site is North California and the BART station.
To the south is Ignacio Valley Road where the target shopping center is.
To the east is North Main Street and to the north is Pringle.
This is a street view of the property just to show City Council and the public what is
currently out there at the moment.
And this is a map that was part of the ballot initiative submitted by the proponents of
the ballot measure.
again, it replaces approved office uses that are currently in place for that property to
allow for senior housing and commercial uses. It increases the floor area ratio for commercial
uses from .3 to .6. So as part of the California elections code, 9212, the city council is
allowed to initiate or prepare an informal report that includes the following. The initiatives
fiscal impact to the city, its effect on the consistency with the city's different plans,
general plans, specific plan, housing element, its effect on land use and availability of
land and location for housing, its impact on funding for infrastructure of all types,
its impact on the community's ability to attract and retain business and employment, its impact
on uses of vacant parcels of land and its impact on agricultural lands, open space,
traffic congestion, business districts and developed areas designated for revitalization.
Another thing that is allowed on the plan is anything City Council desires that is not part
of the existing list. And to that end, the Friends of Walnut Creek senior housing group has agreed
to reimburse the city for the cost of the plan. So what we're asking City Council for
tonight is to direct the City Manager to prepare the Elections Code 921 to report on the Walnut
Creek Senior Housing Transit Village Initiative and to enter into a cost payment reimbursement
agreement with the Friends of the Walnut Creek Senior Housing for the cost of preparing the
plan that concludes my presentation and available to answer any questions thank
you Charles questions Mayor Pro Tem is the applicant going to present as well
or just staff or they're available for questions I guess it's just staff but
I understand the applicant is going to make a public comment okay I I was and I
understand we don't get a lot of land use initiatives here in Walnut Creek so
there was a we did get a public comment and probably more appropriately directed
to the applicant so I'll just give you a preview of the question of sort of why
not go through the normal process of kind of the city the city's normal
process through planning and city council to do a planning amendment and
rezoning so I get I guess for staff because we do have a copy of the actual
initiative measure and we're being asked to direct the city manager to
prepare this report can you does it what would the amendments allow for in terms
of density height setbacks and things things like that compared to what the
zoning allows for now?
I can take that, if you'd like.
The new district, it's creating a new zoning district,
is what it's doing.
And so in terms of height, it would
have re-adopting the currently applicable height limits
of 89 feet for most of the initiative area
and a portion of it 35 feet.
So it would have the same height limits.
Those could be subject to exceedances
if there's density bonus associated with it.
The density is set at 425 square feet based on net lot area,
so per unit.
That turns out to be a residential density of around
163 units.
163 persons per net acre, or 200 units,
is what they're estimating, over 200 units of senior housing.
So I don't want to it sounds to me like then the the height and the density is comparable to our
What of our current mixed-use residential zones?
It's it's consistent with the
Similar to what's there in the MUC okay, and then a question and I know it's just the planning and zoning
It's not an actual project
But is there anything in the initiative measure that speaks to affordable I
Can answer that as well to you Charles so that the initiative itself doesn't limit the applicability of the city's
inclusionary housing ordinance to the project
in fact, it specifically recognizes that the inclusionary housing ordinance is
Part of the applicant part of the regulations that would apply to the property
and so the project would be subject to the inclusionary requirements, which are
10% for low income if it's rental
6% for very low income if it's rental and then again
By virtue of meeting the inclusionary requirements. They could also qualify for density bonus
There's is there we don't know enough yet about this in terms of whether they're planning on providing the units or paying the fee
We do not have a specific project applications.
The initiative is taking it through the zoning level.
It's establishing this new zoning district.
And then last question for me, is there anything in the initiative that speaks to, I know it's
increasing the FAR to allow for additional commercial uses, but is there anything that
speaks to providing the commercial uses in conjunction with the residential or could
to be an all residential project with no commercial?
That we would, that's something we can look at
as part of the report, because they
don't have an application in.
What we understand is that they intend to have both.
But we have not looked specifically yet
as to whether they could do one or the other.
And I would also advise the council
that we have the initiative, and we've
done a ballot title and summary.
But one of the things that we would
have to do if the measure qualifies if they collect the required number of signatures
is as a city attorney's office we have to bear an impartial analysis and we can address
those types of issues in the impartial analysis do so that the public is aware of what the
requirements and the implications are. Okay. Thank you.
Yes, Councilmember Darden. Thank you for this. This is an interesting
concept. I know some kinds of senior housing by virtue of the way they operate are don't
count towards arena numbers. Is there anything in this initiative that would allow unit type
that doesn't count towards Rita or is it the assumption being that anything that's developed
here would count? Yes, the assumption is all of the units created for this project will
count towards arena numbers. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much and first of all, I have
some questions that are similar to to what extent does this initiative allow
for or does it preclude our normal environmental review processes so is so
it does not preclude the normal environmental processes but an
initiative measure placed on the ballot by a signature gathering campaign and
the residents if you will the citizens is actually not subject to CEQA so the
a rezoning action that would be accomplished
under the measure would not be subject to CEQA.
Are we allowed to include basic environmental discussions
in the report?
The council can ask for, well, the statute
says any other items requested by the city council.
So the council has broad authority
to ask for further analysis if you would want to.
but it would not be of the same level
of an environmental impact report or something like that.
So yes, but.
Say that again.
So yes, but.
Yes, you may, at the time that a project were to come in,
and the council may want to ask the applicant's representatives
what their intention is, but at the time
that the project came in for approvals,
then we would make a CEQA determination.
I would also remind the councilor to note for the council
that there are under numerous changes in state law.
Over the last few years there are exemptions
that talk about urban areas
and developments of certain sizes.
So if the council would desire some further review
of environmental issues short of an environmental impact
report or a negative declaration,
you could ask for that as part of the report.
So let's say the project is submitted.
The voters agree.
The project is submitted.
Is there any design review process allowed in this process?
I believe the answer to that is yes,
but I'd want to confirm that.
Your question about the affordable housing
requirements, thank you.
This area is in the North Downtown Specific Plan.
And as I recall, the North Downtown Specific Plan
basically indicates that if you want additional density,
floor area ratio or height, et cetera,
you use community benefits process.
Will this preclude the community benefits process?
It wouldn't preclude the community benefits process
if they wanted to exceed the density
that's allowed for in the initiative,
but the density that's allowed in the initiative
is calculating it based on 425 fee per unit, which
is already low.
The community benefits allow you to drop the density,
allow you to drop down or reduce the per square foot.
That's what you get in exchange for providing community
benefits.
So again, we could look at that as part of this.
So the report that the council would be commissioning tonight,
if you wish to do that, does include
as one of its requirements its consistency with the zoning
plans and the specific plan, in particular,
North Downtown's specific plan.
And so that would be an analysis that
would be done as part of the report.
So when the council receives the report,
when the report is made public, those kinds of questions
would be addressed specifically in the report.
And I noticed in the summary that was provided,
the brief summary it says age restricted 55 and older. Is that in the text of the initiative
as well? It is and as part of the district. Is this distinguishing this particular district
from the MUC normally? And I'll have a couple of questions for the
representatives of the applicant. Thank you very much.
Thank you and I just have one question. I just want to make sure so that everybody knows
should we decide to prepare the report that does not obligate
that we are supporting the petition?
That is correct.
Okay. And I think that's the only question I have at this time.
So with that-
Just one more question.
Yes.
And I think this is perhaps somewhat redundant
but I'm trying to process it.
If they're saying that they're increasing the floor area ratio
for the commercial use, it's just an option.
They don't have to use that.
It could all be residential based on the way this is written.
That's what in response to the mayor's question we'll answer that as part of the report.
I don't know the answer to that right now but the increase in the FAR is for the commercial.
And it gives them a max of 0.6 FAR so they're not obligated to utilize all 0.6 of that FAR.
They could have less commercial.
They just can't exceed that.
Nothing specific.
Okay.
Um, you're saying that the zoning would not be subject to environmental review because
that would have been approved through the voters via initiative, but would the, um,
like the building itself be subject to environmental review, like, uh, like the, since there's
so many non specifics about what the project will actually be, whether it'll have two stories
of commercial or one story of commercial or no commercial, um, it seems like there could
be different impacts based on whatever the final project is that's that's before.
Yeah the the the next stage of any approvals could potentially be subject to environmental
review but depending on the proposal that's brought before you there may be exemptions
that apply to that because of the size of the project.
So the report the report that if the council directs one to be written we could speak to
those issues in the report as well too. There are the state legislature has adopted a number
of laws that in particular relates to infill developments that satisfy objective design
standards and whatnot that there are exemptions under CEQA for processing some of those.
Again, the applicant may speak to what if they can what their intention might be right
now but that's the way we would look at it. The only thing that would be exempt from CEQA
now is this measure which amends the general plan, specific plan, and zoning to create
this district.
Does anything in this specify whether these units are for sale or for rent or that's an
option either way?
No.
Because you mentioned rental in the low income requirements of six and ten percent.
You mentioned that.
I'm not recalling that it specifies either of those,
but the city has inclusionary requirements
for four-cell units as well too.
Okay.
I'll now open the item up for public comment.
Please step forward to the podium along the wall.
Please complete a speaker card.
And once at the podium, please introduce yourself
and the city of residence for the record.
Each speaker will have two minutes to make your remarks.
written comments submitted,
if any 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.
And please go ahead.
Good evening, Mayor Wilk and city council members.
My name is Cecily Barclay.
I did submit a speaker card.
I am land use council for Friends of Walnut Creek.
And I had intended to really just come up this evening
appreciate the council responding to the request of Friends of Walnut Creek that
this report be prepared. I agree with Mr. Mattis's comments that many of the
questions that have been asked this evening could could and should be
addressed in that report. The only just a couple of very minor things I just
wanted to say is the city has a objective design standard process that
that you are all very familiar with,
that you adopted in 2024,
for residential and mixed use residential projects,
that this project has been zoned for,
and throughout the initiative, it's clear
that whatever project is eventually brought forward
needs to be consistent and follow the city's rules
and municipal code.
So any design would follow the city's set processes,
and there's nothing in this initiative,
although you should really,
I really do want to direct you
that the city needs to answer the report, not me.
So I don't want to get too ahead of ourselves,
but I thought that was important.
And I also just, again, wanted to emphasize
that the city has throughout the downtown
an office mixed use residential.
It's purple on your zoning map
and slightly different color in your general plan.
And this zoning district largely follows that
with the exception of three things.
It limits the age of the occupants to over 55.
It, in your MUR, you have 0.3 commercial.
The initiative envisions the potential
for more than just 0.3.
So at this size, maybe instead of being 30,000 square feet,
it could be up to 30.
We don't think it's mandatory,
but I see my client, the committee and those that,
who own the property, see the advantages
of trying to activate the ground floor.
It's a little deadsville out there right now
on some of the ground floor locations
if you walk in those office buildings.
And the third thing that it does is,
it's not quite as generous on the commercial uses.
So your MUR as it defines potential commercial,
we've limited them a little bit more
to what's compatible with senior housing,
but I don't think they're big changes,
just slightly smaller.
And we just don't have a project right now.
I know that we don't know if this is for sale or rental.
I can tell you that the Hall Equity's affiliates only purchased the property last summer,
see a huge opportunity here for her to do something with the site,
and are really excited about that opportunity.
And part of seeing if the city and its residents and people who are signing the petition,
they're excited then that will foster what actually gets decided to be built
there. So if you have any other questions I'm available. Okay thank you very much.
I want to ask questions now. We'll go through all the public comment and ask
questions. Is there anybody else here? Is there anybody? We have one person. She'll
be prepared to come back. Yeah, I won't go anywhere. So yeah hang tight, we'll finish public comment, we'll
to come back.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Jan Warren, resident here, never seen anything like this.
When I looked at it today, I'm like, what?
It looks like a back door approach to me.
And I live in the woodlands and the developer,
you know, I've been here 40 years,
so we all know the whole equity group
and the work they do around the city.
Quite some time ago, land was purchased in Shadelands
for a senior project.
And I remember it being difficult to get something
that would work for someone.
And Hall appears to me to be mostly they buy property
and they then later, you know,
sell to somebody else to build or develop.
And so I'm still waiting for development.
And this is almost an entryway into our city,
and I see a lot of disruption from that.
We seem to have a lot of affordable housing.
I think we ought to up to 55,
as the rest of us are getting older,
because it seems like a lot of people qualify.
But what I read says,
it was almost like, well, we don't have any other housing
for people around here.
And so, I don't know, the whole project troubles me
in terms of the process and I'm certainly supporting
a supportable affordable housing, familiar with them.
There's just too much in the way of,
make sure we get lots of leeway for the city
because I don't wanna start a process.
Everybody wants to do it this way.
Now just come down here and set up your own
new classification when we spend years
setting them up with comments from residents so obviously there's demand
and obviously we still need the jobs downtown so thank you thank you Jan
all right we will any other public comments I don't see it I know so so I
see that so let's bring back the former public commenter thank you and I know
councilmember Silva has some questions. I do have a question. Thank you for being
here. It's nice to see you again. I think I need to ask Charles to bring up the
map of the project site. Okay. This one works. So it is only two point this is
the 2.4 acres it's outlined in black. Correct. Doesn't hall equities own the
remainder of that block. Yes. So they're choosing to only apply this initiative
and this change in zoning to the corner which was intentionally left vacant a
very big debate over 20 years ago when the building was built but the one at
the corner of Cal Main and Ignacio. It seems that this is right it seems that
this is that there's a building that's
connected to another building that is being divided in this.
So there are essentially five office buildings and the two
story office building that's across on the bar.
It's connected to.
Correct.
So whoops, sorry.
Oh, this is not a pointer.
It's OK.
So there are the remainder of that site
has four office buildings on it.
And those four office buildings would remain.
Where the most northern line is, closest to Pringle, on the black,
there is a two-story annex that is actually not attached.
It's not built.
There's a bridge connection.
That annex is vacant, is often largely vacant.
It's fairly low in the ground compared to the other office
buildings.
and behind it, further south, is an area that
is currently open space.
The entire North Downtown specific plan
allows for future office development of that site.
The specific plan does not in any way preclude development
of it.
The proposal would be to no longer have
the office regulatory development apply,
that it's currently in the North Downtown specific plan,
and instead have this mixed-use residential commercial
with senior only in it.
So we're just taking out one set of zoning
for the other in the same area.
The yellow is slightly lower.
This map happens to show height restrictions.
And the addition doesn't do anything
to alter the height restriction.
So that yellow corner is the same office zoning,
but it has a lower height today, yeah.
Okay, thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Mayor Purdam.
Yeah, thank you for the comments.
Thank you for the proposal to do the report.
If you could speak, couple questions.
On the commercial uses, you said they would be
a little more restricted than the MUR.
And then I wrote down a comment
that they'd be commercial uses compatible with seniors.
So can you elaborate on that a little bit?
So there are in the, hang on one second,
because I actually happen to bring it with me.
So no, I don't have it in front of me.
There are, it would be things like if there
was a communications tower, a radio communications tower
was permitted, we took that out.
That sort of thing, like it wasn't.
But there are still all sorts of grocery stores, cafes.
clothing, grocery stores, fitness centers, even you know auto dealer uses in case
somebody wanted to like have a area there to sell an electric vehicle or so
it wasn't like super restrictive but there were just some things that really
just didn't make any sense at this location and so we just they're not in
there now but it was probably 5% of the allowable. That's helpful. Yeah. And then in
In terms of this 2.4-acre parcel, I have a good idea of what you're talking about and
the two-story annex.
How would the rest of the center continue to operate from like an open space parking
standpoint?
That's still working?
Well, there is a large parking structure that there's several parking structures there that
in different ways serve the project.
So either the parking structure will remain but have to be altered to allow the future
senior residents to use it or portions of it would have to be reconstructed.
And that will be part of what's evaluated.
And the parking for the new uses would be per our current code, not per the new code
per the initiative?
We don't change any of the parking requirements.
There's nothing in this initiative that changes the city's parking requirements.
No changes to affordability either so
Would would either build or pay a fee or the combination of both and as mr
Mattis pointed out those apply both to for sale or rental
Which this could be either or a combination of both, okay?
And then the final question I had asked it previewed it earlier just in terms of the process. We're not we don't usually get land use
Initiative measures, so why not just go through the standard kind of process of rezoning?
There's probably a longer answer
but I think the shortest and what most to the point answer is that we looked and I did was part of that process looked at
the north downtown specific plan
saw all the
Adjacent mixed-use residential that was nearby and all the other goals of the plan that talk about housing and activation
and grocery stores, one of the community benefits.
And looking at where there's opportunity to put housing,
this seemed like a good site to do it,
and that we could do it quickly and decide
what to do with the rest of the center.
Because these other three office buildings,
if there's going to be a construction project,
the landowners got to kind of figure out
what's the future of Ignacio Center.
And since the city already had so many plans and regulations,
all this initiative does is basically
adopt how the city currently regulates mixed-use residential
downtown, but limited it to seniors.
And I think I do want to not get too far ahead of the program
in terms of letting Mr. Mattis and staff maybe
answer that question, because I'm
starting to say probably you know it's we're early in the process here but
that's what our our thoughts are okay thank you appreciate that you're welcome
any question I mean so I'm I think I'm understanding what you're saying about
the Ignacio Center building the one that's in the very heart of that and
that is half in and half out of the new district right the annex is in and the
The taller 12-13 story structure, it's 1910 California, that's out of the district.
1910 California, that's the building that faces the BART station, will remain intact.
But the one, I'm just looking at the area photo.
Yes.
The shorter one next to it would be.
The one over on California is part of it.
Yes.
the one that has the parking on the roof is half in half out or it's all
parking. It's all parking. It's all parking, okay. And that's the parking that you can...
You could either leave in place or redevelop. Okay good. And that's a big
decision. I mean that's... And then when we came up with the North Downtown Plan
there was the idea of the community benefits and if somebody wanted to
to change, would this be subject to community benefits?
It would be subject to it.
That provision was not eliminated.
But the community benefits, I think,
we're looking at getting additional commercial FAR
in order to get, to provide community benefits,
get additional FAR.
The FAR, for that commercial use here,
would sort of be a lot lower.
Before it was a big commercial project,
Now it's only going to be 0.6, so the commercial part would be lower.
So I don't think the community benefits would kick in in order
to build the 200-plus housing units and the commercial.
That said, it may turn out there's a grocery store in there.
We just don't know.
I mean, that would be fabulous, to be honest with you.
But it can happen.
I don't know.
I recognize you guys are at a very early stage.
Yeah, yeah, yes.
there's lots here thank you all right thank unless there any other question I
just want to clarify one comment I know there's the question from council or
mayor pro tem Francois about you know why not go through the standard city
process and there was some back and forth and possibly the suggestion that
that would be answered in by city staff I just want to clarify there's no
confusion that is not an answer staff would be answering either now or any
time through this process or as part of this report about why the applicant is
pursuing this process as opposed to the standard process we will be this report
if authorized by council will be analyzing the potential consideration
impacts associated with this process and the proposal but not answering that
question as to why it so it there's really two paths there is going through
the normal process through planning and planning Commission City Council or
or there is a citizens' initiative,
and this is the path that you've chosen?
Correct, and I should clarify,
I was starting to say things like,
the intent was to just take the city's regulations
as they apply to the mixed use residential,
but add senior and take out the office.
And I started in answering the question
why we were doing this,
sort of answering what the initiative does.
So I was more trying to not get ahead on all that,
but that's right, this,
Agree with your characterization of the two paths in this path and should the citizens initiative pass
The council's not able to overturn that that's that's the way that's it
Okay, that that's correct if the if the measure qualifies for the ballot and then passes by the voters
Then it effectuates the change the general plan specific plan and the zoning for the property. Okay
Can I ask the flip question if the initiative doesn't pass?
The council still retains full jurisdiction over changes
to the general.
Well, yes, it retains all the discretion it has right now.
And so that question used to be a more straightforward answer.
But the laws related to housing now
have given greater protections to the ability of housing
to be facilitated if it's already been established
through zoning and whatnot.
If I could just add to that, I don't normally add to what our city attorney states, but I will on this if there were to be any proposed changes to what this initiative does, generally speaking, that would require going back to the voters to amend that.
With with one minor exception, the initiative includes a language in it that allows changes that are agreed to with the consent of the property owner.
And so it's unique, because the initiative
is writing legislation.
Oftentimes, initiatives will be written to say,
this is the new law, and it can't be changed
without voter approval.
This one says, this is the new law,
and it can't be changed without voter approval,
unless the property owner agrees to the change.
So it's a bit of an exception that's
written into this initiative.
Do you mind if I add one other little comment to that?
Well, let me first ask.
We have more questions of the commenter,
or are we now going to bring it just to the staff?
I have a question of the attorney's statement.
Right, so we can continue this.
I have a question of the commenter.
And it is relevant to the report.
And I'm not asking for a statistical analysis,
but why senior, essentially?
What's the demand that you're seeing?
Why not just general, non-age restricted housing?
So since I'm standing here, I just
wanted to say, because it's important,
that the initiative does allow the applicant to come back
and request changes to the council.
But it would follow, then, the usual path.
We would have to go through, if there
were any environmental impacts of the change.
Let's say you changed it from, this
is a segue question, from 55 plus to less than 55 plus.
That could be done with the council's consent
and the property owner.
But it would have to go through a public process to do that.
But yes, the perceived demand for senior housing
is one that does seem that the market will bear a demand
for this.
But also, seniors don't create traffic.
And they don't create school impacts.
So first, we have to get the signatures.
Then we have to get the votes.
We think residential's great down here.
But some of the environmental impacts
from bringing a senior housing project across from BART downtown
to a busy area, we think it couples the request
to do it by initiative along with the future market demand.
And we obviously recognize that's a restriction,
but one I think the ownership feels very confident about.
Yes.
Well, I was just wondering in light of the city manager's
comments that the staff report won't be elaborating on the decision
to pursue this route if you wanted to elaborate further on that.
Well, I think really what I said, just to remind everybody what I said,
is that this does provide a way to, if the citizens get enough signatures
and we get the vote, which we think should be a very anticipated support
for the project, but maybe not.
But if we do, then we can just come in with a project.
And if things are looking good, then we
can come up with that project is and what makes sense
and start moving, as opposed to going through what
could be a much longer process than what I just described.
And so it's to expedite the project this year.
I mean, like I said, there's probably a little more to it.
But I think that it's expedite, but also
get the input of the voters, because we
want to make sure, like, if we bring a project forward
and we were to have gone the other way,
we could have gone through a two-year process.
And at the end, there could be a lawsuit over it.
So this is also a way to make sure we
have support from the community.
So it's speeded up, but also make sure
that we're on the right track.
Thank you.
All right.
I think you've done one of the public comment portions.
So I will close the public comment at this point
and bring it back to council for discussion.
Can I ask my question to the attorney, please.
Steve, four minutes ago, you said that the voters approved
this, that this is written in a way that the land owner,
the property owner, with agreement from council
couldn't effectively change what the voters approved.
Did I interpret what you said correctly?
You did, and that will be spelled out
in the impartial analysis as well, too.
But it is the applicant I want to take away the word applicant.
Really the property owner, the party in control of the property would have to be in agreement
with the changes if it were to happen through some process other than the voters approving
it.
So the council has a role, but there has to be consensus typically outside of an initiative.
Restriction the council or the city is the ultimate decision maker.
And in this instance there would be an ability for an applicant to say we don't, a property
owner to say we don't agree with that change.
Now if they wanted to go to a different kind of zoning, so then they could either come
back with another initiative or they could go through a normal process.
They're not precluded from filing a general plan amendment through the normal process
or a specific plan amendment through the normal process.
It's more that the council wouldn't be able to do a council initiated change that didn't
go through an approval process, a voter approval process.
let me see if I understand. If this was approved by the voters, the property owner also has
the right to come back and say, well, I'm rethinking this. I'd like the council to weigh
in on doing something different, and we could do that without going to the voters?
That is correct.
Is that consistent with state law about voter initiatives?
So many initiatives are written to reserve to the voters a power to change an initiative,
but an initiative doesn't have to be written that way.
Okay.
Thank you.
So it's an exercise of the way that you structure the zoning here, and the zoning is allowing
for this exception, and there may be,
you can think of instances where they are,
the proponents are pushing an initiative right now
that they think will work in some concept
that they have in their mind,
but two years from now they realize
they need to tweak it a bit.
Like it needs to be modified a little bit,
and so they may come back in and ask
for some kind of modification.
The market for senior housing could, in theory, completely disappear, if you will.
And so they might want to come back in with some other kind of change.
And then they would really be back at the kind of the normal starting point where they
come in and they say we want a general plan amendment and a specific plan amendment.
And that could happen.
OK.
Thank you.
I have a question for the city manager then.
So for this report, when would, of course, they're asking us to provide this report now,
they would reimburse us for us, when would this report normally be done without this
particular discussion?
Well, oftentimes these are done after the number of signatures have been gathered and
verified, but it depends, the larger question is it depends, because it depends on the timing
of when the election is relative to signature gathering relative to the verification.
is a little more of a compressed time frame than maybe some other initiatives
in terms of signature gathering to when the election occurs and there's also
obviously the incremental step that if the signatures are gathered and verified
it comes before your counsel and that is a required step that we're targeting for
the June time frame and so the goal for this report is to be done by early June
So there's some time to review and prep for the second council meeting in June.
So normally, or the other option would be us to prepare the report at our cost.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
And if I could just add to that a little bit, the latest the council could request the report
would be when you have found out that the measure has qualified.
And then there's a set period of time within which the report needs to be done.
And so one aspect of the request coming earlier is it allows a little bit more time for the
report to be completed than might otherwise be the case if you waited to the end.
And as I think Dan and the staff report have indicated before, these reports are optional.
They're not mandatory.
And the basis or a rationale for these reports is that cities were receiving initiative measures
that the voters would vote on and there wasn't an opportunity for this type of kind of objective
report of the impacts of it and presumably that purpose behind Elections Code Section
9212 is to provide additional information for voters to be aware of when they make a
determination about something like this.
So they're not just hearing the version from the initiative proponents and whatever in
the ballot arguments pro and con.
So it's prepare the report now or later if it's now it's reimbursed.
I personally don't see any harm in having this report done.
There's more discussions that will obviously happen at some point but I'm prepared to make
a motion on this and we can go from there and that would be to move direct to city manager
to prepare the elections code 9-2-1 to report on the Walnut Creek Senior Housing Transit
Village Initiative and to enter into a cost payment reimbursement agreement with Friends
of Walnut Creek senior housing.
I had one more question before we go to motions.
The question of how community benefits might apply or not
apply to this, is that something that could
be included in the report?
Yes, that's both really under one
of the identified categories of consistency
with the specific plan in this case,
because that's where that's where it's laid out but the council can also ask
for that as well too and so we would address that issue in this report. So it's
subsume and then when it comes back to us in June what action is the council
being asked to take? So ultimately the council has so assuming it gets a
sufficient number of signatures in that instance the council has two choices you
can either adopt it as it's proposed without changes at all or you place it
before the voters those are the only two choices you have and this report can
help both inform the public but also inform the council as to which of those
two choices you want to make you do not have the ability to modify it in any way
so we could adopt the measure the measure that's going to the voters yeah
Yeah, the state law allows City Council to adopt the measure itself.
I want to be clear about one aspect of this.
This measure, as I understand it so far, does not violate or modify Measure A in any way,
But that's one of the things that the council might want to think about when you're deciding
whether you adopt it or not because the council, because of Measure A, is prohibited from doing
certain things that involve height changes.
But as the council is also aware, state law through density bonus can override Measure
A.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
And thank you for letting me ask.
This is a little through the looking glass.
it's a little different. I'd like to expand on that question. So when it, if it
were to come back to us with the signatures and we have that binary choice
of either approving it or sending it to the voters, is that a time where we could
say we'll approve it if? No, you do not have the authority to modify it at that.
mind it's either it's either approve it assuming a whole bunch of additional
information you'll get before that decision is made or place it before the
voters those are your two choices okay before we get to motions to I wanted to
talk about the any other matters of legislative body might require in the
report a so that we're assured that that's in the motion yeah I mean it seemed
to me that the comment that councilmember Darling asked about the impact on our arena
would be covered under number two, the effect on consistency with the general plan including
the housing element. I just want to make sure that includes not just the numeric number
of units but the affordability. It seems to me there's a possibility this could be an
all market rate project and so what that would look like if it were all market
rate and what it would look like if it complied with the inclusionary housing
ordinance by providing the units instead of paying the fees. So is that
that's covered? I had a few other ones and I think they're reflecting the
comments that were heard on the dais here which the process if it were to
pass what what if the initiative measure passes what's the additional seek city
entitlement process that would likely that we would likely undergo for for an
actual project does that mean include design review processes just the
discretionary approvals well I don't know that they're discretionary yeah but
I think the the approval process whether they're likely to be discretionary and if
so then subject to CEQA. Or if not and not subject to CEQA, I think those are
the process we'd want to understand if it were to pass. You mentioned the
potential impacts on the Measure A height limit, which I think we'd all want
to know that information. Councilmember Silva had asked about not a CEQA
document, but environmental, a memo from an environmental consultant that on
traffic and view quarters and not the cultural, not the biological, I mean
it's already, you know, we don't need a memo to tell us it's already developed.
I'd like to, I'd like to know that information from a general environmental
impact standpoint, and then my own ones are, and I don't know, I could see several different
consultants preparing this report, maybe it's all one that specializes in these, but from
an economic standpoint, you know, is there that demand for an all-senior project, and
what is the demand for commercial uses at that site?
Is there a demand, and if so, what type of commercial demand
is there likely to be?
Any others?
Mayor, I would just note, maybe you covered this, Mayor Pro Tem,
but I had notes of the applicability of community
benefits should be considered.
And also, there was a question about,
could the project be all residential and no commercial
to look at that as part of this report?
That sounds good.
There's a motion is there a second motion a second with clarifying with
revisions and additions that I made to be included in their board. Yes Susie
could you roll all the roll please? I'm Mayor Wilk. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Francois. Aye.
Councilmember Darling. Aye. Councilmember Davini. Aye. Councilmember Silva. Aye.
Motion carries. All right now okay let's take a 10-minute break till 815. And we're
back. So next on the agenda is public hearing for the waiver of the reading
and introduction of an ordinance amending title seven of the Walnut Creek
Municipal Code adding chapter 7-4 entertainment zones to establish an
entertainment zone in the public right-of-way. I see our economic
developer manager Mike Nieman is here to provide the presentation. Thank you and
good evening mayor, vice mayor, members of the City Council, members of the
public. Mike Nieman, your economic development manager. And this item in front of you today
is the amendment to the municipal code adding entertainment zones. So first off, what is
an entertainment zone? An entertainment zone applies to the public right of way and it
allows consumption of alcohol on all kinds of publicly owned spaces. They're used to
to activate these spaces.
And they're used by customers and visitors
who can come in and purchase containers, beverages
from local businesses in supporting these businesses.
I included a couple of pictures from San Francisco
where you could see that there's been a lot of success
in activation of the streets
and bringing communities together
as I will talk a little bit later in the presentation.
One important thing to note is these are event-based.
So they are for very specific events, the timing of which is regulated.
So via background, there was a state Senate Bill 969 adopted in 2024,
which went into effect in January 1st, 2025, and it was primarily adopted for San Francisco,
which was the first city in the state to adopt this, and many other cities have followed suit.
This bill allows for adoption of these entertainment districts as a tool for revitalization and
bringing people back together to areas with a lot of where there's a there's an economic
development purpose for activation as one of the ways to offset some of the decline
and some of the areas have seen during COVID, especially some of the more office heavy districts
have seen declines and the businesses there suffered a lot of these entertainment zones
while they're regulated, to be consistent with ABC licensing, so that is similar.
And it's also consistent with the general plan for Walnut Creek.
We have a policy that calls out for promotion of the city as a regional destination, and
that will be consistent as far as bringing visitors to the area.
And there's also a number of successful case studies.
I mentioned San Francisco, which now has over 20 entertainment zones, many other cities,
Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Monica, Long Beach, many others.
Right now there's a lot of cities in South Bay that are looking at them and may have
even adopted some last week in preparation for the World Cup as they're getting ready
to host.
Santa Clara was looking at two in particular.
And I included another picture, the rendering from San Francisco here.
So as far as the process that's outlined in this policy is there's three steps.
And the steps are consistent with the state bill.
The first step would be for a nonprofit that would be a project sponsor to submit a management
plan, which is an application to the city.
This management plan would be subject to council approval, which is really important because
as it gives council discretion over formation
of each entertainment zone that would come in the city.
And then the city would issue
an event-specific special event permit.
So within entertainment zone,
there's further discretion for staff
to make sure that we control when these events happen,
the duration and frequency of events and whatnot.
And it's important to note also
that this particular ordinance amendment
is being brought forward at the request of WCD,
and we have attached a draft of the management plan
to the staff report, although you will have the opportunity
to adopt a management plan should you take action tonight
at a separate meeting.
And you could see here that for the management plan,
the ordinance requires these components be adopted
as part of the formation of the zone,
and all of these sections are included
in the draft management plan that's included.
And WCD has envisioned that this would be the map
that we're showing here.
For their early events, they're thinking
that they would start with Locust Street,
so it would be a subset of this area.
But going forward, they envision having this full area
so they have further flexibility down the road
to choose specific areas within the broader
entertainment zone area where such events would be allowed.
And with that, staff recommendation
would be to move forward with the ordinance
amending Wellness Creek Municipal Code title seven,
adding chapter four, entertainment zones
to establish an entertainment zone
in the public right of way, subject to further action
of adopting the management plan separately.
And I should also mention that we have representatives
from WCD here as well,
should you have any operational questions.
And this completes my presentation
and happy to take any questions.
Thank you, Mike.
Do we have any questions?
Yes.
Is WCD going to make a presentation
or just here to answer questions if needed?
Oh, just questions, okay.
What was the thinking around this particular zone,
you know, perhaps expanding it to other areas,
what can you expand on that part?
Yeah, absolutely.
So the thinking is that this would be
the first entertainment zone,
because this is being brought forward
by Walnut Creek downtown.
But we wanted to create a mechanism
where should there be interest from other parts of town,
should there be a sponsoring nonprofit
who's interested at replicating such an event elsewhere,
There is additional flexibility and they would also be able to do that subject to their own
creation of a management plan approved separately by council.
Okay.
So a pilot?
Correct.
Okay.
Mayor Pertin?
So, thanks, Mike, for the report.
Am I understanding it correctly that the boundaries of the entertainment zone would be set by
the management plan?
And we're not approving the management plan right now.
We have a draft before us.
We're just approving the ordinance that says the entertainment zone will be set by the
management plan.
And that'll come for us later.
We have what's likely going to be presented in the management plan in terms of mostly
downtown.
And I understand that, and that makes sense.
My question was, and I'm familiar with the zones mostly in the city on Front Street,
Where front street is closed down for part of the street and there are four or five bars
around that area and you can circulate in that area by a beer in that front street entertainment
zone and take it outside of the establishment and walk around the street in it.
Is that something similar planned here even though the entertainment zone boundary could
be as large as all of downtown?
That's correct.
Thank you for your question.
So first, you're correct, Vice Mayor, in how you describe the framework.
And in terms of the entertainment zone, the management plan that we included a draft of
is up to.
So it includes a zone that could accommodate these events.
Now, there would be specific events for which WCD will identify what is the area and work
closely with staff to get the special event permit.
So the thinking is similar to Front Street in San Francisco where there would be a smaller
contained area because it would be easier to contain.
It would be easier to come up with a traffic management plan signage.
So the zone that you're seeing in front of you, which we showed in the slide, would be
the zone that could accommodate future events through sub-sections, but not necessarily
the whole downtown closure given the impact it wouldn't have?
So and I assume it would be WCD that would be the applicant for the special event permit.
They essentially could apply for a special event permit anywhere within this area if
this is the area in the management plan.
But the special event permit would say it's going to be the block of locus between Bonanza
and Cyprus for instance.
So for that permit, then outdoor alcohol can only be sold on that block?
Yes, that's correct.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just one quick question.
So it sounds like, reading through the ordinance, a project sponsor must be a nonprofit, so
you can't end up, if we set up the entertainment zone process, an individual restaurateur can't
Decide that they want to set up an entertainment zone. It has to be done by a non-profit
Yes, that is correct. And that is based on the state law. Okay. Good. Thank you
It's going to sound redundant I know that but so this is a
Potential entertainment zone as defined at this point
so WCD becomes the holder potentially becomes the holder of the
Management plan therefore the provision to have an entertainment zone and they could
spec
Locust Street from Bonanza to Cyprus on the first and third Tuesdays of the month
So we could go there rather than coming to our meetings. No
What is frequency of activations mean can we limit the number of times per month that these can be triggered
We could and that is something that we could be see we would be seeking your direction on as well right now
This is a framework and the way that we have initially conceived this framework is it would be outlined in the management plan
with subject to further special events where staff can
control that and this would be very timely to provide your feedback to WCD because then that would be
Incorporated in the management plan that will come forth in front of you at a later time and then my other question is technical
currently the alcohol
Alcoholic Beverage Commission controls the bar
The alcohol licensing and there are different grades grades. There's you know you have full
full service
Beer wine and cocktails or you could only have beer and wine you must be selling food
So how will WCD monitor the adherence to the individual license of each of the retail establishments that are participating?
Does everybody get a different colored cup?
Hi, good morning. Or good morning. Good evening.
at the Hemingway-
It's almost that, no.
The monitoring would take place by, yes,
that we would have custom cups that would need
to be distributed to the participating businesses.
So the businesses express an interest
as long as they're in good standing with ABC,
they can register online to participate
in the entertainment zone.
And then we would supply them with the cups and wristbands
that they would need just for this particular event.
And then we would have also the training for their staff.
And then also a manual that would be available
to all of the participating businesses
to have that onsite with one designated person
within the business that's educated
to know what the procedures are for the entertainment zone.
And then also volunteers and staff
to be able to monitor the people who are going in and out
of the businesses.
They can't also take a cup into a new business,
so they have to be outside on the street.
Right now, the proposal would be to serve beer, wine,
and mixed drinks.
So that's also up for discussion.
So how do we?
I'm not sure who this is.
Is it police, the ABC or WCD ensure that a retailer that
is only allowed to serve beer and wine
is not deciding to serve a mixed cocktail punch
during the entertainment zone period?
Yeah, that's a level that we'd have to address.
I think it's ABC, they're putting themselves
to, you know, jeopardy by potentially breaking, you know, their own license.
So that's information that we would need to share.
And then if we find out through staff or volunteers or even police, we can pull them in.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you.
If I may add also, what this ordinance does is it regulates the public right of way, right?
So the idea and the thinking behind it that businesses operate as usual, there's really
nothing that's changing about their type of operation.
In terms of hours of operation, what they're allowed to serve as long as they continue
to comply with ABC and other city regulations, it just regulates the fact that now visitors
are able to bring the beverage outside and consume it on the public right of way.
So that's really the focus of it.
And there hasn't really, we haven't
heard of any violations in other entertainment zones
during events where businesses would deviate from that,
nor have we heard anything from other prior WCD events
that bring a large number of people to town
in terms of businesses violating some of their ABC licensing.
Kelsey found also that within the guidelines,
There is a line that states only those alcoholic beverages
allowable by the license type and the ordinance
establishing the entertainment zone
may be provided to patrons for purposes of participating
in the entertainment zone's privilege.
So within those guidelines, there
is a clear statement that they need to adhere
to their own license.
So the rules are clear.
Yeah, and adherence to the rules are always a question.
Yeah, but that's the businesses running
responsible plan. Thank you. So what I'm curious what's the difference between
how a street fair currently previously first month, Wednesdays and whatever it
is going to be this summer because people will have wine and beer they're
in the street so what's the difference? Right so we've been operating the first
Wednesdays and Locust Street festivals now for 12 years and those have all of
the bar services have been operated
through Walnut Creek Downtown Association.
So we bring in the beverage partners
and or purchase the, first pull the license
and then set up the bar and manage that,
the sales and tickets and such.
And so this now would move that away from our team
and put this into the hands of the professionals
and allow for the businesses to serve their beverages
either inside or outside of their business,
and also increase that foot traffic,
which they've been asking about.
We've had many conversations with the businesses
who have either vendors or other tents
that are in front of their establishments,
and they're frustrated with that,
so you can only allow for so many gaps.
This would allow for them to really showcase their business
and increase that foot traffic.
So it's not going to be like, I keep envisioning Bourbon Street in New Orleans, it's not going
to be like that. We've been doing, we've been doing this, as I say, for 12 years. If anything,
this will bring additional coverage. It will give extra eyes and ears, you know, from the
the bar and restaurant staff, extra insurance protection, and then we will also have volunteers
monitoring at the entrance and exits to make sure that the signage is being adhered to,
that they don't go beyond the certain, certain footprint. So the best, and this
is sort of leveraging what councilmember Silva said, the best laid out plans
always sound great when everybody is hearing to them, but considering that we
have our Walnut Creek Police Department's finest leadership here in the
room, what is to prevent somebody from getting drinks legally and then pouring
it into another container for somebody underage now they're on the street when
When they're in restaurants, the servers, the management, they're able to monitor that,
it's much more difficult to see that on the street.
How is that planning on being enforced?
Well, wristbands.
Everyone carrying a cup would have to have a wristband.
And the wristbands would have multiple places where they can be, where the IDs are checked,
either at the entrance or the exits, and then also within the individual businesses, and
then our staff, and that's just something that we absolutely can walk up to someone.
do that, anyway, request the ID and make sure that it's legit.
If it's questionable, then we pull in PD.
Okay.
So, I'm curious, what are one or two of the unintended consequences that you could potentially
see from allowing this?
Probably just the number of folks.
folks. I mean, right now we probably average about 4,000 to 5,000 people on a Wednesday
evening for our past events on a strong day. So maybe just, you know, crowd control, so
anticipating, you know, that in advance. Beyond that, we see it as a really, you know, positive
kind of modern way to help our small businesses and be able to exceed, you know, their daily
revenue and being able to continue to put Walnut Creek out in front as a regional destination.
Those are my questions. How many events, Kathy, do you envision having, assuming that this
gets approved and you get a... How many special event permits would you likely be applying
for? Right. So for 2026 this year, it just applies to Locust Street Festival, which is
July 8th so to July 8th and August 5th and it would be I know it's called a
special event permit or a street closure permit is it envisioned there would be a
street closure involved with it as well yes all of them would include street
closures and then what happens to the Locust Street Festival when I've been
there volunteering to serve beers and I love doing that job but so it sounds
like you'll be putting me out of business.
What is the, you'll still have the music
and other kind of family friendly events
and things going on as part of the festivals.
Right.
It'll still be the same activation,
just more entertainment.
But then also a little bit different of a footprint
as far as the vendors and the layout
so that we have clear vision of the participating businesses
and allowing them to advertise and market themselves.
And just a nut to beat it at horse, but just to clarify,
so even though the whole entertainment zone is downtown
with this Locust Street special permit,
I couldn't buy a beer at Stadium Pub, walk outside
and go down to the Locust Street Festival
because that's not what covered by this permit.
Correct, yeah.
So I was wondering, thinking back to like COVID days,
like when Lincoln was closed and there was that area there
that's sort of being utilized in between the buildings
and I think stadium pub across the street maybe.
Is there flexibility or do you envision flexibility
in this plan where you might set up an entertainment district
that like Fridays and Saturday evenings this area is closed
and is like a recurring sort of destination in downtown?
Is that like is that that there is that kind of flexibility right you find an area that's you know, really working
There's definitely the framework that would allow the pathway towards that
There's nothing that precludes that if we see this kind of as mentioned earlier
It was starting it as a little bit of a pilot, but if it works it works really well
It's something that could be expanded. Mm-hmm
Yeah
Why don't we stop the questions right now here if there is there if there is public comment
Please come forward now
Doesn't look like there is public comment, so we'll close the public comment portion and
Let me ask if we have any questions for our police department. I
Do great. I think it's probably captain
We're gonna get the chief
Hello good evening Ryan, he was Walnut Creek police chief
Good evening chief
I'm wondering if you can speak to any big-picture concerns you have with the program this the scope of the entertainment zone
outdoor alcohol
No
Broadly, no, we don't have any major concerns here that our position on this is that Walnut Creek downtown has thought this out pretty thoroughly
We have met with them and we're pleased with the controls they've put in place
With respect to the events themselves. We kind of view this as another first Wednesday or Locust Street festival
and if needed meet need be will staff it but we're also happy to report back on the results if
There are issues, but we'll also raise any concerns with Walnut Creek downtown, and I'm
Very confident we won't
If we were to raise issues that they would be addressed promptly
Have there been any issues or concerns with the first Wednesday events no?
And I think that's it for me for now.
Other last questions?
I know that you mentioned that the businesses that
are allowed to sell are based on whether they
have the ABC license.
We've had occasionally businesses that, while they
haven't lost their license, there's
been like misconduct or issues.
Is there a mechanism in place shy of losing your liquor
license that would preclude you from participating in the plan the way it'll be structured?
I think it would be working with PD and Lieutenant Olson who's I think with Lieutenant Morehouse
who's the current ABC liaison to create that list.
I usually have a list in communication with PD for those that are struggling with adhering
to their guidelines, but that would definitely be.
we finalize the list of the participants and we run that through and that would through
the event permit and not the special event application and so that runs through all the
channels of the city including PD.
So for each event you'll go through and vet who's behaving and who's not and they'll
only get there for the event if they're on the nice list.
And then the applicants themselves
or the business themselves, they have to apply online
through the ABC portal.
And so I would imagine that they would flag it.
That's something that I can definitely confirm,
but I would imagine they would flag that.
Bounce, bounce, bounce.
So if we have a special event and it has hours,
so let's say it's on a Thursday night and it's from 5 to 10,
Any establishment that has later ABC hours, they can serve till 11 or midnight.
They would have to take it indoors after the special event hours are over.
Correct.
All right.
I think we're done with questions.
So we'll bring it back to council for any further comments.
And I actually have one comment I just wanted to make.
My recommendation on this is, I mean, let's give this a shot, and I like a pilot program
where rather than it being automatically renewed, and then we have to then have a whole hearing
again, I would suggest something that we have a year pilot program and it expires unless
we renew it, and so we at least have a report back to us and then we can evaluate it at
the 11 month time frame or whatever it is and then we can renew it rather than
just saying okay this is the way it's going to be and then having to pull it
back at some point that's just my recommendation but that would be an out
on to what what Walnut Creek downtown is asking for. I've been looking at this
and trying to figure out what approach I thought would make sense because it it's
obvious that the team has put a lot of thought into this they've worked really
closely with city staff, and they're building on top of 12 years of operating
events with some really excellent bartenders, but really doing a good job
of it. So rather than having it sunset, I would prefer just including a requirement
that we get a report back to council so that we have eyes on how it's working. So
rather than saying it sunsets at the end of 26
or the end of 27, just ask for a report back.
Wouldn't we be getting that anyway?
Doesn't Walnut Creek Downtown provide us with reports
and we can ask for a report anytime?
Well, we could ask for it at any time.
I'm just thinking an affirmative requirement
to have the visibility on it rather than make it stop
and then have an opportunity to restart.
Well, and yes, they do have to come to us with Walnut Creek
downtown comes in with their budget and all of those things.
But this is just something specific to the entertainment
side.
I wouldn't even suggest that they would then automatically
stop.
And now we have to restart it.
It would be that it would sunset unless we're
able to then renew it prior to that.
So that it wouldn't have to stop and then restart.
We could look at this and then renew it at the 11th month
or whatever it is, just the idea being that let's make sure
that we're proactive on this rather than, you know,
at some point having to then actively stop it,
which I think is more challenging.
What do other folks think?
Well, what concerns me about a sunset is there are many,
there are many state laws that have sunsets in them
and they get rammed through to renew them at the sunset.
But I also would be concerned at the timing of it.
A year may, if we started it now,
a year would be just before the beginning
of the next summer season, which is the likely time.
So I would say two years,
because they can run through two summers at that point.
I like the idea of a pilot too.
I think it's new.
I think it's gonna work out really well,
but I'd like to, you know, truth test that assumption.
And I think two years would, you know,
it sounds like there will only be two events this year,
so we can get it up and running, see how it works,
and then maybe expand it next year, but,
and I believe there's a way to do that, right?
We can put that into the ordinance for a sunset,
and then similar to state legislation,
it would have to come back to the city council
for a renewal or an elimination of the sunset.
Yeah, I can live with two years.
I mean, I think it's going to work out well as well.
We don't know how many of us are going
to be here in a few years, so I just
want to make sure that we've got some kind of guard rails
on there.
So can we ask the city attorney how we would phrase that?
Yeah, you can.
If the council is trying to get two summer sessions involved
in it, what you could do is you could
amend the effective date section, which is section five of the ordinance.
The last sentence of that says this ordinance shall become effective on the 31st day after
adoption.
So think, today's meeting, next meeting, it gets adopted, then 30 days thereafter it takes
effect.
So I would say you could amend that last sentence to say this ordinance shall become effective
on the 31st day after its adoption and shall terminate on September 30th, 2028 unless extended
by the City Council.
So moved.
Second.
Can you call the roll please?
Councilmember Silva.
Aye.
Mayor Will.
Aye.
Councilmember Darling.
Aye.
Councilmember Daveny.
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Francois.
Aye.
Aye.
Thank you.
That's really disappointed that he's not going to get the poor beer.
I'm sure you're all going to figure out a way to do that, right?
All right, next on the agenda is a closed session with items related to the following.
Conference with Labor Negotiators, Unrepresented Employees City Manager, Unrepresented Employees
City Attorney.
Under California law, yeah, that's where we got a little bit more.
Under California law, public comments at special meetings are limited to subjects on the agenda
only therefore public comments will be received at this time for the item
previously mentioned after an opportunity for public comment that City
Council will reconvene for the closed session discussion. I do not see anybody
here to make public comments so we will now reconvene to a closed session on the
second floor.