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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
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 will not be separately read into the record. I'm Kevin Wilak, Mayor of the
City of Wall and Creek, and welcome to the Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026 regular
meeting of the Wall and Creek City Council. And if you'd all please join me
in the Pledge of Allegiance. City Clerk Susie Martinez, would you please call
the roll? Councilmember Darlin? Here. Councilmember Davini? Here. Councilmember Silva? Here.
Mayor Pro Tem Francois? Here. Mayor Wilk? Here. Alright, so before we start off,
I just wanted to make a quick housekeeping note here that agenda item 6A is the assessment
report and intend to levy assessments for the Walnut Creek Tourism Business Improvement
District and that's being pulled from the agenda tonight and will return at a later
date.
So if anybody is here for that item, you won't be here, but you can actually talk on it during
public comment if you would like anyway.
And I'll mention that again prior to that item coming up.
So first on the agenda, though, is our proclamation for Gun Violence Awareness Day.
And I want to, well, actually, I'll invite Kathy up in a minute from Mom to Man Action.
I want just to first mention that people wear orange on Gun Violence Awareness Day, as I
have my orange kerchief here, to raise awareness about gun violence to honor Hadiya Pendleton,
who was a 15-year-old girl who was shot and killed in 2013,
just days after performing at the 2013 presidential inaugural
parade.
Her friends wore orange to honor at her
because it's the color that hunters wear to signal safety
and protect themselves and others in the woods.
And the movement grew to a national campaign
with the first wear orange weekend in 2015.
And the proclamation states that whereas each year
in the United States, nearly 46,000 individuals
killed and nearly 97,000 individuals are wounded by gunfire. More than 19,000
individuals are killed but in homicides involving guns. Nearly 26,000
individuals die by suicide using a gun. And 500 individuals are killed in
unintentional shootings. And it's the highest responsibility of our elected
leaders to protect public safety and cities across the nation, including
Walnut Creek, which are working to end gun violence with evidence-based
solutions. Local elected officials and law enforcement officers in partnership
with local violence intervention activists and resources know that their
communities best know their communities best are the most familiar with local
criminal activity and how to address it and our best position to understand how
to keep their communities safe. Whereas we support the support for the Second
Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens goes hand-in-hand with keeping guns away
from people with dangerous histories, gun violence prevention is more important
than ever as we see an increase in firearm homicides and non fatal shootings, increased
calls to domestic violence and suicide hotlines, and an increase in city gun violence.
And we renew our commitment to reduce gun violence and pledge to do all we can to keep
firearms out of the hands of people who should not have access to them and encourage responsible
gun ownership to help keep our families and communities safe.
And therefore I, Kevin Wilk, mayor of the city of Walnut Creek, on behalf of the Walnut
Creek City Council to hereby declare the day of June 6,
2026 as National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
And I encourage all citizens to support their local community's
efforts to prevent the tragic effects of gun violence
to honor and value human lives.
And with that, I would like to invite up Kathy Maloney
with Moms Demand Action and the end gun violence groups
of Rossmore Ford to accept the proclamation.
And if you have a few words to say?
When I looked up the data, as you instructed me to do
before I came up, I found something a little different
than what you're saying.
So I'll just leave what you say.
So I'm the president of the End Gun Violence Club
of Rossmoor and I'm also a member of Moms Demand Action
and they kind of fostered our club.
And so I'm very, very grateful that you're doing this for us.
And I wore orange today.
Did you see this?
Orange.
So, yeah, thank you so much.
And I do want to say one thing quickly.
In our research and our speakers that we've had over the three years now that we've been
in operation, one of the key organizations and programs that
do help stop gun violence are the Community Violence
Prevention Organizations.
And we have one in Richmond.
We have one in Oakland, Youth Alive.
We have a very interesting in Contra Costa County health
program. It's not a neighborhood program. It's the county program part of the health
department. So I always like to say that. And of course, their funding has been decimated,
but they're managing all of these clubs, all these organizations. So thank you on behalf
of mothers and seniors at Rossmoor.
Well, thank you, and we'll take a picture here with proclamation.
All right, next we have the oath of office for Pete Sutherland for the Measure O Citizens
Oversight Committee, and I invite City Clerk Susie Martinez to administer the oath of office
to our newest commissioner.
I, Pete Sutherland, 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, that I take this
obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, that I will well and
faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter just introduce
yourself to who is going to be our newest member of the Commission for the
measure of oversight last time I did that I was when I joined the Air Force
in 1981 so Pete Sutherland and I have been in Walnut Creek since 1988
I'm a retired teacher, so I taught 35 years, half of those in at Northgate and half at
Los Lomas, and the majority of those times I've lived in Walnut Creek, and so that's
almost 40 years now.
Although my wife exceeds me, she moved here in 1968, and we bought the house from her
mother.
So I'm excited to be on the Measure O Committee.
I've lived here as I mentioned a long time and we love it.
We raise three children here and we're excited for them to be able to also enjoy the benefits
of the city that Measure O will provide for us.
So thank you for the council, Mayor Wilk for this opportunity.
Thank you, Pete.
And to have a teacher who taught in both of our public high schools is impressive.
I think I may be coming to you for some advice on some of the issues coming up.
Thank you very much for applying and now becoming one of our commissioners.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right.
Next, we have a presentation, and we have the pleasure of welcoming Dwayne Dolman, board
member of the California Association for Local Economic Development, or CALED, known as California's
premier economic development association, with more than 900 members and is one of the
largest economic development associations in the country.
is here to present the Merit Award in the Programs and Promotions category. And I'll
just quickly mention that this award recognizes the City of Walnut Creek's partnership with
Walnut Creek Downtown, resulting in strengthening downtown vitality by enhancing the pedestrian
experience, supporting restaurants and increasing street level activity. Caled recognizes the
city's outdoor dining program's meaningful role in promoting downtown and advancing an
an experiential, experiential,
I almost said experimental,
but experiences economic vibrancy in Walnut Creek
and the impact of the program to incentivize
and expedite the delivery and installation
of code compliant outdoor dining structures
under the city's outdoor dining policy.
With that, I will give you the floor.
Thank you very much.
Good evening, mayor, members of the city council.
As was said, my name is Dwayne Dallman.
I'm the economic development manager
for the city of Alameda.
but tonight I'm here in my capacity as a board member
for Cal Ed.
So every year Cal Ed does economic development awards.
These are voted on by our peers
and then presented at the annual conference.
So, as was said tonight, I'm excited to be here.
And actually this is the second year in a row.
I was telling Mike, I just keep on coming back
to Walnut Creek and I need to have my city get some awards.
But I'm excited to be here to present
this Cal Ed Award of Merit to the city of Walnut Creek
in the programs and promotions category
for the Outdoor Dining PODS grant program,
and PODS stands for Permitted Outdoor Dining Structures.
So just a little bit, I also wanted to reiterate
some of the highlights of this program.
This program delivered a parklet, eight parklets
over a period of 11 months.
And just to give the council credit
for encouraging the outdoor dining through their vision
and establishing the fund that went to pay
for these outdoor dines, $100,000.
Also wanted to give credit to staff
for their collaboration between departments
and the exceptional customer service that they had
of helping restaurants through this process.
And that collaboration involved economic development,
planning, building, public works, and finance.
So overall, this was really
an amazing cross-department collaboration effort
where the city's outdoor dining program continues
to enhance the quality of life in downtown Walnut Creek.
So I'm happy to be here tonight
really happy to present this award for a great job for for economic development and for all the
departments that were involved in this. Great well thank you very much and I will say that
while we all had very difficult and challenging times during the pandemic and with so just trying
to save our businesses I heard over and over again the silver lining in Walnut Creek was the
outdoor dining and it was like Europe walking down the streets I've heard that so many times
and now that we've got another dozen plus outdoor dining areas, more to come,
I'm very happy this becomes a permanent part of Walnut Creek now. Thank you for being here
and presenting this. Sure. Thank you. And yeah, and Michael, yeah, let's have a picture with all
of this and have the economic development team here too. Right. I think that's it for the pictures.
Next on the agenda is the consent calendar. Does any council member wish to pull an item
for discussion and does any member of the staff wish to pull an item for discussion?
All right 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 to the city's website
for public review and are included in the meeting record but will not separately
be read into the record. It's like no speakers either. So seeing no speakers
I'll ask the council if anyone would like to make a motion with regard to the
consent calendar. We have a motion and a second and city clerk would you call the
roll please. Moving right along here next on the agenda is public
communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for items not on the
agenda. Under the Brown Act the council cannot act on items raised during public
communications but may respond briefly to statements made or questions posed.
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 at this time, I'll note that the time is 6.20,
which means that public comments on items
not on the agenda will last until approximately 6.50,
and then the remainder of any such comments
at the end of the open session portion
of the meeting if necessary.
So if you're here to speak during public comment,
now's the time to come on up.
And actually, you can just line up against the wall too.
and please state your name for the record.
Good evening, Mayor and Council members.
My name's Florence Weddington.
I am a long-time resident of Walnut Creek.
I've lived here since 1990.
And I am also the Walnut Creek representative
and board president
for Central Contra Costa Sanitary District.
And I'm here to personally invite you
and the residents of Walnut Creek
to Central Sands' 80th anniversary celebration.
Central San is your friendly neighborhood sewer agency
and so much more.
And we have proudly served Walnut Creek
since our inception.
And we're hosting a once in a decade sewer party
where we'll pull out all the stops to engage
and say thank you to our customers
and for entrusting us to safely collect
and treat their wastewater
and protect public health and the environment.
So on Saturday, June 13th, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.,
Central San will host this 80th anniversary event.
The party's gonna be multi-generational,
family-friendly, educational, and of course, fun.
It's gonna feature educational displays,
treatment plant tours, big trucks.
I'm a huge fan of big trucks, I love big trucks.
There's gonna be free food and poop emoji ice cream.
So you can't miss out on that right and then to go along with that. There's going to be a one-ton toilet
You can actually get inside and who doesn't want their picture taken on a toilet or in a toilet, right?
And then there's going to be racing toilets and so much more and it's all free to the community
so if you want more information about the event I
Left invitations with you all up there, and there's also invitations in the back
But you can check out our website at central sand dot org for more information
Thank you Florence and do people need to make a reservation RCP to be able to come
No, they can just show up
You sure you have enough toilets for everybody to raise well that you'll have to take turns
You have to play nice, but if you get there at the right time you will see me race
Against the board president for Contra Costa water district. So oh, I think my money's on you
Well, I've been mentally practicing so it should be fun either way
But I hope to see you guys there as well as the Walnut Creek residents. Thank you. And again, that's central sand org
Great. Thank you very much. You're welcome
Good evening, Mayor Wilk and City Council. My name is Ross Hill assign. My company is
I live in Alamo, and over the last couple months I've been working with the city staff
regarding a preliminary application for development that we're proposing, or that we're proposing
to redevelop at 1700 Mount Diablo Boulevard.
That's the Chevron gas station that was built in 1962.
My message tonight is really just of gratitude so far with the city and the staff.
I really appreciate the communication, the emails,
the phone calls, the Zoom calls that I've
been able to have with staff.
I feel like it's been very collaborative.
And I look forward to submitting a formal application
here in the coming months.
I also want to let you know that I'm a millennial.
And so I'm in the service station, gas station business.
I try to be very forward thinking
about sustainability, connectivity, pedestrian,
what, access and safety.
So what we've been doing over the last couple months
is with some of the recommendations
from some of the leadership here was to reach out to CCTA.
And we've basically developed a framework right now
where we're gonna be redeveloping
the Chevron gas station, hopefully,
reducing the amount of fuel dispensing islands.
So I think right now there's 14 or 16 fueling positions
at that site.
I think we're gonna cut that in half.
And we're also going to be including
what CCTA is calling mobility hubs,
where there'll be EV charging, bike charging,
improved bus shelter, other things like that
that basically, I don't wanna speak for CCTA,
but they're excited to partner with us
on a mobility hub aspect at the site.
So really, I see my time's already running out.
Two minutes is fast, but I guess I'll just leave you
with my message tonight is just of gratitude.
And if any of you would like to reach out to me,
my information's here in the card.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ross.
Actually, I do have a quick question for you.
So the site has not been sold, is that correct?
This is all development under the current owner?
Yeah, the current owner is Chevron.
Okay.
Yeah, it's not owned by a franchisee or dealer.
All right, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor.
Good evening, members of the city council.
My name is Sakura Kuroda,
and I go to the public high school
just down the street in Northgate.
My name is Alina Ling and I go to the same high school
as Sakura.
Make sure you speak into the microphone.
I heard it, but the people at home.
We're here tonight on behalf of IES Abroad and Northgate High
School itself.
In August, in this coming August from the 15th to the 24th
for one week, we have a small group
of Japanese international students coming.
Originally, we were asked to speak today
to ask for your help with promotion,
as we weren't able to find enough accommodation
for the international students who were visiting.
But we kind of just got an update
that we were able to find the host families.
But tonight, I wanted to ask if any of you
would be interested in promoting or assisting us
in promoting the program itself.
So I wasn't able to participate last year, but Alina did.
And she hosted.
So Elina hosted a student named Naho-Chang for one week last year, and I've heard a
lot of different feedback from different American students who were able to host and Japanese
students, and they all described it as really a life-changing experience.
I think the program itself really lets students from across international waters build deep
cultural bonds and reduces these stereotypes that we might have about each other as well
as builds empathy and lifelong global friendships.
I don't really have much else to say but my message tonight is one of promotion pretty
much.
You did great, thank you.
And so this is with Kita City and in fact two of my council member colleagues, Council
Member Darling and Silva join me at the delegation. We went to Keeta City in
March and they were just so gracious. The mayor and council and the staff there
they're gonna be coming out here actually next year and we look forward
to their visit but we also have multiple exchanges with Keeta City students.
There's one at Northgate, there's one for Las Lomas and there's one at Seven
Hills as well. So this is the one for Northgate. Sounds like it'll be at the
beginning of school which is great and this is I think we've all worked in one
way or another with the key to city representatives here and I'm happy to
continue to let people know how wonderful the program is and how and
again how warm and gracious hosts there and visitors here they are. I think your
your mother is Heroku right so she knows how to reach me feel free to send me any
information you can also send it to mayor at walnut dash creek org that way
we all get it and we look forward to seeing the students when they're here in
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, my name is Donald Schivel.
I was here in February and showed you guys some stuff.
I have an issue with no investigations being done on anything.
When I was here last time, I talked about the dozen implants in my head, John Muir Hospital
did and Traveler's Insurance, Corp. Executive David J. Chetsuti. Here's an attorney general
letter in response to my 160 page IP PIU to investigate. They said, exhaust all attempts
at Walnut Creek PD trying to get an investigation into what was done to me in the hospital.
Also, I was poisoned in that surgery I was threatened into. All of my injuries I told
you about. Fractured chest, left broken. Never got any medical care for any of my work accident.
Nothing. So the attorney general is that's why I'm here. I'm following their process.
So I've got affidavit here. You can go over it. I wanted to give it to you because I've
been to the police, been there, went and talked to Slater out there. They didn't even want
look at nothing and I understand their situation. They're in a situation because
this involves FISA 702, it involves a terrorist watch list scam being used to
cover up organized crime in the hospitals where people are now subjected
to being poisoned, contract killings, bounties on people's heads. I got all the
evidence and it's all going to come out in court. So what I want to do is I want
give this to you. Please come back, excuse me sir, please come back to the
podium and finish up there. You can go to X.com. S-H-I-V-E-L shivel 425 46 and see
all the evidence. So I appreciate you coming here. I'm not sure you've been
speaking with our police department it sounds like. I've been there a dozen
thousand times trying to get an investigation going while I'm being ran off the road, staged
accidents, direct energy attacks, the injuries are right there.
We'll take a look at this and if there's any further action on our end we'll contact you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right, seeing no more public communication, we'll close public communication now and we'll
move on to council member and staff announcements, reports and activities or requests.
Start with the city attorney if, any closed session announcements.
Mayor, there were no reportable actions
from closed session this evening.
City Manager?
Yeah, good evening, Dan Buckeye, City Manager.
I do have one fun update this evening.
Hopefully I'm not stealing any of your thunder on this one,
but you may recall a couple months ago,
there was a class of fifth grade students
from Buena Vista Elementary to raise funds
for Odyssey of the Mind for their traveling
to the national event in Iowa.
It was the first time I think anybody locally here
had qualified for the national event or at least recently.
I received an email just earlier today
that they placed second out of 51 teams at the competition.
Wow.
So a great moment for those kids
and for some more of the free presents.
So I'd pass that along.
Could you be in favor and whoever the contact is there,
have them come into a future council meeting.
They'll set us known, we'll give them recognition.
Sounds good.
Thank you.
Council Member Davini.
Thank you, good evening.
relatively short report today from a few weeks ago.
But I had the pleasure of meeting with the Webullos,
Webull oil scouts.
I think that's right before Cub Scouts.
Couple weeks ago when we talked about city governance,
how our election systems work in Walnut Creek,
how ordinances are passed.
So very current topic and it was an interesting conversation
and enjoyed meeting with them.
We attended both Mayor Pro Tem Francois and I,
attended the gala for joy-bounds,
Unleash Happiness this past weekend.
That was a really great event.
We raised, or they raised a lot of money
for the organization that connects people with their pets,
but also provides a lot of therapy
and community service as well.
So really appreciate what they're doing out at Joy Bound
and that was a pleasure to attend.
We were able to attend Mayor Wilk
and the city manager, Buckshi and I
were able to attend Chief McAlister's appointment
as chief of our Contra Costa Fire Department
just a few days ago.
So that was here in, or just over the border in Concord,
but really a special event complete with bagpipes
and big show of trucks and engines and apparatus.
And congratulations to Chief McAlister
and obviously wish him the best
in his tenure now as our fire chief.
We had a Chamber of Commerce event last week
for the organization Fallen Heroes,
for the police and fire whose members have died
in the line of service.
This organization provides funding for their families,
both financial as well as counseling and therapy
and it's a great organization
and we're fortunate to have them here in Walnut Creek.
And that concludes my report.
Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem Francois.
Okay, thank you, Mayor.
I'm going to let you talk about Memorial Day.
It was a very poignant celebration.
Thank you for organizing that
and to staff for being there,
including that Ballinger behind the scenes
and the Walnut Creek Concert Band.
I said I was gonna let you talk about it,
but also just wanted to appreciate
that you gave each of us an opportunity
to discuss the importance of Memorial Day to each of us
and it felt nice to be included in the celebration.
So thank you for that.
I also had the pleasure,
I should give you the credit for this one, too.
Of attending Merwood's Walkathon Club,
which was really one of the highlights
when I was mayor in 2022.
Merwood, that year they were particularly active.
Probably every other week I was getting a call
from someone on the PTA or the principal
or someone that wanted to invite me to do something.
And the Walkathon Club is a group
that is organized by the PTA
and it includes kids from first to fifth grade
and they get to walk around the lap at lunch,
they run out to do this, they're so excited.
And some of them had walked 100 miles.
And so, I appreciate you letting me tag along for that.
That was really meaningful.
And I got to connect with the young lady who said,
I know you are, you're Matt Francois,
you came to my first grade class.
So, a really cute heartwarming event,
nice to see those kids.
And I think that program now is getting momentum
in other schools including Buena Vista,
learning about it and trying to implement
those programs at their schools.
And thank you to the PTA volunteers,
these moms and dads who come out there
and dedicate time to see this happen.
What was amazing is that there were the five
mom volunteers and I said,
well do you need five volunteers for this?
It was organized chaos.
There were dozens of kids.
I think they needed more than five.
The fact they only got it,
they were only able to do it with five
was impressive.
especially those first through third grade.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, there's a lot of energy there to try to contain.
Tended the liaison to Rossmore, Walnut Creek,
good meeting, gave them an update on all of our activities,
are always grateful for that.
One of the questions from the board members
was an interest on, they were happy to hear about
the emergency preparedness manager position
that we funded through our fiscal year 27 budget
and seeing how they can collaborate with us on that
and also wanting to find out if there are opportunities
for grant funding for fire preparedness.
So just planting that seed and I'll follow up
with the city manager and get the contact.
There of course we did support a shaded fuel break program
between Rossmore and Lafayette a few years ago
that was sponsored by the fire district
to increase the safety of Rossmore.
So other opportunities we can look for there
we should try to take advantage of.
along with council member Silva,
I serve as liaison to the Recycle Smart Board
and the main event at our last meeting
was adoption of our fiscal year 26-27 budget,
which was a little different this year
because our new contracts take effects next March.
And so this budget year will essentially be 17 months,
no, 16 months instead of 12 months
and want to thank Councilmember Silva
and the other members of the Finance Committee
at Recycle Smart who did a lot of the heavy lifting
to prepare it for the board approval.
Good news is this each agency has a reserve fund,
Walnut Creek's reserve balance is something
like a little over $6 million.
And there are rate increases on the horizon
with the new contracts and we'll get into that
and have a full presentation on that.
there's also additional services that are being offered.
So we're looking at those reserve funds
as being a source of trying to soften the blow,
the cushion, some of the rate increases
that are coming forward down the pike.
And let's see, and what else did I have?
Felt like I did more than that.
Yeah, I went to Joy Bound with Council Member Davini.
That was a fun event.
I got to, they made it fun with bringing out small puppies
And then it was a 70s theme.
So I had a hard time getting my wife to leave the dance floor.
But we finally, she shut it down, and it was time to go.
And I think they raised a lot of money
and want to appreciate the fire department
for offering kind of a couple of nice meals at station one
here downtown was auctioned off.
And it was a fun, it was a good evening.
And then finally, I was at the farmer's market on Sunday.
And just, it was really, it was nice.
There were a lot of good people, people were happy.
They were shopping.
Strawberries are in season.
And just wanted to remind everyone
that one of us will be at the, you know,
at the Farmer's Market booth each Sunday,
generally from 10 to 12,
and except if it's a holiday weekend.
So that's my report.
Great, and I'm up next at Farmer's Market.
Council Member Zilla.
Thank you very much, and thank you also.
I will echo Mayor Pro Tem in thanking you
for the work on the Memorial Day event.
I've had numerous people come up to me,
it was a very crowded event,
and numerous people come up and commend us for it,
and I really wanna thank staff
because it's a heavy lift every year
to get that ready to go, so thank you.
The Association of Bariore Governments Executive Committee
will be presenting two items to the General Assembly
on the 18th of June.
The ABAG represents the 101 cities and nine counties
in the Bay Area.
The two items are the budget for the coming year
with a slight increase of about 4%
to everyone's membership dues, inflationary costs.
And the other is the presentation
of a slate of next year's officers.
President will be from Roanert Park, Susan Adams, and Wanda
Williams from Solano County supervisor will be the vice president.
So that is upcoming the thank you council member or mayor pro tem
for presenting what happened at Solid Waste Authority or Recycle Smart.
And I would just many of the funds that we collect
are for diversion and compliance programs, organics.
Schools programs to support outreach.
We're teaching our children in 66 schools how to recycle and be tuned to recycling.
And so those programs are moving forward as well.
The well, I didn't go to see visit with Joybound on Saturday night.
They are amazing long term in this community.
Artistic swimming team, the Aquanauts had their annual
celebration of championships, champions, Saturday night.
It was at the pool at Heather Farm, Clark Swim Center, and they, it was a fundraiser, but it also highlighted the U.S.
2028 Olympic team was there to perform, they performed, and one of Walnut Creek members is on that, so hopefully they're going to be great.
They were great the other night, they will be really great by 2028.
And the League of California Cities will have policy committee meetings in Sacramento later this week or on virtually as well.
There are seven policy committees and it was nice we will be hearing a presentation from representatives of CALEDD on local economic development opportunities and it was nice to have received that award this evening.
And finally, Lesher Center for the Arts, there's a lot going on at the theater.
The jagged little pill opened last weekend and continues through June 28th.
Center Rep is presenting that.
It's a musical featuring the music of Alanis Morissette.
And finally, I will mention that Fiesta Cultural is a week from this weekend, and it will feature
on Friday Night Pacific Mambo Orchestra, and on Saturday is the Fiesta Cultural Street
Fair.
You can learn more about all of this
by visiting their website at leisureartscenter.org.
And thank you very much.
Thank you, council member Darling.
Thank you, and I will leave you on Memorial Day.
It was a great event.
City Manager Buxley and I went to the Chamber of Commerce's
regular routine meeting.
Lots of good things going on there.
They are sponsoring Art and Wine in Civic Park this weekend,
and I think hopefully everybody has signed up to help
at some point in the ticket booth.
My turn on the ticket booth this Sunday.
So that will be, that's always a fun event
and it looks like this year it won't be 104,
which is always deeply appreciated.
A couple of, I sit on the MCE board,
which is the electricity supplier for Walnut Creek.
Council Member Definney is my alternate
and a couple interesting things going on there.
The hours of the day that we want people to shift their power use away from, it used to
be in the middle of the afternoon when it was really, really hot.
With the increase in the amount of solar in California, what we now want people to do
is decrease their electricity use between four and nine at night, because once the sun
sets, the solar stops working and we have to turn on a bunch of other things.
So last year we tried an experimental program where we went through the billings and identified
people who had not done as good a job as we thought they could at shifting, using their
behavior to shift their power use away from that four to nine time period.
They were targeted with email, written communication, and offers to have somebody come by and show
them how to do this.
And then we went back and remeasured their use.
Those residents and businesses saved $380,000
by shifting their power use away
from that four to nine period.
And so it's not only great for the environment
because it means we didn't have to turn
on natural gas plants, but it saved them big money.
So that was a really nice thing.
The other nice thing that happened at MCE
is the community choice aggregate industry
was really born about 15 years ago.
And the credit rating agencies had no idea
what to do with it when it was born.
They're like, but wait a second, you're not a utility,
you're not a this, you're not a that.
And it took them a while to get to trusting
the community choice aggregators like MCE.
And we had a ratings call with Standard and Poor's
and they reaffirmed our A credit rating.
they cited MCE's healthy liquidity, $554 million,
which is equivalent to 244 days
of electricity operating expenses.
We have a diverse portfolio of renewable energy projects,
58 long-term contracts,
everything from wind to solar to batteries,
and we're bringing a geothermal project online
in the next year, and lack of outstanding debt.
And so those factors together really made the S&P folks,
we didn't quite get Walnut Creek triple A,
but you know, we got A, we're pretty happy with it.
And the nice thing with that is,
it does help us save money on behalf of our ratepayers
because it makes it easier to enter into contracts.
We can negotiate more competitive prices
with the suppliers.
And that helps us maintain stable costs for our ratepayers
that we're at a time where stable costs for rate payers
is really, really important.
So that is the MCE story, and I will turn it now to you.
And you can talk about Memorial Day,
what a great event that was.
Well, so much of what we did, other people mentioned.
I do want to mention Memorial Day ceremony though,
because staff and as Council Member Silva mentioned,
this does not happen without the tremendous work
that our staff puts into it and our city clerk,
Susie Martinez and Elena as well helping with that
our Assistant City Manager and Matt Bouldner in our video and communications team, and
it is truly a team effort.
They just make us look good up there.
And for those of you who have not been to the Memorial Day ceremony, it may be the flagship
best city event that Walnut Creek puts on as the city of Walnut Creek government puts
on all year long.
It's truly incredible.
It's only an hour if you are here and not on vacation memorial weekend, I encourage
you to come.
Those that have been here before that have come to it, see how terrific it is with the
band and the armed services salute.
We've got veterans that are there and people that have been going back to World War II
and just last year we had somebody for World War II that was there.
So it's truly a wonderful event.
If you missed it and are so disappointed that you missed it, Veterans Day Ceremony is another
one of our top events that comes up November 11th at 11 o'clock at at the
Lesher Center and I encourage you to come there and we also have the Walnut
Creek Band playing there as well. Thank you to all of my colleagues that were
able to be there and speak about Memorial Day meant to you and our keynote
speaker that we had as well. Truly a memorable Memorial Day event. I also was
happy to help break ground at Lindsay Wildlife Experience for their new Nature
Cove Building, which will house seven of the museum's birds of prey in this new immersive
exhibit and educational space. It will be completed in August. I'm sure we'll hear more
about it, but a great turnout for that. And I know our Public Works team is working with
them and putting that all together as well. We heard Mayor Portem mention the Merwood
Walking Club. I would encourage all elementary schools to do this, not just because it's
amazing and to watch kids running what we saw was only a mile or two of their 100 miles
as they put together for the year.
But I have no doubt that parents across the city
are happy that their kids are doing this
because they're a little more worn out
when they get home in the afternoons.
We had some terrific business openings this last week.
Dopio Zero had maybe the biggest restaurant opening
I'd seen this side of Original Joe's.
Original Joe's was everybody's kind of around.
I am not kidding.
The line for Dopio Zero went down the block
to hit Stadium Pub.
It was all the way down.
amazing amount of enthusiasm there.
Same nights that opened up was Marifuku and Mencho Ramen.
And Walnut Creek is vibrant.
We just heard before about the outdoor dining.
It is happening here.
And so just to see these terrific regional places that
are opening up that my daughter who lives in San Francisco
mentioned that you've got Mencho?
Oh my god, that's my favorite ramen place.
So it's preceding us, these kind of things.
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was going to be the celebrity bartender event
at lunacy that benefited NAMI Contra Costa which is the National Association of Mental
Health.
We had that on Thursday.
Lots of people came.
Thank you to Walnut Creek downtown and chamber members, had some staff members that came
as well packed the place and proceeds helped to benefit NAMI as well as I donated all of
my tips.
I don't know how many I got but I donated it to them as well.
from the sea and I went to back to my bartending roots of which I did a long
time ago in LA but was able to get my juices flowing again for a couple of
hours. Yesterday we had almost, it was probably close to a hundred people show
up for our pride flag raising right out here outside City Hall and we had
members of the LGBTQ plus community come from Rossmore and other areas lots of
staff came as well that were there. I am so happy that Walnut Creek does this annually.
This is more than just the fact that it's celebrating gay rights. I think it celebrates
welcoming to everybody and equity and inclusivity and diversity. And we all appreciate that
in Walnut Creek. And I was honored to be able to speak and raise a flag there. I was also
asked to go to Rossmore today for their kickoff for LGBTQ plus and and their
kickoff event that was within Rossmore again almost a hundred people were there
for that so Walnut Creek truly steps up for everybody here and we are stronger
together and I really appreciate that my fellow council members are all in on
that with me and and with our residents of Walnut Creek. Lastly just a couple of
things that are coming up this is a busy weekend we heard about the Art and Wine
Festival. It's in Civic Park. Saturday is from 12 to 8, and it is on Sunday from
12 to 6. There will be thousands of people there. There'll be music, there'll
be art, there'll be wine and beer, and so I encourage everybody to come and check
it out. It's free to go there, and it is, it's terrific. You've got to see it to
believe it. And then if you like cars and not as much art and wine,
Shailin's Museum has their annual car show at the I should say it actually who
is the group it's not the Shailin's Museum. It's a historical society.
A historical society. They have it at the Shailin's Museum. The car show is there
from 10 to 3. They give out awards starting at 2. There are hundreds of old
roadsters and old cars. They have a Mayor's Choice Award as well and I
think a couple of years ago the car that won was like a 1929 Mercedes
Ben's that was probably 25 feet long it was these are just impressive old cars
I and some of them are impressive new cars but I encourage people to go out
there if you have the time as well again free to attend those are the
updates all right why don't we take it's about little before seven why don't we
take a break for seven minutes till seven o'clock and then we'll reconvene
Then okay, and we're back as I mentioned at the top of the meeting item 6a
No, we I'm sorry, we're not there yet
We're not in 5a public hearing public hearing pursuant to government code section
3502.3 on the city of Walnut Creek's job vacancies recruitment and retention efforts for fiscal year
2026 and invite human resources director Trish Raver forward to provide the presentation
Thank you mayor. Good evening. Mayor Wilt, council members.
I am here this evening to provide a brief presentation of the City of Walnut Creek's job vacancies, recruitment, and
retention efforts for fiscal year 2026 pursuant to government code section 3502.3 as you stated.
The agenda for the presentation includes a summary of government code section, the government code section, the city's vacancy rates by
bargaining unit and department and the recruitment and retention efforts of the
city for fiscal year 2026. As of January 1 2025 each public agency is required to
present the status of job vacancies and recruitment and retention efforts during
a public hearing at least once per fiscal year. Each bargaining unit is also
entitled to make a presentation relative to their unit. Bargaining units were made
aware of this presentation this evening and no bargaining units indicated
interest in presenting as described in the next slide if the vacancy rate for
any bargaining unit meets or exceeds 20% the city will identify any necessary
changes to policies procedures and recruitment activities that may be an
obstacle no bargaining units vacancy rate meets or exceeds 20% in the city as
As previously mentioned, if the number of job vacancies within a single bargaining unit meets or exceeds 20% of the authorized full-time positions for that unit upon request of the recognized employee organization, this presentation would also include the following additional data.
I won't read that. I'll laugh one through four there.
So there are seven bargaining units and two groups in the city as listed.
As of May 9th, 2026, the following chart illustrates the bargaining unit, the number
of authorized full-time equivalent positions per bargaining unit, the number of filled
FTEs, the number of vacant FTEs, and the percentage of vacant FTEs.
As previously mentioned, no bargaining unit meets or exceeds the 20 percent vacancy threshold
where exploration of recruitment and retention obstacles may occur.
Overall, the city's current vacancy rate is 10.7% with 41.25 vacant FTEs out of 386 full-time
equivalent positions.
To provide some additional context for the vacancy data, this chart represents the number
of vacant positions per department.
Again, from this perspective, no department meets or exceeds the 20% threshold either.
This slide provides the workflow for a standard recruitment process which can run anywhere
from three to five months from start to finish.
Once a vacancy is known, it is prioritized.
Then once identified as a next recruitment, a requisition to fill the recruitment or the
position occurs, followed by opening the recruitment for the position.
The recruitment closes, human resources conducts the initial application screening for minimum
qualifications with additional candidate testing and assessment then taking place resulting in
the creation of a list of eligible candidates for hire. The hiring department then conducts
interviews typically resulting in a conditional job offer to a candidate. Subsequently a pre-employment
background check process occurs where successful candidates will receive a final offer of employment
filling the open position. For calendar year 2025, 3939 applications were received and screened by
human resources associated with 24 job postings. Separation information is provided in this slide
which includes resignations, retirements, and involuntary separations. Data is fairly consistent
in terms of overall numbers throughout the period. As you can see in this slide of appointments and
Some position changes, recruitment activity,
and changes in positions has slowed in past years.
In the past year, a significant effort has been made
to streamline the hiring process for police dispatcher.
This is a major recruitment effort for us.
Because this recruitment draws hundreds of applicants,
the challenge has been ensuring candidates
not only have the skills to succeed,
but also have reflected on the demands of the career path.
Our recent recruitment process screening
has helped candidates fully understand the role.
All applicants who met minimum qualifications
took the critical exam,
and then those who passed joined a live Zoom session
where supervisors provided a realistic outlook of the job.
Candidates then received points for relevant experience
and transferable skills.
By the time top candidates reached interviews,
they had a full understanding of the position
resulting in a highly motivated
and well-qualified eligible list.
Additionally, the typing speed requirements
for administrative positions that require typing
have been reduced to be more aligned
with modern typing standards
to reduce a potential recruitment barrier.
In the past year, other retention efforts
have included successor labor agreements
for the Police Officers Association
and the Police Management Association.
Those were approved by council to ensure wage
and benefits equity and a competitive labor market
for these positions.
5% salary adjustments will also be provided
for seven bargaining units effective July 1
to remain competitive.
And as an additional measure to continuously improve
as an organization, voluntary exit interviews
are conducted with departing staff.
The city also provides numerous programs
in support of employee growth, development,
engagement which include the following listing. The key findings relative to this presentation
are that recruitment and retention in the city is prioritized as well as the commitment to
staff engagement and a focus on continuous improvement. The staff recommendation is to
receive and file this presentation on the City of Walnut Creek's job vacancies recruitment and
and retention efforts for fiscal year 2026,
pursuant to government code section 3502.3.
I don't know, any questions?
Open to a question, so do we have any questions?
Do we have any?
Well, thank you Tricia.
I mean, your department is doing such a great job.
This was a fraction of the time
that I thought it would be taking,
or that we've seen in previous years.
So thank you so much.
do we have any questions on any of these topics?
Yeah, let's open a public comment.
Please step forward to the podium
if you have any comment about this.
You can complete a speaker card,
you'll have up to two minutes
consistent with city policies.
Step up now.
Okay, then we'll close public comment,
bring it back to council.
I will move to receive and file the presentation
on the City of Walnut Creek's job vacancies, recruitment,
and excellent retention efforts for fiscal year 26,
pursuant to government code section blah, blah.
Second.
All right, motion and a second, Susie?
Council Member Darling?
Aye.
Council Member Silva?
Aye.
Council Member Davini?
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Francois?
Aye.
Mayor Wilk?
Aye.
Great job, HR department.
All right, now we come to item 6A,
which we have pulled and will be at a future meeting.
So we'll move on to item 6B, which is receiving the comprehensive user fee study results and
provide policy direction on a citywide cost recovery framework, and I invite Administrative
Services Director Kirsten LaCaste forward to provide the presentation.
Good evening, Mayor Wilk and members of Council, Kirsten LaCaste, Administrative Services Director.
And I am pleased to kick off the presentation on the comprehensive user fee study.
We're also joined this evening by Matrix Consulting Group who will walk us through the study's
results and recommendations.
So tonight I'll begin with some background information and provide an overview of the
city's fiscal year 26 budgeted revenues and cost recovery levels in the general fund.
Matrix Consulting Group will then present the results of the study including their methodology
and findings.
Following the consultant presentation, staff will return to discuss several policy considerations
and seek council feedback and direction.
That input will help inform the development
of a draft user fee, cost recovery policy,
and future fee recommendations.
The timeline for bringing those items back
to the Finance Committee and City Council for consideration
will be outlined in the next steps.
So tonight, what we're asking of you
is to provide feedback, input, and policy direction
to staff regarding the development
of a citywide cost recovery policy and fee recommendations,
and then to move to receive the Comprehensive User Fee Study Report.
So the study focuses on user fees that are included in the city's master fee schedule
and are intended to recover the cost of providing those specific services.
The study does not include development impact fees or state regulated fees.
A user fee is a charge paid for a specific government service provided to an individual or a group.
These fees help offset the cost of providing that service.
This differs from taxes, which fund services that benefit the community as a whole, such as public safety, parks, streets, and infrastructure.
When a service provides both a community benefit and an individual benefit, Council may choose to recover only a portion of the cost through fees and subsidize the remainder with tax-supported revenues.
So for some background, this is the city's first comprehensive fee study since 2010
and includes fee-based services across all applicable departments.
In fiscal year 26, the total cost of providing fee-based services is approximately 33 million.
Current user fees recover about 21 million of these costs, resulting in an overall cost
recovery rate of approximately 65%.
The remaining 12 million is subsidized through other general fund revenues.
Over time fee adjustments in the city's master fee schedule have generally not kept pace
with inflation, contributing to a growing gap between the cost of providing services
and the revenue generated from those services.
It is important to note, however, that full cost recovery is not always the goal.
Many services provide broader community benefits and may warrant some level of ongoing subsidy.
The appropriate balance between cost recovery and community benefit is one of the key policy
discussions before Council this evening.
The City's fiscal year 26 general fund revenue budget is approximately $105 million.
User fees account for about 20% of total general fund revenues, while general revenues comprise
the largest share at approximately 71%.
As a reminder, general revenues are derived primarily from taxes including property tax,
tax and transient occupancy tax and are used to support a wide variety of city
services as I mentioned earlier. The remaining 9% represents other
department revenues that were not included in the fee study. These revenues
include sources such as business license taxes, development impact fees, lease
revenues, sponsorships and donations, and reimbursements for damage to city
property. The total expenditure budget for the general fund in fiscal year 26 is
$107 million. This chart represents the level of general revenue support in the fiscal year
26 general fund budget for each department. The darker green are those tax-related general
revenues that are supporting programs across the city. The lighter green are the department
revenues that include the user fees. As you can see, most of the funding that supports
administrative services, general government, and human resources is general revenues, which
is typical of departments that are essentially citywide support.
Arts and Recreation recovers approximately 60% of costs and 40% support from general
revenues.
I said differently, the cost to run the Arts and Recreation department and all of their
services is about $20 million, and they receive about $8 million in general revenue support.
Community Development receives about 15% support from general revenues, which is expected based
on the services they provide.
is primarily fully funded by tax dollars, which again is typical for public safety services
that are a benefit to the entire community. Public Works recovers about 28% of their total
costs in their general fund budget, and again because Public Works deals with streets and
roads and infrastructure, the majority of what they do has a larger community-wide benefit.
Therefore, they're supported by general revenues by about 72%. And so now I will turn the presentation
and over to Matrix Consulting Group to provide you
with the results of the study.
Thank you, Kirsten.
Good evening, Council.
I'm Kush Buengla, Vice President
with Matrix Consulting Group,
and I've been working closely with your city staff
over the last several months
on the comprehensive fee study,
and we just wanted to give you a brief presentation
on the results of the analysis.
So why do people conduct a fee study?
Like Kirsten mentioned, it's really important
to understand what it is truly costing you
to provide these services
so that you can make those informed policy decisions.
It allows you to look at what is the fee structure
that you want to promote to allow to balance those needs
of what is the private benefit
versus the larger public benefit.
Additionally, there are certain rules and regulations
in the state that dictate that you can't charge more
than it costs to provide these services.
So it's important to do these studies every so often
so that you can understand what is the true cost
that service, and are you complying with those regulations?
When we look at the objectives of the analysis, we start with taking a look at all of the
different fee line items.
Do we have all the right categories on the fee schedule?
Are there things that we are missing?
Are there things that are no longer relevant?
Because rules have changed, codes have changed, or we're no longer providing those services,
so making sure that our fee structure is in alignment with all of the different types
of services that we're providing.
As we mentioned making sure that we have that legal compliance with those rules and regulations.
I'll talk a little bit more about the time assumptions and the fully burden narrowly
rates in the methodology section but making sure that we're capturing the true staff
effort that it takes to provide these services and costing it out based on the direct and
indirect costs associated with that.
We did also do a comparative survey so we looked at what other agencies around you are
charging for similar types of services.
caveat to those is, you know, just because it's called the same fee doesn't mean it
always reflects the same level of service. Sometimes it can include
additional departments, divisions, or you know, it's a deposit and not a flat fee.
So it's not always an apples-to-apples comparison. And then ultimately putting
all of this together in a new defined master fee schedule for the city. So
talking a little bit about the methodology that we utilized, we utilize
a bottom-up approach, which is the most defensible way of calculating fees. So we
We look at each individual fee line item and we take a look at what does it truly take
for staff effort to provide that service.
And when we're talking about the time associated with providing that, we're not talking about
the fact that a project could last months, years, weeks.
We're really talking about the time on task and we're really talking about what is the
average time that it takes to provide that activity, so not the most difficult project
somebody's ever done, not the simplest project, but what is that typical average activity.
done these types of studies for many jurisdictions within the Bay Area, within California, within
the country, we have a good understanding of generally what it takes to provide a lot
of these services. So we also do our own gut check against these time assumptions to make
sure that we're not over or under accounting for time on these activities. And sometimes
there's reasons for those variances, but we want to make sure that we have that conversation
with staff and don't just take everything at face value. We take that time assumption
And we multiply it by what we call the fully-burdened rate.
That fully-burdened rate is not what someone takes home.
It is what it truly costs the city
to have that person as an employee.
So it takes into account your budgeted salaries
and your budgeted benefits.
So again, where staff have already
been approved to be paid at, so not the highest salary
step that we're taking a look at,
we're taking a look at what's been adopted,
what's been approved as their budgeted salaries,
as their budgeted benefits.
We take into account their productive hours,
so the fact that they have vacations, holidays, sick leave,
mandatory trainings, those types of things,
they're not available to work during those hours,
so we have to reduce the hourly rate by that.
We take into account services and supplies,
things that they need to do their job,
their rent, the vehicles, the computers,
all of those things that they need.
We take into account the supervisory support
and clerical support, so administrative staff
that are assisting those people
that are directly working on fees,
And then ultimately we take into account
the citywide overhead.
So council, city manager, HR that just gave a presentation
on recruitment, those types of services.
So we come up with what is the fully loaded cost
of that employee or that position.
We multiply by that time assumption
and we come up with what we call
kind of that maximum justifiable fee or that ceiling.
So essentially you can set your fee at any amount up to that,
but not necessarily more than that.
One exception to this is the lovely world
arts and recreation. So in the state of California, the way the fees are set up
is that if something is being imposed upon you, it has to be based on the cost
of service. If something is voluntary, meaning you make the choice to utilize a
particular city service, so if you're making the choice to rent a particular
facility or utilize a particular program, it's not being imposed upon you versus if
I'm building a house, I have to pay the building permit fee. It's part, it's a
requirement. It's a fee that's imposed upon me. So that's the key distinction of
why arts and recreation related fees or anything open space related a lot of
times that are more of a voluntary fee don't have to be set at that maximum
justifiable rate because they can be set at what the market can bear which means
that it could be more or less than would really cost the city to provide those
services. Talking a little bit about what we looked at we looked at roughly a
little bit less than 500 feet line item so it was pretty exhaustive list of fees
that we looked at. Some key findings we right-sized building fees to again
better reflect how services are being provided so it was more just making sure
that every kind of fee category is appropriately paying for their impact
that they're incurring on the city and that's an important part of making sure
you're in compliance with those state regulations. Calculating updated fully
burned rates, a lot of planning and engineering services are deposit based, so one key component
of cost recovery for anything that is deposit based, meaning it's charge time and materials.
You want to make sure that the time you're charging is at the right hourly rate, is really
recovering that fully loaded cost.
And then we looked at the exhaustive list of arts and recreation rental and in-house
programmatic fees again to make sure that we're capturing not only the staff cost associated
to be running those programs and activities,
but things like custodial, maintenance, utilities,
and something that we call use of space,
which is really the exclusive use of a public space.
So making sure that again,
we're capturing all of those components.
So like Kirsten mentioned,
there's a couple different options
when you're looking at these fees
and looking at what type of cost recovery you wanna achieve
when something is a much larger global community benefit.
Typically, those are not very high cost recovery
types of services.
Things like police services, park maintenance,
street maintenance, those are all,
you're not really charging fees for that.
That's typically tax funded.
When you look at things that are a little bit more
global and individual, so there's a little bit
of an individual benefit, but also there is
a larger community benefit, those are a little bit
in between, you can have some level of cost recovery
through some fees, because there's still
some individual benefit, but there is still
larger community benefits. So things like youth sports, youth activities. Those are
all typically subsidized because the concept is yes, while those children are
benefiting from participating in those programs, it's also a benefit to the
larger community by having those programs available. And then we get into
what we call really the more individualistic or particular groups that
benefit from services. And those are typically much higher cost recovery. So
again, things like your building permits. If I'm building a swimming pool in my
backyard. Generally yes it could bring up the neighborhood house value but it's
really more of a private benefit to me because I'm the only one that can really
use that pool. So those are things where you see much higher levels of cost
recovery typically. So I'll turn it over to Kirsten to talk a little bit about
about the policy implications but really taking these results and taking that
into consideration as you're looking at where and how you want to set your fees.
One component is that the city does really well is that they have been
annually increasing their fees based on a cost factor that is the best practice
we would recommend that the city continue doing that so it ensures that
there isn't a huge gap between kind of what you're setting as your policy goals
if you're setting a particular fee at 80% cost recovery to maintain that you
want to keep that up with the pace of inflation and then ultimately you'd want
to reevaluate these fees again probably not wait as long as 15 or so years
typically we recommend roughly within a five to seven year period because enough
changes have happened during that time frame either technologically
organizationally or programmatically that you want to reevaluate all of these
assumptions again to make sure that we're appropriately capturing all of
those items with that I'll turn it back over to you and with that I wanted to
just take a moment to pause and see if you wanted to take questions at this
before we move on to policy considerations.
We can see if there's any early questions,
but anything to start with?
Council Member Davini?
I just wanted to make sure I understood
those first couple of slides.
It said that in this last year,
we had $33 million in services provided,
of which we collected something like $20 million
in revenue for those services.
So we were collecting at approximately two thirds of service provided to collections?
Is that?
Yes.
So the cost of the services we provided is the $33 million and with the fees we were able
to generate about $21 million in cost recovery.
So we were recovering at about 65%.
Okay.
And that's 2026.
When these fees were put in place in 2010, was that the intention?
Two thirds?
Or have we drifted from that?
Unfortunately, I don't have information about what the conclusions were in 2010.
However, we have, when we evaluate our fees annually as part of our budget process, our
two-year budget process as well, we look at those annually, and we have increased based
on, depending on if, you know, staff has received increases, we increase some of those fees
as well.
But we...
There wasn't like a...
Go ahead.
There wasn't sort of a standing theory or policy of roughly where we'd like to be on
that spectrum.
That's just where we are now.
Is that accurate?
Correct.
Okay.
And I would just add to that, if you go back to I think it was 2010 when we last did this,
the council at the time set some policy guidance for just certain categories of fees of what
the recovery should be.
It wasn't applied across the board.
So it's a little more grassroots or bottoms up, I would say, for the other fees and as
Kirsten noted, in some instances we have kept up with inflation with some annual or periodic
adjustments.
In other instances we haven't as much and I think you may cover that here in the presentation
to show that we have been a little lower than what inflation has been over time.
Thank you.
Yes.
Just one general basic one because we did get some public comment about it and just maybe if you can reiterate the distinction between
user fees and impact fees
So the user fees are charged for services that the city provides the development impact fees are related to essentially growth
And the development within the city and so there they have different regulations around them
And so in this case, we were only looking at the user
Fees and so we haven't done a study yet on the development impact fees
Is it in the work plan to do such a study for the impact fees?
I would just add to that we did do one a few years ago
I think it's due up again in a few more years and what we were discussing internally
I don't think we're legally required to do it again until around 2030
But we're doing a general plan update which is going to set a lot of parameters for how the city may grow and evolve
And I think there is some sense to seeing how that plays out and revisiting our impact fees around that time as well
And when we did the housing element weren't we required to approach the impact fees from the housing perspective and
assess those I think it's the analysis is in the
very lengthy housing element I
Believe so but I would want to defer with
No, I don't know or no I
Just shaking head and I would also add that the previous fee studies the 2010 version really was focused on
Are we charging what is our cost recovery and we had a whole separate study on arts and recreation fees?
And that was a very interesting debate
Because people don't like paying for things that are private benefit
Hello Erica van and brand community development director with regard to the question about the housing element
We did not do a separate impact fee study, but we had done one
Several years prior to that and so that sufficed for that requirement
So okay, and we will as city manager said that will be part and parcel of the impact fee evaluation due by 2030
Just one other comment. I would add related to impact fees to round that out is we report annually as is
Legally required on how much was collected for impact fees what it was used for how much is left in the balance
So there is an annual update on on the impact fees
All right
Please
Assure me that my assumption that when we looked at Pleasant Hill and Hayward
comparison studies that the arts and rec programs were actually done with those special
Those special districts not with the cities that okay. Yes, that's correct. Are we allowed to look at the nonprofit sector who may be providing
Services in our community around facilities and facility rentals such as the gardens at Heather Farm
Ruth Bancroft garden and what about hotels and others that may have rooms available for rent
That is a great question and I will ask. I don't know what state law allows us to consider
Yes, you can definitely look at all of those in consideration of kind of figuring out where and how you want to set your rental
rates one caveat typically is though private entities obviously have different
Requirements of what they're trying to achieve through those rental rates versus the public agencies
So typically when we're looking at those comparisons
we're looking at more public agencies and kind of what the market is for that.
But technically, yes, you can look at the private entities and and see what
they're charging for those types of services. One key thing to remember is in
Arts and Recreation there's a qualitative component that's hard to
quantify which is, you know, the desirability of your facilities and the
desirability of the amenities and the newness and those types of things that
you can't put a dollar to necessarily.
So those are the pieces of when we look at all of this,
we want to look at all of those components in holistic way,
so that we make sure that the city is setting those rates based
on what's appropriate for what they can recover and what can be utilized.
Just as long as you're there,
one other question.
When you talk about the voluntary services,
Those I choose to participate in the documentation
Consistently called it recreation. I think that may be because that's what state law says, but our arts programs
Are considered in the same?
Correct. They are. Okay. Thank you. Mm-hmm
Okay
Thank you. So next we'll walk through several policy considerations that will help establish a framework
For how the city approaches cost recovery going forward
The policy considerations we are seeking feedback on tonight include adopting a general cost
recovery framework to guide future fee decisions, establishing a non-resident fee structure
for applicable services, defining parameters for future annual fee adjustments, considering
annual fee updates tied to an objective benchmark such as the consumer price index to help fees
keep pace with inflation, and continuing to use market-based pricing for services that
are voluntary in nature and primarily provide an individual or private benefit.
Lastly, evaluating housing related services separately from other development and permit
activities, while considering housing affordability and broader housing policy objectives.
And so next I'm going to walk through each of these individually and ask for your feedback
and direction.
So one of the policy considerations- Can I ask a question here?
If you're going to walk through them individually, we haven't had any public comment.
if we respond one at a time as she's going through them?
Well, we can certainly open up the public comment
after we go through all of them.
Okay, thank you.
I just, the way I heard her say it was she was going
to go through them and ask for our input
and I wanted to make sure that we,
if there's public comment, we have enough.
I would say let's ask questions
and then we can go to public comment.
So one of the key policy considerations
is whether the city should adopt
general cost recovery framework. The goal is to establish consistent citywide
principles for evaluating fees and determining appropriate levels of cost
recovery. The framework recognizes that not all services provide the same type
or level of benefit. So as a result, the appropriate level of cost recovery may
vary depending on the nature of the service and the public benefit it
provides. It's also important to recognize that not every service fits
neatly into a single category. Because of that, the framework is intended to serve
as a guide, allowing flexibility to consider the variations within individual services
and programs.
Establishing a cost recovery framework creates a transparent and equitable basis for future
fee decisions.
So this next table outlines a cost recovery framework that would be the basis for evaluating
future fee recommendations and determining appropriate levels of subsidy support based
on the level of community versus individual benefit associated with the service.
So as you can see, those services that have a high community benefit would have a lower
level of cost recovery and varying levels of general fund subsidy support.
Examples of these include youth and senior programming and some recreation and social
services.
The shared community and individual benefit services have a direct benefit to an individual
and a broader benefit to the community.
These types of services could have some partial cost recovery, balancing the public and private
benefit.
Examples include mixed benefit recreation, park special events, and planning and design
review.
Lastly, private benefit and market-based services.
These would have a higher cost recovery.
Some could include full cost recovery or market-based pricing for those voluntary rentals and exclusive
use services.
Examples of these would be facility rentals for things like weddings, or regulatory or
permit services and I can pause there and yes questions I'm just a quick one
person on the shared community benefit you have planning and design review
services and in my mind there is general planning and general design review like
the objective standards for design review but there's also a design review
component to individual projects and I have always thought that fit better that
that design review on an individual project fit better under the private benefit?
Is that how it's being interpreted?
Yes.
And so it does, kind of as we had talked some about, it does cross categories.
And so the permit review or the design review for something like a development project could
have both a public and private benefit in the sense that it would be following kind
of our rules of safety and our different requirements.
yes there would also be some that would be considered private benefit if it was
for an individual, individual homeowner. But if it if it's a new development
wouldn't all of the cost of the design review of that new development if it's
something like Mitchell townhomes? Wouldn't all that go to that developer
not to the general public? Short answer is yes. Okay. You know maybe a more general
way to think of it you know long-range planning type of activities is is in
the mixed and the you know specific project based types of efforts would be
more the full-cost recovery and I just do want to emphasize something Kirsten
mentioned these are set for example and there are different types of fees that
don't fit neatly into one of these categories but it's a framework to help
help try to provide some context for decision making.
Yeah, for me, general planning and general design review
services clearly fit in that middle.
And then project specific planning and design review
services fit in them.
Kind of had a similar question then.
What's a specific example, if you can give one of a user fee,
that's charged or imposed for those general planning
and design review services?
we'll ask Kushu to help with that.
So sometimes what some jurisdictions
will use in that category would be something
like a historic design review, because it's, again,
maintaining the integrity of the community's intent.
So it is a private development application,
but you're complying with those historic design review
guidelines.
So that's the type of user fee where it's a design review fee,
but it's really, again, kind of has a shared benefit,
because you don't want something being built
that would not comply with those historic guidelines.
So yes, while the private developer is still benefiting
from it, the community is also benefiting from it
by making sure that it doesn't become an eyesore in that area.
So that's an example of that.
Sign ordinances and complying with sign?
Yes, sometimes that can be.
They're very public.
The whole point is to make public know what's there.
It serves the business, but at the same time,
it's front and center to the community?
Correct.
That's a good example, too.
And again, you want to make sure that they're
in compliance with those requirements.
You know, certain jurisdictions don't want too large of signs
because it doesn't look good in that neighborhood
or look good in that area or too small signage
because people can't see it.
So those types of guidelines and complying with that
It's a little bit of a, you know, you can pick and choose, but there are ways that you
can see how there is sort of a community benefit in those areas.
And where we are right now in this process, we're just trying to decide if we're interested
in a recovery framework, and if we decided that we were parsing out these details would
be something that we would do moving forward.
Yes, this would essentially help develop the draft policy, but then we would also bring
forward specific fees and they would be within this framework.
And then we would have a chance to look at each one of them and decide if they're in
the right category?
Correct.
Okay.
So the next item staff would like you to consider is establishing non-resident fee rates.
This pricing strategy could be used for recreation programs, facility rentals, and similar services
in the city.
City residents pay taxes, which support a lot of programs and have a, which support
a lot of programs and having a nonresident fee reflects the taxpayer supported investment
in city services. These rates would help reduce general fund subsidies for nonresident users
further offsetting cost of services. Comparable agencies commonly charge nonresident premiums
anywhere between 10 and 25 percent. This isn't the first time I've seen this. A lot of times
discussion has been the complicated nature of having 20,000 plus residents that are in
unincorporated Walnut Creek and who think they live in the city. How easy is it for us to actually
conceivably do this before we actually debate the rightness or wrongness of it?
So I believe that it could be difficult because of that because it's not always known by a street
address if they're a resident within the city or if they're an unincorporated.
However, it could still benefit the city to have a non-resident fee, but yes, the
implementation would need to be worked through. Along those lines, I know when
we're talking about Measure O, one of the things we highlighted was the burden
wasn't falling entirely on city residents, that there were a lot of non-
residents including people that are not just with a Walnut Creek address but
outside of Walnut Creek altogether that provides services. So I guess my
question or thought is is there a way to account for or adjust that yes we're not
getting property tax from non Walnut Creek addresses but we likely are getting
a fair amount of sales tax dollars. I am off the top of my head but not sure how
we would be able to quantify that but. Thank you. Just add you know that's
obviously part of the policy discussion. If you do want to have a you know a
non-resident fee you know as I recall in very round figures about half of the
sales tax is generated from people out of area the other half is generated by
people who live within Walnut Creek and round figures so if that's a data point
that helps with policy formulation.
Obviously, we could vet that further.
But we also don't know of that half that doesn't live
in the city of Walnut Creek, which portions are people
that have Walnut Creek as an address that live
in the unincorporated area versus not a Walnut Creek
address.
Correct.
Next, we seek support in defining an annual fee
adjustment parameters.
Establishing thresholds and phased implementation
strategies would reduce the impact of significant increases
to the community and improve predictability for users.
For example, in any given year fees would not be increased more than a defined percentage.
Additionally, it could include what a phased approach would look like if there are some
fees that are recommended to increase by a significant amount.
Additionally, this would improve predictability for users.
It's important going forward that fees are increased based on a benchmark in order to
keep up with inflation.
So as our cost for providing services increases, the user support is adjusted as well.
By doing so, it will help prevent costs from outpacing revenues or in cases of those that
are subsidized, it will help mitigate costs.
This approach will avoid future large fee increases that would have a much greater impact
on users.
And as mentioned in the agenda report, when we looked at the CPI that was adjusted by
by fiscal year so we could compare.
We were looking at inflation was about 21%,
but the city fees only increased about 12%
over that same period of time.
So something like this would help to mitigate that.
The idea being that then there would be a cost per living
or an increase for inflation annually
and it would just automatically trigger into it?
It could, but it wouldn't necessarily be for every fee.
There are some fees that would be market-based
where that wouldn't necessarily apply,
but that would give us a guideline for the other fees.
I have a question.
What is the difference?
I mean, I understand the words, but these
seems very similar to the previous slide.
Why are we?
So the intent of the annual fee adjustment parameters
was more in terms of the fees that we have.
When we want to increase those fees,
if some fees are being recommended to increase,
say, let's say 15%, there may be a policy decision
not to raise any fees more than 5% in any given fiscal year.
And then we would also have a phase in policy
where we would say, OK, if it's only 5% a year,
this fee will increase to whatever
cost recovery is determined over, say,
a three or four year period.
So the previous slide, if you could go back.
Sure.
I'm sorry.
So this could be a ceiling.
It could be a ceiling, yes.
OK, so these are the, OK, thank you.
So certain user fees may be established based on market rates and demand and typically those
are things that have a direct individual or group benefit that are essentially voluntary.
The city could continue market-based pricing where appropriate.
This would apply to select rentals and exclusive use services as we mentioned earlier and will
maximize cost recovery where demand supports higher fees.
And lastly, housing fees unrelated to development impact fees were evaluated as part of the
study.
that these costs associated with things like affordable housing and loan administration are evaluated separately and the evaluation considers affordability and housing policy goals
So we are seeking council feedback on whether housing related services should continue to be evaluated separately
From these development related fees and what role if any cost recovery should play given the city's housing policy objectives
Can I ask a question are these housing fees?
Strictly about affordable housing for affordable housing projects
Yes, they are and have
And I can ask this question later, but is this also reflecting?
100% affordable projects as opposed to those
Market rate projects that have triggered density bonus
Advantages and are going to integrate a percentage of affordable units within their project
Oh god, she's got to turn around.
We believe these housing-related fees
are more for the affordable housing projects, so not.
We're going to have to have a conversation about because
the subordination and some of those monitoring programs
have to occur on both sides, the market rate projects
with some affordable levels as well as the 100%.
So we need to be sure that we're talking about both.
Got it.
And why are we breaking out these housing fees
as just affordable housing fees for projects with affordable?
Is that what I'm understanding?
What about other housing fees for projects that aren't?
These fees are separate from the impact fees.
Okay, those would be impact fees.
The other fees would be impact fees, yes.
Okay.
Actually, I just wanna clarify that briefly.
So a few different things go on.
So there's, this is largely focused
on what we would call the housing division
within our community development department
that does focus on offering low interest loans
for first time home buyers,
working through the affordable units,
as council member Silva noted,
in terms of managing those units
to ensure they stay affordable,
that lease restrictions or deed restrictions
are adhered to that sort of thing.
That's primarily what we're talking about in this.
There is obviously another big bucket of services
that are provided in their associated fees
for housing in general.
If somebody wants to build a home and pulls permits,
has to go through the design review process
and go through the building permit process,
those are not specifically
what we're talking about here generally, but they could be.
I mean, that's obviously within the purview
of this discussion with the council,
but this in particular is more the former
that I mentioned for that category of services provided.
Just following up on that, then currently,
those fees, whether it's affordable or market rate,
are pretty much full cost recovery.
And we don't distinguish between the two types of housing
products.
But the more the planning and building fees related
to the housing development, an affordable housing developer
pays the same fees to process its application
a market rate developer question and ask Erica band and brand to come and help
with the question and are we calling those development fees is that what's
confusing right now as we're calling these are housing fees and those are
development fees even though they're for building housing that is a good way of
putting it again Erica then brand community development director as our
city manager had said essentially there is the set of things that you know to
Construct to actually construct the housing units and so forth and that falls within that development fee
Sort of bucket if you will then there's the set of activities that go as our city manager
And then council member Silva said go with the below market rate units trying to create covenants, etc
so that
And then whenever there's in lieu housing
That's provided to be able to set those aside and to make sure that there are legal agreements in place
to have the agreements and then to have them monitored, and then whenever if their ownership
units to make ensure that they maintain the affordability whenever they go for sale and
so forth. So it's that set of activities. Currently we don't charge fees for that. And
so I think that what is being referred to is that, you know, essentially to daylight
that and then counsel to be able to have a policy discussion.
Would you say that the in lieu fees are covering the majority of that now or that not what
we're using those for?
So no, the in lieu fees are go to capital because they're an impact fee and that's
something that is not an operating fee.
Okay.
Did you say there was another slide or you're looking at this point, you're looking for
direction?
just next steps and where we go from here so why do we go to next steps or
unless if it makes sense to go to next steps then we'll open up to public
comment at that point okay so this slide provides the tentative
timeline between introduction of the fee study and then ultimately council
adoption so from this evening's feedback and direction from your council staff
will propose detailed fee recommendations a draft user fee cost
recovery policy and any additional proposed changes to the fiscal year 27
budget to the finance committee on June 23rd. The same information along with any updated
recommendations and feedback from finance committee will be brought to your council
for feedback and input on July 21st. And then final adoption is anticipated on August 18th.
And that timeline will also provide staff adequate time to engage stakeholders in the
community on those proposed changes as well. So tonight's recommended action is a request
to provide feedback and input in policy direction
to staff regarding the development
of the City Cost Recovery Policy Recommendations
and to move to receive
the Comprehensive User Fee Study Report.
And with that, staff and our consultants
are available to answer any other questions
that you may have.
Thank you.
All right, thanks, Kirsten.
Before we get to our own comments,
of course, we'll open this up for public comment
at this point.
Please step forward to the podium.
Please complete a speaker card
and they're available at the counter.
Once at the podium, please introduce yourself
and your city of residence for the record.
Consistent with City policies related to public comments,
each speaker will have two minutes
to make your remarks.
Okay.
We will then close public comments
and we'll turn it over to the council for discussion.
And why don't you walk us through each one of these
and then we'll be able to provide the comments on those.
So the first one was adopting
the general cost recovery framework
and does refer to the table,
which is also table three in the agenda report.
So this makes sense to me.
Yeah, I agree.
I agree.
I mean, in general, yes, it does make sense.
OK, we're all nodding. All right.
I agree. But I also think that the questions that we asked
might require it might generate a little more elaboration.
So it's easier in the future to tell what the difference
between shared community individual benefits
versus truly private benefits?
Yeah, I'm assuming that we'll know it when we see it,
when we see the actual fees.
Yeah, we'll have the detailed fees,
so it will hopefully be much more clear
when we have the actual fees associated with it.
Will this also have a percentage of cost recovery?
There was a slide further back that was zero to 20%,
20 to 50, above 50.
Yes, in general, yes, there are categories of percentages for that, but we intentionally
did not include that only because, again, as we've talked about, things can cross categories.
And so we just want to make sure that we're not kind of defining what those percentages
would be at this point.
And as you set up that framework, are you envisioning having like three levels like
this, or might there be four or five levels?
And is the idea that each one would go in a specific place?
Is that sort of the idea?
Because I think that having maybe more levels
is better than just three.
There might be things that seem, for example, in youth,
I mean like daycare versus I don't know,
an older teenager competing in a competitive sports program.
like those may have different levels of community benefit.
They could have different levels of community benefit,
but they may still fall within
kind of a shared benefit bucket, potentially.
And so we might, the thought process was
that we would have these three higher level buckets,
but if that's something that council wanted to consider
having it more defined,
that is something we could look at as well.
I'm assuming, let me test this out.
So I'm assuming, I mean the classic example is aquatics.
Basic kids swimming lessons, the high public benefit,
and so we subsidize those quite a bit.
You get into competitive swimming classes,
things like that, we drop it down.
And so there's some recognition that it still falls
in the high community benefit category,
but there's differences within that category.
That it's in that bucket,
but some are more equal than others.
And I would say that your two examples were different,
completely indifferent buckets,
not all part of high community benefits,
something that is benefiting the individual person
where they have choices of where they are choosing
to be in Walnut Creek to participate
versus their community member taking a swim,
wanting to make sure that their two-year-old won't drown.
I agree and welcome to what these conversations sounded like 10 years ago.
Maybe like that's why I was thinking having maybe more than three buckets
might be helpful when we start. I always I was thinking of these as more bands.
It's not a hard and fast always 20% but if you're in the high community
benefit you're going to see a higher percentage subsidy than a ranger than
And that, like from, you know, five to 20, but you're in the same bucket?
Short answer is yes, and that prior slide, there was an example, I think, of the high
community benefit was zero to 20%, and then it was 21 to 79, something along those lines,
or 20 to 50 and then 60.
There was gap, okay, you go zero to 20, 20 to 50, and then I guess 50 to 100, or 60,
I don't know where the 10% went, but we'll fix that portion for sure.
That's how we're going to balance our budget, isn't it?
Well, we'll correct that.
But the idea would be, generally speaking, and when we come forward to finance committee
ultimate accounts, you're going to see very detailed spreadsheets.
And right now it's organized by department because that's how we adopt the schedule.
Generally each one of those specific fees will fall within kind of a category.
So think all the different, since we've been talking about SWIM, think about the different
types of fees for SWIM.
would be in an aquatics category, we would map those, but ultimately each fee would more
or less map into one of these three categories, recognizing there'll be a few exceptions and
they all don't fit cleanly into necessarily one because there's some crossover.
But we would try to use this framework to map those fees accordingly.
All right, so we have the back of that.
So could I make one other policy framework point?
Reading through 50 pages of fee descriptions, I realized that there was a difference between
the old 80-20 rule, which is 80%, 475 line items, you take 80% of it, 80% of those are
only really reflecting 20% of probably our cost recovery or importance.
And converse is true.
I think we should give ourselves a little latitude to ensure that the staff is focused
on the things that have high impact and not the things that have, you know, it happens
twice a year, but it has to have a fee because it's a distinct.
One of the ones that make the most impactful for revenue.
Or, you know, what we can charge to copy paperwork, probably a low impact outcome.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay, great.
All right.
Next.
So next is establishing non-resident fee rates.
So kind of going on to what council member Silva was saying,
and I think it would be difficult.
I also think that this is a way to upset a lot of people
that have Walnut Creek as an address and either don't realize it
or then take it out on Walnut Creek unfairly.
I would I would be in favor of establishing non-resident fee rates
outside of people that have Walnut Creek as an address.
So I had a suggestion. I'm thinking about this and I mentioned it. We're gonna get it, you know,
we'll see if I'm okay to mention it. Amazon Prime, you pay to have a fast delivery. It doesn't reduce.
You pay a fee. Maybe what we should do is think about how do residents get a discount fee as
opposed to charging more to non-residents, charge a discount, give a discount, but
it's a fee program. I mean, look at that as an option is, you know, because then
the resident gets the benefit of the discount program as opposed to... So we
have the higher fee rate, but if you're, if you are have one of these zip codes
and your city is Walnut Creek, you can get a 10% discount. Well, we actually
already do this at a boundary of yes yes if you want to if you want to play the
resident rate at Boundary Oak you have to bring in I think it's a utility bill
because my husband was demanding a utility bill what do you need that for
and so I think you're on to something that I could support rather that you
know we have a fee level and then there's a way for a resident to prove
residency and get the discount. And so I would look to see, I mean don't reinvent
the wheel, we do this at Boundary Oak, figure out the 80-20 rule, where are the
high impact areas that we would want? Well it might also be that if you get
your annual discount card it applies to all fees across arts and rec and open
space. You have facility rentals, arts classes, etc. So that you know you
there's something to be in the city as opposed to penalizing those who thought
they were in the city but they're they're sitting in one of these donut
holes in Walnut Heights that you know penalizing people for something they
probably didn't make a decision to buy a house based on where whether their fee
structure would be but in Bound Rio they're not determining if it's somebody
that lives in the county versus the city are they funny you should mention that
My husband's golf group includes both Wallnut Heights, so they don't know they they they know because they don't have the discount
the people that live in Walnut Creek
Have a utility bill and they but it would still say Walnut Creek
My understanding and I can defer to our to rec team is I mean with technology
There's look-up tables that can determine if they're a city resident or not. So you give an address
There's a look-up table to determine if they're in the city limits or not
Hi, Chris Vero, Arts and Rec Director and to City Manager's point, our current software
for registration for all of our community arts and recreation programs does allow us
to do one of two things.
So if you did decide to do it by zip code, so we could put everyone in Walnut Creek,
whether that's incorporated or unincorporated, at one rate and others in another, we could
do that.
Or we can use GIS mapping and we can differentiate between incorporated and unincorporated very
Easily so either strategy would work for the systems that we're now using. Does that mean you could do it as a discount?
If requested the system would just see two prices whether you call that a discount or whether you call that an additional rate
For the non-residents the system could have two
options two pricing options for residents non-residents
Walnut Creek unincorporated two different prices the computer wouldn't know whether that's a discount or whether you're charging the other one more
But in essence, yes, I like the I like the discount
Better better than the escape of extra fee. We're not we're not charging surcharges. We're giving we're offering discounts to our loyal
Residents this system could manage so so it comes down to do we want to how do we want to handle the unincorporated?
Walnut Creek area. I mean it sounds good in concept
but are we are we just creating a bigger problem by giving city residents a discount and then creating this larger gap in terms of
Cost recovery. I I worry about that and I don't know the numbers and I don't know how big of an impact it well
To that point to me unless you direct otherwise
We're likely going to set the rate a little higher than we would have otherwise and then discount off of that for residents
So that we don't have a big hit to revenue
Otherwise it will be a net loss in revenue and we'll be coming back to have service level discussions about which programs to reduce
And will we run into issues with like having to be potentially charging?
more than is legally required because these are that what category of voluntary fees and then and
then i was curious just to for the sake of the discussion um you know what are what are the
unincorporated areas of walnut creek paying to walnut creek you brought up sales tax that
their neighbor in Pleasant Hill, or you know, Alamo, or neighboring city. I mean, how is it
different? Like what are they, what are we, what am I missing? Just from a like fairs fair kind of
fiscal standpoint. Like if we're saying you're paying taxes into the city, so that's why we're
giving you the discount. Isn't that the the reason for the discount? So then what is the unincorporated
Walnut Creek resident paying into
The system that we're discounting them for
So if I'm understanding your question correctly, it's the property taxes that the residents pay
That end up becoming the tax subsidy that supports the other programs
But the unincorporated portions for the for the residents not the unincorporated, but the right
So I'm asking what are the unincorporated residents of Walnut Creek paying?
To the city that say someone in Danville is not paying I mean that it would be no any difference. No
No, if you're from a taxing perspective in that regard either
You're a city resident or you're not whether you're unincorporated with the Walnut Creek mailing addresses irrelevant as far as that goes
And that's one of the things that is always challenging because mailing addresses don't align with city limits
I just just cuz like money's money sort of I don't know
the part of me goes like like trying to be as like fiscally as
Like isn't the reason that we'd be offering the discount to Walnut Creek residents?
Because they're paying into the system
Yes
although I look at this as practicalities as well and the chances of somebody that is in the uncoated area of Walnut Creek shopping in
Walnut Creek is more likely than somebody from Danville shopping in Walnut Creek. They both do obviously, but I
Am pretty sure people that live down in Marshall or in Walnut Heights or these little pocketed areas
just even driving over to Rossmore, that they're coming downtown. They're spending
their money in Walnut Creek more frequently than other neighboring cities
are spending their money in Walnut Creek. That said, right, they're not paying
their property taxes to Walnut Creek, but I'm just wondering if we are going to do
more harm to our goodwill than good by excluding people that have Walnut Creek
is an address, but don't get the discount.
It sounds like that's the way we're doing it right now.
I mean, at the bottom.
Only at boundary level.
Oh, boundary level.
Just at boundary level.
I mean, another complicated factor.
I don't know how prevalent this is with the user fee rate
is you've got Andrews and Wanda Creek.
And so he pays one fee to play soccer or learn
how to play soccer.
And Timmy lives over on Newell, and he's an unincorporated.
And he pays, they're all on the same team,
or they're sort of on the same team.
And it, I think it's just gonna get too con,
it sounds good in concept, but I,
I mean, I'm more inclined to Kevin's point about
treating all Walnut Creek people,
whether you're in the city or not, generally the same.
And if you're outside of the Walnut Creek resident
or address, then maybe you pay a little bit more.
Another option could be,
because I was looking at this like, okay,
which fees are we talking about?
And to the extent that you're renting a facility
for a party or something like that,
offering, those are in the thousands,
and there if you offered a 5% discount to a city resident,
that's a significant amount of money.
So maybe rather than just saying everybody pays the same,
just say everybody pays the same
Except for facility rentals over x and then offer a resident discount.
Because you're right.
If it comes down to soccer, nobody's going to walk through.
Well, first of all, they don't pay.
Individual members of the soccer team do not pay a separate fee to the city.
You pay it to the club.
The example, I mean, I'm sure we offer, like, you're four years old
and you're learning how to play soccer at Heather Farm
or something.
Or swim.
It's not an organized.
Yeah.
Right.
It's not wanna creek surf.
Those individual recreation classes.
I'm willing to say that this conversation is food for thought
and let the powers that be think it through a little bit more
and feed it to the finance committee,
because I don't know how.
Yeah.
Well, let me first ask, are we all
of the same mind of saying that there should be a non-resident fee that is
different from a Walnut Creek fee. At least set part A so that there's some
direction on that. At least if it was outside the four zip codes. I think what we're really
debating is the unincorporated Walnut Creek versus the incorporated. So I'm just trying to get to part A
versus part B. So part A we're all in agreement that there should be something
that is at least outside of Walnut Creek does not receive a discount rate that a
Walnut Creek resident has. Part B would be how is that determined from
unincorporated versus incorporated. And which because I don't think I think I
would not want to see that across the board on all fees but leave it as an
off leave it as something for staff to give us direction where is it likely to
be the easiest to implement and capture the greatest value. Capture the
greatest value provide the greatest benefit to our residents consistent with
the framework right because you want kids to learn how to play soccer learn
how to swim whether they're from Walnut Creek or not
generally yeah is that enough direction but what I'm hearing is that there would
be some form of a Walnut Creek resident discount and then to come up with a
framework for which fees that would apply to I haven't heard anything further
they're defined about whether it's a city resident or whether it's a Walnut
Creek mailing address that would receive the discount. And I think for that we
would look to you guys to it sounds like Arts & Rec has a good handle on how
feasible it is I think what we're interested in is something that doesn't
create a huge headache for the city and is explainable to the residents. And then
I would mention a caveat. My daughter was in third grade many years ago, playing on a soccer team,
out of Park Mead. Everybody lived in Walnut Creek. Some were in unincorporated, some were incorporated.
Halfway through the season we got a new roster, half the team had moved to Alamo because the U.S.
Postal Service decided to ship. They didn't move, but the U.S. Postal Service changed their
postal address
Zip code to so we that's a little footnote big be cautious
Sometimes people get moved by the US Postal Service. It also happened to the Saranap area just a couple years ago
Yes, because they shifted Lafayette and it would teach everybody when they look for house to look at the street sign
And see is it a green sign or no, I mean literally. No, but I mean
We didn't change the city boundaries. They just changed postal that something tells me people that had their Saranap changed
to Lafayette probably did pretty well.
They asked for it.
Yes.
Okay.
So next topic, all right.
Next would be defining the annual fee adjustment parameters.
And so staff could come back with recommendations on kind of the not to exceed annual amounts
or if you had some feedback now that you wanted to provide on that.
And this is the one that would have cost, cost of living increase and
No, that's the next one.
That's the next one.
Okay.
This one is, if a fee is recommended to increase more than a certain percent in one year, should
we do that or should we take a phased approach and is there kind of a cap on what that percent
increase annually would be?
I see.
Yeah.
Generally speaking, this would be mostly applicable to this year if we're doing some catch-up
because we haven't done a fee study for many years.
theory going forward if we're keeping up annually this should be less of an
issue but it obviously would still apply where it were appropriate might take a
few years to catch up effectively yeah and this makes perfect sense to me but
yeah you don't want to there's nothing quite like 40% jump to end up in next
door we don't want to do that okay all right I see all nods were you looking
direction from us though on what the thresholds are we just if we're gonna
establish them we could come with a recommendation but if you did have if
you did want to discuss that now then we could do that as well but we could
provide a recommendation based on what we think is reasonable that makes sense
yeah and there might be some variability by fee as well you know a percentage
basis on a $2 fee you know as a much smaller impact out-of-pocket cost as
opposed to very expensive fee where it's going up by a similar percentage so and
also whether or not the person pays the fee every year kids are signing up for
soccer every year whereas you only do your bathroom once you don't know what
it costs last year just generally thinking about it it's like CPI or our
employee contract increases or what's the other kind of benchmark no but this
is the cap right are we saying that this is the ceiling this yeah it would be
looking exceed it wouldn't go higher than a CPI well this for the parameters
it's more about as the city manager mentioned it's more about kind of this
initial year when we're doing our catch-up it's like how big of a jump
would we want to take in this year to increase fees that we were trying to
right-size to where they should really be and so there wouldn't necessarily have
to be an annual cap on all fees.
I mean, could be relatively big jump from when we update the fees.
So I would offer that also that it's not only reducing the impact, but we're also reducing
the likelihood of people avoiding suddenly becoming scofflaws.
What's a scofflaw again?
Somebody who doesn't pay their bill.
I never want to be accused of that.
Boy am I old.
But I think that was mentioned a couple of times,
that we want people to get permits to replace
their water heaters.
Yeah, that's encouraging certain behaviors.
OK, so we're ready to move to the next one.
It would be the implementing the annual CPI-based VA updates.
And again, this would be a benchmark,
and it wouldn't necessarily apply to all fees,
but it would give us something as a guideline
when we're looking at fees to make sure we're able
to keep up with inflation going forward.
This makes sense to me.
One of the things that I was thinking about
is there would there be a scenario
where CPI is going up but maybe we're in a recession
but the city department and that particular sector
is doing well and I mean are there things
we're not thinking about just doing CPI
or is there, should there be any other,
and I couldn't think of any offhand,
but would there be scenarios where
there might be a better metric to use than that?
It is possible, and also within all of our fees,
there could be decisions made,
policy decisions made not to increase by CPI.
There could be a fee that's intentionally more subsidized
so we wouldn't apply that CPI increase.
But yes, there are other variables
that would go into the decision.
this would be more of kind of a guide.
Or other metrics to tie it to besides.
Besides CPI.
Potentially, you know some of the market-based fees,
the market might change substantially to your point,
either up or down for whatever reason.
We could have a reorganization
in terms of how we're structured
that could impact our fees.
Hopefully that would be to reduce costs,
not to increase costs.
Or there could be some type of new service
that we're going to provide
that we'd need to establish a new fee for.
So I think any of those scenarios
would be outside of this annual inflator.
And sometimes some jurisdictions can also peg it
to your annual employee increases.
So if, you know, annual employees or different MOUs
get different increases that are built into their agreements,
you can peg it to that.
The other thing with CPI that sometimes councils
will like to do is also kind of set a maximum.
So during the pandemic, this happened a lot
where CPI increased quite substantially.
It was really high percentages.
And, you know, city salaries and contracts
didn't quite increase the same level that CPI did.
So when jurisdictions were tying it to that CPI,
councils made the decisions to say, you know,
we'll tie it to CPI, but, you know,
no more than X percentage increase per year type of thing,
or also kind of stating if the CPI goes negative,
to your point, sometimes, you know,
There's a downturn in the economy that you don't want to automatically start reducing
your fees if you've tied it that closely to CPI.
So kind of building in some of those types of provisions as you're writing these policies.
So that way, you can make sure you're kind of keeping in mind with the intent behind
what the purpose of the CPI update was.
So can I make a suggestion which would be rather than use the acronym CPI, maybe we
just call it cost-based fee updates.
way it covers inflation, it covers tariffs, it covers anything that might
have caused costs to rise somewhat across the board as opposed, I get
nervous when people see CPI they go they go look up the tables and to your
point council member that really the intent of this is that there's an annual
adjustment based on some common-sense criteria so that we're keeping up with
the cost and it doesn't have to be just specifically the CPI or to one benchmark
we could take in these other parameters have been discussed certainly and just
to clarify as well you know the annual fee schedule even if you adjust this the
annual fee schedule still has to be adopted by your council every year so
there is some transparency of it coming forward it's not like it just takes
effect behind the scenes and there's no opportunity to comment on it if for some
reason something seemed out of line so when we get this back maybe there'll be
a couple models of how we could do this a couple options to look at yes we can
do that okay okay and the next one is to continue market-based pricing where
appropriate makes sense to me yeah the nods okay can I I would like to go back
there sorry I was there's an outlier issue we are charging rent facility
rentals are managed in general by the Arts and Recreation Department so if
you want a picnic space that's where people look except we're also renting
open space picnic areas it's could somebody consider not moving who's
managing the open space but moving the management of those spaces the rentals
of those spaces because that you can't you don't automatically know to look in
two places and that doesn't make sense to the user and we may be leaving
opportunities on the table for people to rent either out primarily at Sugarloaf
and they're very flat with good parking and lots of shade. Or maybe even if
there's just sort of a link or a line where they're then referred to who's
printing it out just some Ross identifier in some ways it's just the
the customer-facing portion of it needs to be a little bit more universal yes
thank you and the last one is to evaluate housing fees that we talked
about earlier separately from the other housing related permit fees yes my
thought on this I think the discussion and questions were good because I got a
little greater clarity about what we're talking about and if we're not charging
any fees for this right now, that can be pretty staff intensive, sometimes lawyer intensive
service to provide affordable housing agreements. A lot of these projects can be subsidized
by us or other governmental agencies. I'm not comfortable with the fact that we're not
recovering any of our costs for this. Maybe it's not 100% cost recovery, but I don't think
it should be zero.
When I was going to say the same thing, except I slightly nuanced, there's a big difference
in my mind of providing the service to RCD, which is a hundred percent affordable nonprofit
housing provider, versus a market rate project like 1950 NOMA, that has 11 units out of 135
who triggered, provided those units as an opportunity to get greater density and more
value in the project and they have to be managed just as much as RCD but RCD is
probably in the business of man is going to be knowing how to do it where your
market rate developer that might sell the project build it under one but
anyway I think we need to consider that as well in terms of those are the
gradations of your same same service takes longer with a market rate
developer I think than it does with affordable. Yeah I mean I view that those
both kind of being on the continuum with maybe the RCD not being fully
subsidized but more subsidized certainly than a then the market rate project with
11 affordable units. But I think we also where we are not charging the fees
don't this typically end up being the local match when they're putting together
their funding stack, and I could be wrong about that, but I would ask Erica if you have
a comment for that, please.
This will teach you to sit so far from the podium.
Getting your steps in.
It's part of our wellness program.
So with regard to the different nuances with this, so that there's some level of things
that get built into whenever their agreements put in place when a development's first being
built, particularly multifamily housing development.
However, whenever there are ongoing annual needs to monitor or else there's the resale
of a property so that an owner property that is below market
rate, that is not something that would be subsidized, if you
will, by the original construction.
So it's an ongoing cost.
And so in your nuancing of things,
just to be cognizant of that.
You're saying the person that owns the below market that
has to keep it at that affordable range
is the one paying those fees?
They would not pay the fee.
I mean, there is no fee, so there's no fee to be paid.
But should there be one in the future, that person
or would be responsible for that.
Right now, whenever there's a transfer of property that
occurs, the city pays for the staff effort and then
all the paperwork that we need to do on our side of things
to be able to ensure that that property is transferred
and it maintains its level of affordability.
And when the place is developed and then rented,
who's paying those?
So initially, the developer pays that,
but then on an annual basis, whenever we do periodic checks,
et cetera, to ensure that there's the units,
the city pays for that currently.
But it would be the renter, if the divider was no longer?
mean if there was a fee so if there were a fee I mean it you know it could be the
property to the development agency I mean it we'd need to have an answer
method to be able to do that an infrastructure any further direction
needed or I'm in so I'm in support of evaluating it separately I mean how we
decide to do it but treating it as its own unique bucket yeah if it works for
council we could look at maybe some specific options and present those to
finance committee for if we were to apply some fees in some instances where
that might work best and then ultimately finance committee and council could
decide whether you want to pursue that or not if that works for the council. And I'd
be curious to see what our adjacent cities are doing. Actually on building on
that I'd be interested in knowing if it would make sense for us to contract to
do it, see, Arundel had a pull-to project before we did, it was about 12 years ago,
and there's four sale units, there are a couple of affordable units there, and they were contracting
with us for, maybe still are, to monitor those two four sale units.
Maybe there's an opportunity for just an agreement as well, because the expertise to do it, you
don't want every city to build the expertise to do that when it's not
happening all the time. Are we still street sweeping for Lafayette? Yes. All of
that. Anything else? Is everything on the policy discussion and then you've
provided the feedback and the input on the policy direction so it would just be
motion to or recommended action to move to receive the comprehensive user fee
study report. Okay why don't we have a member of the finance committee make
that motion. I move to receive the comprehensive user fee study report. And
I second that. The motion is second. Mayor Pro Tem Francois? Aye. Council member Doubini? Aye. Council member Darling? Aye. Council member Silva? Aye. Mayor Wilk? Aye. I just do we all
speaking on behalf of the collective all of us thank you to Kirsten thank you to
the consultant for going through the 475 line items and providing the
comprehensive reports very helpful and we know we're going to be seeing you
again thank you for taking it and boiling it into buckets for us thank you
thank you and we're adjourned