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.
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.
Consistent 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
City Council Handbook outlines decor expected in the Council Chamber and can be found on
our website.
All remarks should be addressed to the City Council.
Please do not use threatening, profane or abusive language which disrupts, disturbs
or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of the Council Meeting.
Again, each speaker will have two minutes to make your remarks.
Written comments submitted and received up to two hours before the meeting have been
posted to the city's website for public review and are included in the meeting
record but will not be separately read into the record. I'm Kevin Wilk, Mayor of
the City of Walnut Creek, and welcome to the Tuesday, June 16th regular meeting of
the Walnut Creek City Council. And if I could now ask everybody to please join
me in the Pledge of Allegiance.
with liberty and justice for all.
All right, Deputy City Clerk Eleanor Branson,
would you please call the roll?
Councilmember Davini?
Here.
Councilmember Darling?
Here.
Councilmember Silva?
Present.
Mayor Pro Tem Francois?
Here.
And Mayor Wilk?
Here.
All right.
Our first item is a proclamation for Juneteenth.
And I invite Nicole Hankton from the Walnut Creek
Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau
to please come forward and accept the proclamation.
And while you're there, I'll read some of the proclamation, and then if you'd like
to say a few words as well.
Whereas on January 1st, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation,
officially ending slavery, changing the status of more than three and a half million enslaved
African Americans in the Confederate states of America.
However, over two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, Union General
Gordon Ranger arrived in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865 to inform enslaved African-Americans
of general order number three, the people of Texas are informed that in accordance with
a proclamation from the executive of the United States, all slaves are free.
This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters
and slaves and the connection between existing, between then becomes that, between employer
and hired laborer.
And so Juneteenth also known as Juneteenth Independence Day, Emancipation Day, Emancipation
Celebration, Freedom Day is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of
slavery in the United States.
It's a way to fight for freedom.
And whereas the City of Walnut Creek commemorates the anniversary of Juneteenth in recognition
and celebration of the great contributions that African Americans have made the United
States, California, and the City of Walnut Creek, and therefore, I, Kevin Wilk, Mayor
of the city of Walnut Creek on behalf of the Walnut Creek City Council we hereby proclaim
June 19, 2026 as Juneteenth National Freedom Day and encourage the community to honor and
reflect on the significant role that African Americans have played in the history of the
United States and how they have enriched society through their steadfast commitment to promoting
unity and equality.
And well, I think that just deserves a round of applause right there.
So, and Nicole, if you'd like to say a few words on behalf of yourself, the chamber,
and what Juneteenth is.
Yes, absolutely.
Thank you, Mayor Wilk and City Council members.
Thank you very much for this proclamation.
I brought some supporters here.
I brought my cousin, Aaron Robertson, who does business in Walnut Creek.
So welcome, Aaron.
And Wilson Stevens, who also is an entrepreneur in Walnut Creek and a new business owner in
Walnut Creek.
and your business. Absolutely. So they showed up here, very happy for the
proclamation and we welcome all of them as chamber members and we're just
excited to be here to receive this. Wonderful. Well thank you and thank you
for attending. Why don't we take a picture to make sure that we get this
word out. All right, next on the agenda is the consent calendar.
Does any council member wish to pull an item for discussion or any member of
staff wish to pull an item for discussion? 2f. 2f. I will pull 2g. Anybody else? Okay.
Does any member of the public wish to comment on an item on the consent
calendar? As a reminder each speaker will have two minutes to make their remarks.
Written comments submitted have been posted 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 don't see any speakers so I'll ask the council if anyone would
like to make a motion with regard to the consent calendar for those items that
have not been pulled. Move to approve items 2A through 2E. Second. We have a
motion and a second. Eleanor. Councilmember Davini. Aye. Councilmember
Darling. Aye. Councilmember Silva. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Francois. Aye. And Mayor Wilk.
All right. All right. So now we've, so let's go to item 2F. Councilmember Davinney?
Yeah. So I said a quick question for Arts & Rec. It looks like this, and it sounds like,
looks like Lifetime Tennis has done a great job managing these courts, you know, positive
feedback and positive report and the agenda report. When I was reading about the financial
agreement just made me wonder if we're we there's a there's a 700 over 700,000
in profit we share five percent above that is that what that says that's
correct so that it it reads as if there's quite a bit of profit made there
and it makes me wonder if have we explored running that from an arts and
rec standpoint if it's really that profitable or we've looked into it and
doesn't really make sense to do so.
Sure, so a lot of expenses are absorbed
by their company overhead that isn't included
in this bottom line.
So for example, their marketing is shared
across multiple locations.
And so those kinds of costs that we would be absorbing
on our own would be far more expensive
than their shared resources that they are looking at.
So to be fair though, we haven't looked at that
for probably six to seven years.
So as we are preparing to launch into the RFQ,
RFP process, that is an analysis that we could make
at that time as well.
And so just to clarify for everyone,
my question again, it was we pay,
they pay us 67,500 to have the courts.
Correct.
And then they run them.
And then if they make over 700,000,
we share 5% of that profit over 700.
So it sounds like they've got a lot of operating expenses
and a lot of other things that they're paying for
that would be questionably profitable for us to take over.
Okay, well as long as we'll be exploring that in the future.
Sure.
Yep, thanks.
Yes.
Thank you, as long as you've answered a question,
I have a question on this in the same way.
What employees and services do they provide?
They're not just opening and closing the courts.
Correct.
So they also provide instruction
And then all of the US, the national tournament structures.
So the city is not responsible
for providing those opportunities for the residents.
So whether it's a class, it's an instruction,
or it's a league play, tournament play,
they are managing all of that as well.
And this is similar to the outside golf course expert
that runs Boundary Oak for?
Very similar.
Okay, great, thank you.
I don't see any more questions.
Councilmember Davini, would you like to make a motion?
Yeah, I move to approve item 2F
as written in the agenda report.
Second?
We have a motion to second.
Eleanor, can you call the roll, please?
Councilmember Davini?
Aye.
Councilmember Darling?
Aye.
Councilmember Silva?
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Francois?
Aye.
And Mayor Wilk?
Aye.
Motion carries.
All right, so next is item 2G, and I pulled this one,
not so much because I have an issue with it,
but this is regarding a $30,000 payment
from Chick-fil-A for traffic calming measures
in the Traffic Impact Mitigation Fees Fund.
I see Matt Redmond, thanks for coming on behalf
of Public Works and Transportation.
So I'm really, I haven't heard of any traffic issues
that have been going on in that area
where Chick-fil-A now is.
I've driven by a number of times.
I checked the parking lot.
There isn't, doesn't seem to be impacted in the parking lot.
In fact, there's always spaces right there
next to Chick-fil-A.
So I'm just curious,
what kind of traffic calming measures are we looking at?
And I don't need the specifics, but just like in general,
what we normally think about that kind of an area.
Yeah, sure.
Matt Redmond, traffic engineer for the city.
So I think in front of Chick-fil-A on Citrus there,
I think there could be some additional vertical delineators
that prevent the U-turn where the sign is.
That's kind of the main issue that I've heard of
from residents and people in the area.
But I think since we have these funds,
We can also use that to improve some crosswalks
in the neighborhood there,
and just enhance safety around the school.
Okay, that's great.
And yeah, actually living in the area,
and of course there were a lot of concern among residents,
I have really not heard of any concerns from residents
or neighbors or people that have said
that there is problems with traffic, with signals,
or really almost anything else.
I would certainly hear about that being in that area.
So, oh.
Interesting how things turn out,
Well, great job to Public Works, to Planning Department,
to the council for a very long meeting on that night
when we were really going over everything
with a fine tooth comb.
So thanks, appreciate that,
and look forward to seeing the improvements.
And with that, I'll make a motion to approve item 2G.
And I'll second.
We have a motion to second.
Council Member Davini?
Aye.
Council Member Darling?
Aye.
Council Member Silva?
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Francois?
Aye.
And Mayor Wilk?
Aye.
All right, moving right along.
Next on the agenda is public communications.
This portion of the meeting is reserved
for comments and items not on the agenda.
Under the Brown Act, the council cannot act on items
raised during public communication,
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
the end of the meeting if necessary. Written comments submitted had been
posted to the city's website for public review and are included in the meeting
record but will not be separately read into the record. So at this time I'll
note that the time is 6 15 and we'll take public comments on items not in the
agenda until approximately 6 45 and then the remainder of any such comments at
the end of the open session portion of the meeting. So this is the time to speak.
If anybody has any items on public public communication for not on the agenda
Please come up to the podium, line up along the left side, and state your name and city.
You're first.
I am quite nervous.
No worries.
Does it start now?
Whenever you start with your name and city.
Okay, yes.
My name is Alex Williams.
I'm from Walnut Creek, California.
I was born here in 1987 over in John near hospital off Ignacio.
Ignatio. I wanted to speak to you on behalf of an item or an idea that sits
in the heart of my generation that they remember and recall with Walnut Creek.
So if I may give you the speech if that's appropriate. Mayor Wilk, members of
the City Council and my fellow neighbors, you know it's been said that the public
comment periods are reserved for airing of grievances, and heaven knows we have
enough potholes to keep us busy.
But tonight, I didn't come to look at the ground.
I came to ask you to look up, look back,
and remember who we are.
I want to talk about a longstanding resident
of this town who has been part of our story since 1911,
but has been quiet for far too long.
And that is King Walnut, if you remember him.
But now we have a wonderfully dynamic and forward-looking
council.
And I believe your youthfulness is not
a sign of an experience, but a magnificent opportunity,
a chance to bridge the vibrant future you're building
with the timeless wisdom of our elders like King Walnut.
And some might look at our history and see a bygone era,
but those of us who remember when Barnes and Nobles
had a second floor that was beautifully air conditioned
with a cafe who'll know better,
and we know that King Walnut represents
the very soul of Walnut Creek.
The generations before us didn't just want to build houses,
they built a community where civic pride
meant something tangible.
In our rush toward modern progress,
we must never make the error of thinking
that new is always better.
A town that forgets its roots loses its footing.
Bringing back King Walnut is not about resisting change,
but preserving the character and warmth
that made us want to raise our families here
in the first place.
Oh, is that it?
He is a symbol of the treasure and the whimsy and the unique identity that sparked a fire
in our hearts during our childhood and reminding us of the Twilight Parade, the Walnut Festival,
and the pure joy of growing up here.
So let's breathe new life into this classic icon for our public squares so future generations
can share in the same sense of wonder.
Let us make the city once again a shining example of a community that honors its past
while confidently stepping into the future.
Let's bring back the fun.
bring back the heritage and let's bring back King Walnut. Thank you and God bless you.
Thank you Alex and well first of all he called us youthful. So right there he's got us on
his side. And he might not realize that many people have often thought that Mayor Pro Tem
Francois just might be King Walnut. We don't know. We've never been spotted in the same
way. Never been spotted in the same way. You know you bring up an interesting point
because I think a lot of people also conflate a bit between the City of
Walnut Creek and Walnut Festival all parades. So I'm going to ask the City
Manager actually if you could just give us a quick rundown of the difference
between what we're seeing typically from the Walnut Parade, Walnut Festival and
what the City of Walnut Creek actually does and then we'll get your we have
your contact information I think and then we'll figure something out.
Yeah, good evening Dan bucks. I see a manager. Yes, the the walnut festival association has has run the previous walnut parade as well as the
The annual festival that would be at heather farm and so they are an independent entity that has coordinated that
for years obviously some city streets and coordination occur, but
They have led this they've chosen for the last several years not to bring the parade back
certainly there's the option to do that but they've not pursued that at this
time and then with the festival that occurs with all the construction that's
occurring at Heather Farm Park it's temporarily relocated but would
certainly be welcome back once the construction is done out there. So I
think we'll do Alex we have they have a website there is a website although I'm
not again I'm not sure if they're active and if they're even planning on anything
there's there's contact information on it. Okay so check the Walnut Creek
festival website you can try emailing contact them see if you can connect with
anybody and on our end we'll we'll keep your information on file as well and so
anybody that's in the communication or arena where there should be some
discussion about the reinstitution of the walnut festival or walnut parade we'd
all be very interested in that happening but we'll keep that on hand thank you
thanks for coming. Do we have any more people for public communication? Alright
seeing none yeah seeing none we'll close public communication and we will be
moving right along now to council member and staff announcements reports on
activities or requests. We'll start with city attorney. Yeah thank you mayor
Wilk I want a report of an action by the council to prior closed session at the
closed session on March 13th, 2026, the City Council by a 5-0 vote concurred
with the MPA, CARMA, and the excess insurance companies to enter into a
settlement agreement to resolve the Chulenbot versus City of Walnut Creek
litigation. We're reporting this a little bit later than the event because it took
a few months to put the final settlement terms together with the parties, but that
has now been completed. Okay, thank you very much. City Manager reports? I do not
have an update this evening, Mayor. Okay let's we'll swing to this. Actually
we're gonna start with council member Darling reports. Thank you. A couple
interesting things this month. DRAA had the business leaders event up on the
stage at Lesher which was always a lot of fun and they had brought in a couple
musicians and we got around a chance to visit about how important the business
community and the arts community cooperating is. I won't talk about the
mayor's conference because that's your job. And then I helped sell tickets at
Art & Wine until my little ticket selling fingers were sore. It was a
beautiful day. It was nowhere near as hot as last year and so it looked like
everybody had a really good time. The other thing that I got to do this month,
I am the representative on MCE for the city of Walnut Creek and we have an
ad hoc committee that has been working to provide coordination and oversight
over short term power contracts that they're buying.
They are the electric utility for most of us
here in Walnut Creek.
They go out and buy the electricity.
It comes through the PG&E lines to your house
and it's a greener product with local control.
And so I got to sit in on,
I get to sit in with all these power nerds
and so they had run a solicitation for power
to help us hedge during the summer months
because you can never predict how much electricity people
are gonna use in the summer,
so they always buy a little bit extra.
And they had gone out in an open solicitation
and gotten back contracts.
And the good news is the prices that they got
in that solicitation were very reasonable.
One was well below what we had in our budget,
and I think we're gonna save a couple million dollars
on that particular acquisition.
So that was fun to see that one from beginning to end.
And then lastly, I got to go see Jagged Little Pill.
And it was really fun.
And I love Alanis Morissette and her music.
And so I didn't sing along too much, but it was fun.
Thank you.
Councilmember Silva.
I'll pick up where Councilmember Darling left off
and say that, yes, as the liaison to the Diablo Regional
Arts Association, which is the fundraising partner
for the Lesher Center for the Arts,
I too saw a jagged little pill last week.
You have until June 28 to get tickets.
The house was full.
And it is a moving musical.
And so that was really important to see.
So I strongly recommend that.
And while you're there, you can also
get in on the Aztec stories at the Bedford Gallery.
Both of them closed the last day is June 28th.
So there's no time to waste on that.
Diablo Regional Arts Association had its bi-monthly board
meeting a couple of weeks ago, three things to note for my council colleagues.
It's on Broadway is October 3rd and planning is well underway.
They are using a new auctioneer this year and we got to talk to them as part of the
board meeting and they are having a big fundraising plan that really, what they raise funds for
is to support the arts in Walnut Creek at the Lesher Center but also the arts access
programs, which provide arts programs and experiences for under served youth across
Contra Costa County. It's a very important work. So, and I will mention that they're
also in the process of hiring a new development director for the association.
Who's the current one?
Pardon me?
Who's the current development director?
There hasn't been one for a while.
Okay.
Yes, I sold tickets at Art & Wine, I don't think I lost any money.
Very important, right?
But I wasn't drinking any wine while I was trying to sell tickets.
Were you?
That's very important.
I was not drinking wine.
On behalf of the City of Walnut Creek and its liaison to Walnut Creek Sister Cities
organization, I attended the 8th U.S.-China Sister Cities Summit.
It was a couple of Fridays ago in San Francisco.
This was the second time I had the opportunity to attend this summit.
The first time was actually when I was in China in Shanghai in 2023.
It's a one-day summit and the bottom line is they bring a lot of people in from China.
There are a lot of people in from across the country in the United States.
They're trying to encourage friendship between our cities in China and our cities here and
people to establish relationship sister city relationships with Chinese cities.
That's an amazing feat because Chinese cities there are corollary city for a
city of 70,000 people which is what we are would be two to three million in
size so there's nothing small like we are so. Also Walnut Creek sister cities
had their annual meeting a couple of Sundays ago it was well attended it was
picnic in Red Gear Park or an ice cream social and it was very celebratory as
well because they were welcoming the new class of youth ambassadors who will be
visiting our two sister cities in Europe, Chiafok, Hungary and Cetto, Italy in the
fall. Recently, Cal Cities, League of California Cities had their policy
committee meetings in June and as vice chair of the revenue and taxation policy
committee. I was moderating, facilitating the meeting. We had three interesting presentations,
one from Michael Coleman, many of us will know, who is the fiscal, the lead fiscal consultant
to the League of Cities. And he talked about tools to assess fiscal health of cities, which
is very important. You can't just look at your checkbook on any given day and say, oh,
everything is fine. We have long-term, long-range planning. We also had a presentation on state
unfunded mandates and what the rules are to get reimbursement, and it's complicated. And
the third was from Khaled, the local government economic development entity, which they talked
about local economic development and opportunities and how it was done in Ontario and the Ukiah,
two very different cities.
And I would mention also that I decided to take
the SB 827 fiscal health workshop.
It was there too.
It was excellent.
I learned something and it was important
because they had a whole section on fees
and cost recovery.
It was the Thursday before our last Tuesday meeting
and even though I've been on this council for 20 years
and have been through budgets over and over,
I learned something and it was definitely,
the experts had put it together.
This Thursday, the Association of Bay Area Governments
will have its annual General Assembly meeting,
which there will be representatives from the 101 cities
in the nine counties of the Bay Area
and representatives from each of the nine counties.
We will really just be focused on adopting the annual budget
which will have a just under 3% membership dues increase
to cover inflationary costs increases.
And also the General Assembly will be asked
to affirm the new president and vice president of ABAC.
The new president will be Sue Adams,
who's a council member from Rhode Island Park
in Marin County, and the new vice president
will be Solano County Supervisor Wanda Williams.
Also, this will be my last duty as a member
on the executive board of the Association of Bay Area Governments as I'm being replaced
July 1st by Maureen Tombs of Pennole. And she will be assuming my job and I'm trying
to make that transition as smooth as possible. Recycle Smart is in the middle of transition
to a new contract for collection and processing of organics, et cetera. That will go into
affect next March but in anticipation of that a group of us are going on a tour
of Recology's organics processing facility in the Central Valley tomorrow
more to follow I think I get to wear my boots and I think that is all I would
talk about. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember.
Quota, Councilmember Davini. Well I, my youngest graduated eighth grade. We
hosted a party for the class at our house and we went on vacation and just
got back. So I have no city business to report. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem
Francois. Thank you, Mayor. I too do not have much of an update since our last
meeting but I do have an announcement that I would like to make. After a lot
of thoughtful consideration I have decided not to run for reelection this
year. I can honestly say it's been one of the true honors of my life to
represent my fellow residents as a council member. I respect immensely the
trust that these residents placed in me and I worked hard to try to never take
that for granted. I'd like to thank staff obviously starting with our city
manager and city attorney but everyone in this room and everyone who works in
this building for everything they do to make this city run so smoothly. I saw a
firsthand in countless ways over the last eight years on Council and
11 years on the Planning Commission before that. I want to thank my Council colleagues
for making this experience a
truly enjoyable one and
for making me a more thoughtful,
informed, and better person as a result.
We accomplished a lot together over these last eight years.
chief among them in my mind being the passage of Measure O that will continue
it'll live beyond me and beyond some of us and continue to enhance our high
quality of life not going anywhere anytime soon though I will be here and
committed to conserving the remainder of my council term this year so it's not
goodbye yet and in November of course there'll be an election to select my
replacement and I bow to do everything in my power to assist that person in
making the transition a very smooth one and pledge him or her my full
support. In the meantime to my colleagues let's keep being good
stewards of this city leading it with humility and grace and serving as good
models of leadership and civic engagement. Thank you.
Well thank you Matt I mean it's been a pleasure to get to know you and and
consider you a friend now over these last eight years even on council and
even several years before that. We're gonna have a lot more to say through
into December so you're not gonna get all the goodbyes and everything now in
fact being my mayor pro tem you're gonna be working very hard for the next
several months too but it has been a, it has been and will continue to be a
pleasure working with you on this and I know that your family that's here so
you're not going far. All right, well I have been kind of busy in the last
couple of weeks. As we heard Councilmember Darling mentioned about the
DRA business leaders and celebrating the upcoming events for the Diablo Regional
Arts Association, there's just a tremendous amount of enthusiasm with
within the arts community we're seeing that from the DRA events that that are
sponsored and we had several of those business leaders that respond that are
sponsors that were there and and thrilled to see that continue because as
we've unfortunately seen ever since the pandemic there are far and few between
arts centers remaining now and we are one of the last certainly we're the
biggest and well the best let's just say it we're the best in the East Bay
however there are unfortunately a fraction of what there were prior to
just seven eight years ago so it's important to keep that going as the
liaison to County Connection I did want to mention that there was a background
state audit recently that was done now some of you may be aware that of course
County Connection is one of just many different public transit agencies
throughout the East Bay in the Bay Area and there has been discussion among a
couple of state senators about combining all of them and essentially aggregating
all of them into one entity. And so the request was done on behalf of State
Senator Aisha Wahab in District 10, requesting that the legislative audit
committee approve the transit agency's audit concerning this fragmented
transit landscape. The audit reviewed six bus services agencies including County
connection and the five main takeaways from the report are that the audit found
the East Bay agencies regularly coordinate amongst each other which
actually is what County connection our staff has been saying and that travel
between different systems was accessible and easy to navigate that was a key
point there are no recommendations for the East Bay transit agencies another
key point so there's they're not recommending for any anything to happen
that happened in that regard, and that MTC agreed with the three recommendations presented,
which were that the audit recommends the legislature consider amending state law to extend the
innovative clean transit regulation deadline or allocate new funds to transit agencies.
Combining the East Bay transit agencies specifically was not a recommendation due to the analysis
that it may not provide significant financial benefits and would likely have higher costs.
So we are hopeful that this ends this phase of the push from a couple of the state senators
of consolidating all the agencies.
We think, first of all, it would cost jobs as well, and we wanted to make sure that that
wasn't going to happen.
Frankly, it would cause more issues than it would resolve.
So I hope you won't have to hear more updates from me on that.
I hope that's it, but I'll let you know if that does happen.
The mayor's conference, so it's something that occurred here a couple of weeks ago.
And the mayor's conference is something that goes throughout the 19 cities in Contra Costa
and each city hosts it and then it moves on to another one.
And so I want to thank staff immensely for this.
This does not happen without the hard work of staff.
There's city manager Dan Buxai and city clerk Susie Martinez and Elnam Branson in Casado,
Washington, and Nancy Cyr.
and really the people on the executive team
that helped make this happen.
It was greatly attended.
It was in the library Oakview room.
The restaurant where we had dinner afterwards
was La Fontaine down the street on Broadway.
They did a tremendous job in making sure that,
I mean, the service and the food was excellent,
but it was all very smooth.
We have been to mayor's conferences
where that was not the case.
So just a huge thank you to everybody on there.
And the presentation was by White Pony Express,
which rescues surplus food from businesses like grocery stores
and restaurants, and delivers to over 100 local nonprofits,
serving 125,000 people annually.
So you get the presentation.
Very well received, of course, by everybody.
And people were even making donations right then and there.
So again, just kudos all over for the city manager's office
on this one.
We heard that there were policy committee
meetings from Cal Cities this last week.
And, in fact, I am on the Environmental Quality Policy Committee, and a lot of the discussion
this last week was on BACA, which is Building an Affordable California Act, and really pushed
to try to alleviate some of the regulations that special procedures under CEQA.
And the idea is that it would only apply to essential projects, but that could include
a whole host of different areas, from types of housing and water, clean energy, public
health, wildfire safety, and the list goes on.
The idea being reducing the regulations and essentially easing CEQA bit is going to make
it easier to build.
But there was a lot of discussion and a lot of pushback.
And really, it divided the Environmental Quality Policy Committee.
The recommendation fact from the committee was to oppose the act.
So I'm sure you'll hear more about that coming forward.
Yeah, I know, it was a heated discussion.
Thanks.
It was spicy.
The Art and Wine Festival, Chamber of Commerce,
Nicole, I thought it was terrific.
I was there morning and afternoon,
both Saturday and Sunday.
People loved going, I mean,
I heard so much positive enthusiasm about it.
And I look forward to even making it above and beyond
for next year as well.
So congratulations, big kudos to the Chamber on that one too.
I also attended the Seydland's Car Show
by the Seydland Historical Society.
They had their 200 cars out there that were fantastic,
from a 1915 Model A car, yeah, I know,
it's like 110 years old, to probably a 2024 car
that's probably a half a million dollars.
Amazing, amazing event.
I also went on the tour and the family-friendly day
of Central San event that was this last weekend.
Florence Weddington is our elected representative
for what was there along with most
the Central Sand Committee. Yeah, it's good to certainly bring a nose plug but
it was really interesting to hear what happens when the water goes down the
drain or the toilet and how is it recycled so I found it fascinating.
Just a few more here. Fiesta Cultural was this last Saturday and
congratulations to Carolyn Jackson, the staff of the Kesher Center and Chris, your
team. It was great. I was there for a few hours and the performer, it was a warm day
on Saturday, it was Saturday, losing. It was a warm day, performers were great, vendors
were out there, it was just a terrific event. So look forward to seeing that in the coming
years as well. And there was something at Remembrance Park that NAMI sponsored yesterday
And I bring this up because first of all,
I was presenting a check from Lunacy Lounge
where I was a celebrity bartender event
a couple of weeks ago and a part of the proceeds donated
along with my tips and some additional monies
went to National Association for Mental Illness.
And the whole idea is reducing the stigma of mental health
and why that is something that people tend to not talk about
but there's not a problem talking about cancer, diabetes,
number of other illnesses but mental health is something it's still sort of
in the shadows and so the whole idea is what can we do to reduce the stigma of
it and bring it out into the open so that was a really nice event yesterday
this morning was coffee with a cop we had our chief of police we had captains
we had lieutenants and sergeants and all sorts of officers there at coin coffee
and Shadelands lots of residents that were there always great to see that
event and thank you so much for putting that on and reaching out to the
community and I'll be seeing jagged little pill this week and that's my
update. Alright we're done. Next we have a consideration item and it is the
authorization of the city manager to execute a memorandum of understanding
between the city of Walnut Creek and participating agencies for the
interstate 680 corridor ramp metering projects by traffic engineer Matt
Redmond forward to provide the presentation. Good evening Matt Redmond
traffic engineer. I'm just gonna introduce this before I hand it over to
CCTA Caltrans and their consultants. So good evening Mayor Wilk and Council
members. This item is to execute a memorandum of understanding
between Wanna Creek and CCTA and Caltrans to agree to operations of the
680 on-ramp changes. So a ramp meter where you have an on-ramp is a traffic
signal on a freeway on ramp that's used to regulate the flow of vehicles onto
the freeway. I just want to make sure we're clear because we're going in depth
with this technology tonight. So there's really kind of two projects going on.
Caltrans has a shop project, the state highway operation and protection program.
This is for communication infrastructure upgrades as well as ramp metering
upgrades along the 680 corridor and they have technology to meter the
ramps. Now CCTA has an additional project that layers on top of that shop
project called the CARM project which is a coordinated adaptive ramp metering
project. So this will install advanced freeway monitoring technology and
updated algorithms at the northbound I-680 on ramps from Al Costa Boulevard
down in San Ramon to Burnett Avenue and Concord. So all of our northbound ramps
on 680.
None of these currently have ramps.
In this MOU, I reviewed it, legal's reviewed it.
My main comments are related to putting an agency,
a local agency focus in the MOU, so it's not just
a care about the freeway main line,
we also care about local arterials.
And so I went through that and updated that
and provided those comments throughout the three
revisions of this MOU.
So with that, I'll turn it over to Stephanie Hu of CCTA.
Good evening, mayor and council members,
and thank you, Matt, for the introduction
and the quick summary, which is really well done.
We are happy to be here today.
My name is Stephanie Hu, director of projects
at Contra Costa Transportation Authority, or CCTA,
joined with me, our staff from Caltrans,
Sam with the Samayat from District 4,
as well as our consultant project engineer
on the CARM project.
Just as what Matt was saying,
680 grant metering deployment,
we're doing something different.
In the other corridors in Contra Costa,
grant metering have been deployed
without very much collaboration and coordination
with the local jurisdictions.
And in this case on 680,
we have been collaborating and coordinating
with all the jurisdiction along 680,
with the local staff, the traffic engineer,
each of the cities along 680 for the past year and a half.
And the result of that is this MOU
that documents the roles of responsibility, expectation,
goals, policy, governance structure of ramp metering
on 680.
So you all know that 680 is pretty congested.
This bar graph here is actually taken from a recent article
from SF Chronicle, where northbound 680 made it
to the top ten most congested freeway segments in the Bay Area.
You guys know Northbound 680 is very congested in the PM peak period.
So white ramp metering, it is a strategy to regulate flow of traffic entering the freeway.
It helps to smooth out the traffic flow entering the freeway.
It also discourages those who sometimes take the off-ramp and then get on the freeway and
the immediate on-ramp to bypass some of the congestion.
also reduces the crashes or likelihood of crashes in the merging area where
folks are coming onto the freeway and sometimes folks are also exiting. So
having ramp meter to reduce that crashes the crash the probability of crashes in
those areas. Ramp meter also have the potential to have more reliable and
efficient travel on the mainline freeway so that folks don't want to get off the
freeway to find other ways to cut through city streets for example. And
And this strategy also improves efficiency of the freeway system
without building more freeway lanes or widening the freeway,
which is consistent with the state policy of reducing
vehicle miles traveled.
So as Matt mentioned, there are two projects
being proposed for ramp metering on 680.
Originally, as Matt said, Caltrans
had already had plans to implement ramp metering
using adaptive ramp metering arm.
This is a little bit better than the traditional time of day ramp metering where ramp metering
goes on at a certain time of day.
This is adaptive in nature.
And they had plans and funding to deploy ramp metering on the entire corridor of 680 in
both direction.
CCTA saw an opportunity to partner with Caltrans as part of the Innovate 680 program.
We had plans and goals to deploy coordinated adaptive ramp metering where all the ramps
talk to each other and Scott, in a moment, will talk about that. So we partner with Caltrans to
basically carve out a segment of 680 to deploy CARM and the segment that is in blue is what we're
proposing for CARM, which is northbound 680 from El Costa to Burnett and this will be a three-year
demonstration project. Through the partnership with Caltrans we were able to find efficient
ways of delivering to both projects, either by sharing cost or sharing scope for more efficient delivery.
And then we both agreed to have some comment agreed upon performance measures to help us
evaluate the both systems,
intermediately throughout the three years, as well as at the end.
Just a little bit on Innovate 680. It is a suite of projects. It's a program of projects that help
to reduce congestion on the corridor. The adaptive ramp metering, or CARM, is under the
advanced technology projects, but there are other projects that are on this
menu of projects to help reduce congestion, not by really widening
the freeway, but using other technologies or strategies such as part-time transit
lane for buses, as well as share mobility hubs to promote share modes, and
basically not build ourselves out of congestion. So the car project is part of
the advanced technology project, which tackles cooling the hot spots of the
corridor using innovative operational strategies and also preparing the
corridor for the future and these strategies really will help to avoid
costly expansion of the freeway to tackle the congestion. It also has the
potential of high benefits with lower cost investments and also again being
consistent with the state policy of not basically widening more lanes and
increasing capacity. So with that I'm gonna invite Sam who will talk about the
Caltrans arm project and then after that Scott Patera will come up and talk
about the CCTA arm project.
Good evening mayor, council members. My name is Sam Olesomat, I'm Caltrans
project manager covering Contra Acosta County. I'll provide a brief overview of
Caltrans plant ram metering project on the 680 corridor. As Stephanie mentioned
Caltrans has been collaborating with CCTA to deploy ram metering along the 680
corridor and as part of the collaboration, CCTA implements a quadrative adaptive RAM
metering system on 680 northbound ORAMs. On a three-year demonstration project, Caltrans
plans to implement similar RAM metering system called adaptive RAM metering system, or ARM,
on all southbound ORAMs and some of the northbound RAMs that are outside of the calm limit.
Caltrans and MTC has been implementing adaptive
ram metering from around the 300 freeway over-ramps
across the Bay Area on some major highways,
the likes of I-80, I-880, US-101,
and San Francisco, Oakland Bay Bridge.
We are also expanding calm coverage
on some major freeways, including the 680 corridor.
Unlike the traditional ram metering system,
A arm is not time of day system.
In fact, it uses real time traffic data
to optimize traffic metering and also
responds to incidents on the freeway.
When there is a slowdown or accidents,
it has automatically has a capacity
to automatically turn on and off parameters.
There is a QR code and also a link
on the bottom of the slide where more information can be found.
As I mentioned on the earlier slide,
some of the major freeways that received
update to ARM are US-101 from Blu-ray to Brisbane,
and I-80 from San Jose all the way to Oakland.
From the early demonstrations where performance measures
were conducted, ARM has shown strong performance,
resulting in 10% to 30% reduction in travel time.
This is an example taken from the performance evaluation
for the US-101 on one segment.
As you can see, there is some 10% to 50% travel time
reduction.
Drivers also experienced smoother merge and fewer shock
waves, as well as constant speed on the freeways on the US-101
segment that we performed performance evaluation.
This is also another performance evaluation example
that's taken from the I-80 corridor segment on the north
bound direction.
Also here, especially on the PM peak,
there is significant travel time reduction,
and same as the benefit that was experienced on the US-101,
such as smoother merge and also constant speed.
We are planning to use the lesson learned
from these deployments on our effort
to use ARM on the three-year demonstration period
when CCT is implementing carbon to northbound direction.
that all positive to Scott to provide a brief overview on the CARM.
All right. Thank you. Good evening, I'm Scott Patero with GHD. I'm a consultant to CCTA.
So the Innovate 680 coordinated adaptive ramp metering projects of CARM will operate as
a three-year demonstration project as a proof of concept for a new ramp metering approach
in the area. It'll operate only in the northbound direction of I-680 from El Costa to Willow
Pass. CARM expands on the capabilities of the Caltrain system. It adds additional vehicle
detection to provide real-time data and additional ramp metering capabilities to respond in real-time
to manage the flow of vehicles along the freeway main line while managing the conditions on
the ramps and preventing backups onto adjacent arterials.
The key difference between CARM and other systems
is that it's coordinated.
As Stephanie mentioned, all the ramp meters
all talk to each other.
They all work cooperatively to address any traffic issues
that may pop up on the freeway or on individual ramps.
So this will be the first project of its kind
in the Bay Area, but a very similar project
just went live at the end of last month
in Riverside County, the I-15 Smart Freeways Project
that's operating right now near Temecula, California.
So there are several components
that go into CARM operations.
It involves advanced vehicle detection technologies
installed along the freeway main line,
shown on the diagram here,
as well as additional detection on the ramps themselves.
So all these new detectors provide real-time data
to the system, and then the system responds
by manipulating ramp metering rates
throughout the entire corridor to manage congestion
on the main line and prevent backups onto adjacent arterials.
The project will also include select ramp modification
improvements that provide more space at certain ramp
locations.
It gives the system more operational flexibility,
more storage on the ramps to keep
cues from impacting arterials and to keep
wait times under control on the ramp as well.
The project will also install a number of new CCTV cameras
along the corridor to give operators a clear view
of what's going on so they could take steps
to make changes if any issues arise.
So the CARM system is really powered
by a software platform called Streams.
Streams uses advanced algorithms to power the system
and it allows that coordination
between all the ramp meter signals.
It'll continuously monitor what's going on on the mainline
and on ramps it'll take in all that real-time data,
that real-time traffic data,
and then adjust ram metering rates
throughout the entire corridor, balancing ramp queues,
keeping wait times under control throughout the corridor
and preventing impacts onto adjacent arterials.
This is actually an image from a web dashboard
as part of the Riverside Project
that I mentioned previously.
So this provides a platform for monitoring and data sharing.
So CCTA anticipates creating something just like this
and making it available to stakeholders
along the corridor, including the city of Walnut Creek.
The northbound Olympic Boulevard on-ramp
will also be modified as part of CARM operations.
So a part-time shoulder lane will be installed
along the ramp.
So it'll provide a temporary third lane on that ramp
that'll be controlled by overhead lane use management
signage.
So it'll only be open to traffic when the ramp meter is turned
on, when it's metering traffic.
It'll provide more storage on the ramp
to prevent backups into arterials,
and it also provides an additional lane
so the system can release vehicles more quickly when
it senses the ability to do so.
When the ramp meter is not activated,
the overhead signage will display a big red X
that'll close that lane.
So during off-peak periods, that lane will just operate as a normal shoulder, as it would normally.
And it prevents vehicles from speeding down the ramp at relatively high speeds and emerging into that extra lane space.
So again, this northbound improvement at Olympic Boulevard, it's meant to provide more operational flexibility to allow the system to respond in real time.
So CCTA and Caltrans are following a collaborative approach
to ramp metering implementation along I-680,
which has already been explained by the other speakers.
And memorandum of understanding has been put together
that outlines key assumptions for implementation policy
and roles and responsibilities for each ramp metering system.
It establishes a framework for how each system
will be evaluated, including key performance indicators.
It also creates a structure for stakeholder coordination governance to oversee operations of each system and provide a forum for any operational comments or concerns that stakeholders may have.
MOU, as Stephanie explained, has been in development for some time and there's been a number of one on one meetings with city staff to get to this point.
The ramp metering operations and maintenance procedures document, so the OMP,
this will be a more detailed user's manual that gets more into the weeds
on how each system will be operated and maintained
and how the performance will be evaluated.
This document is already in development and we're anticipating multiple rounds of review
with local jurisdictions before the document is finalized.
In terms of implementation schedule,
so the Caltrans arm project that Sam discussed
is already under construction.
The Innovate 680 CARM project is in final design stages.
Both projects are expected to be finished
with construction in 2028.
And we expect them to be fully operational in early 2029.
So we ask, the CCT and Caltrans asks a city manager
to execute a memorandum of understanding
for the Newgate 680 corridor,
rent metering projects on behalf of the city of Walnut Creek.
So I think with that, the team is here to answer
any questions you may have.
Great, thank you so much for the multivariate presentation.
Let's first start with any questions that we have here
at the council, and it looks like Council Member Davini
has a question.
I do, thanks.
Thank you for the presentation.
I'm curious about sort of responsibilities.
I know that the CCTA, you spoke about monitoring the ramps
and the arterials.
Does the adaptive light and the adaptive ramp metering
from Caltrans have that same technology to monitor
the on-ramps at all?
And my question kind of getting to,
is there a responsibility for Caltrans
to respect the arterials and not cause
additional congestion on those. Because it would seem like a
very easy thing to do just slow traffic onto the freeway and
they move with the freeway, the freeway traffic will move faster
but it's just because it's sitting in the side street. So
is there a is there a Caltrans aspect to what we heard about
from the cars?
Yeah, that's a very good question. Yes, unlike the
traditional ram metering system, the arm system has detections
the end of the ramps, when those detections are activated,
when the queue goes all the way to the end of the ramp,
that activates the ramp meter to adjust the metering rates
so that traffic will be fed into the freeway.
And that way, we will not let traffic
backing up into the artery areas.
And I'm curious, then, for both agencies,
and it's funny that you mentioned Olympic on-ramp,
because that was the one I was thinking about.
that backup is frequently past the entrance to the on-ramp.
So how does this technology keep track of,
once you get to the end of the on-ramp,
is there anything to monitor what's going on in the streets?
Sorry, yeah, so first question on the ramp itself.
So there's detection throughout or along the entire ramp.
So the car system in particular will have a very good idea
of the length of the ramp queue or the number of vehicles.
So as the number of vehicles starts to approach that arterial,
it'll start speeding up the ramp metering rate
to keep that queue under control.
And if it backs up all the way, then it'll
go to its maximum release rate.
And how the coordinated system works is if that happens,
it'll then talk to ramps upstream of Olympic.
If you follow me, it'll change those ramp metering
rates to prevent sort of a bottleneck from forming
on the main line, it'll work cooperatively.
So, the Caltrain system as well,
they also have those back of queue detection,
so that's what Sam was talking about.
The CARM system is a little bit more sophisticated,
I guess proactive in terms of controlling
the ramp queue as it grows.
And we will be one of the key performance indicators
that came about as part of this MOU processes.
We will be monitoring and evaluating any impacts
to arterials as part of the performance.
Which leads me to my next question.
It looks like the metrics that you're gonna use
to monitor those arterials are arterial travel time,
arterial travel delays, and arterial impacts.
Can you speak to what those are?
It was in the metrics section of the report.
Sure, so travel time would be looking at the actual travel
time on a section of the arterial that call it a quarter
mile, for example, that crosses the freeway.
So we'd look at the travel time average when the ramp meters
are active and when they're not active over the course
of the three-year pilot and make sure
that we are not impacting the arterials, making travel times
worse for people when the ramp meters are active,
as far as that through movement on the arterial.
As arterial impacts go, I think that's truly
if there are occurrences of the ramp meter spilling back
onto the arterial and seeing an operator seeing impacts,
seeing vehicles walking through traffic on the arterial.
And you mentioned a third one, if you could remind me.
Travel delay.
Travel.
Also, just to clarify, I mean, I understand
there's technology on the on-ramp.
Is there a technology in the streets around the on-ramp?
Because you're talking about the arterial.
Is the arterial the way you're describing it, the on-ramp?
Or is, say, Olympic Boulevard the arterial?
So the arterial is a city street, so Olympic Boulevard.
So as far as new hardware, it would only be on the ramp.
But for evaluation purposes, we have
access to other sources of data, including third-party probe
data that'll give us an understanding of what's
happening on the city street so is that the city's responsibility then to
provide that data to CCTV or to Caltrans or I'm still unclear as to how
you'll you would say on Olympic Boulevard well it's already backed up
all the way to the bottom of the on-ramp every day and and past that so I imagine
that whatever metering system you have will be at its max every time during
During peak travel times and so then the question is how how will you measure whether that's negatively impacting olympic boulevard?
around that
That on ramp like as it goes east and west of there
So it would be focusing not just on the ramp, but olympic boulevard itself and looking at making sure travel times are not
Slowed during ramp metering operations making sure throughput remains consistent with
When the rent meters are not activated
Essentially that we're not not causing a delay. So yet you asked a question about would that be the city's responsibility. No
CCTA and Caltrans would work with cities
We would be open to using any data that's available from cities. But if that's not
provided by a local jurisdiction, then then it would be up to CCTA and Caltrans to
To obtain that information. I I saw that it was
It said that
Arterials
would be selected
That it wouldn't be all arterials around these metering ramps that they were just selected arterials that would be monitored
Have you designated some of the arterials that you're going to be monitoring and others that aren't or have they all been selected?
Because it kind of specified that they would they would select certain arterials to be monitored so speaking for calm
Specifically, I don't know maybe it's a combination of both but yeah
I could only speak to the car component, but all all ramp locations and those adjacent arterials will be monitored
That's why we're installing the
cameras, okay
Can I just build on that for one quick second? Yeah. So at the
northbound
Tree bus kirk on ramp
So that's a strange one because you end up having a backup on tree
street, which is actually not the arterial, Buskirk goes into the next street that then
goes into the on-ramp.
So how far back are you monitoring?
Because in the mornings, just unfortunately from personal experience, that backs up and
it can be several cycles of signals before even being able to make a right on the Buskirk.
And a lot of that is due to the traffic backup, people walking across the street at that point.
a pinch mark. So I agree with you that is a complicated intersection and that's
actually the one location where we're anticipating putting additional
detection along the city streets. We've also been working with Contra Costa
County that has jurisdiction over that city traffic signal to coordinate it
directly with the the Ram meter to adjust meeting rate. So we I guess to
answer your question we flagged that the difficulties at that location so we're
making some additional accommodations there. As well as ones that could be on
North Main Street especially when there's very a very short lead up onto
the ramp you'll be checking that as well I'm thinking of Southbound at North
Main Street just near tree. Yeah so that location also is one we'll be looking at.
Red flag.
Yeah.
So I mentioned earlier in the presentation,
having additional storage on the ramp
provides more operational flexibility.
So where there are shorter ramps
or complicated approaches from city streets,
that's something the operators are gonna be looking at
very carefully so we don't impact those arterials.
Okay, thank you.
Just to comment on the buskirk and oak ramp,
we are reconfiguring the ramp on buskirk
to add additional, close to 1,000 linear feet to storage.
That way, at least you can elevate some of the backup
on the treatable about.
Okay.
Yeah, the configuration will add some additional storage.
Thank you, thank you.
Thanks for now meeting our director.
Maybe come back to me.
I'd like to answer some questions and then.
Mayor Pro Tem.
Thank you for the presentation.
Interesting project.
Just big picture, are the improvements
that you're talking about, can they all be accommodated
within the existing right of way?
Yeah, I think, well, the designers can speak to it,
but most of them are within the existing right of way.
I think we try to use the limited space, the physical space
that we have, as much as we can.
We're not acquiring additional right of way
as both CARM or the ARM project.
So to your question, yes.
and then this is northbound only initially?
So northbound, no, it's both direction.
Northbound from El Costa to Burnett and Concord,
that would be CARM, the CCTA-coordinated
adaptive ramp metering.
The rest of the corridor would be
the Caltrans adaptive ramp metering arm.
The difference, again, is that CARM is able to coordinate,
all the ramps are talking to each other and coordinating,
and Scott talked about if one ramp location is in trouble,
it communicates with the ramp adjacent
to adjust their ramp metering rates
to kind of help that one in trouble,
either holding back traffic or accelerating,
getting cars on faster or slower
to help the ramp in trouble, I suppose.
But yeah, they're all kind of talking to each other
and that's the main difference between car and arm.
So both directions, essentially effective,
2028, CARM only, northbound,
with the flow of traffic, essentially.
So the commute, following the commute direction.
Yeah, 2029, it's when it's both system will be turned on.
And we came into agreement that
they will be all on at the same time.
What sort of outreach?
I mean, obviously you're here tonight.
Yeah. Thank you for that.
What kind of public outreach and notice of approval?
Yeah, the first step is really coordinating
with the technical staff, as I mentioned.
We have goals to have videos to explain
what the ramp metering experience would be like.
The public should understand that this is new.
We know there's no ramp metering
on this corridor right now.
So we plan to do either different strategies,
one being some short videos
to explain what ramp metering could look like.
We've done videos on other things on the corridor
for Innoface 680 to explain express lanes and all of that.
So that's something we'd like to continue.
And then we've been doing a lot of outreach
during our summer months on outreach
to the community farmers market.
We've been doing that every year.
So this is another way we can kind of touch the public
with the project and updating them on what's gonna come.
And then finally, you mentioned the average savings
and delay once you're on the mainline.
Is there, that's gotta be counterbalanced a little bit
by the delay it takes you to get onto the freeway.
Is there information or metrics on that?
Yeah, the metrics we have right now
is mainly focused on the freeway, so the delays.
We will be doing the same performance evaluation
before we turn it into parameters on 680 corridor as well,
before and after evaluation to measure
the effectiveness of the ramp metering system,
and CARM is going to do the same as well,
and we'll continue doing that
over the three-year human restriction period,
comparing both systems, CARM and ARM,
to see which system effectively manage traffic
when it comes to traffic management, the freeway,
as well as on the arterials.
Do you have data now that tells you what the delay is
in terms of once meters go in,
kind of how much longer it takes to get onto the mainline?
Then I think probably, I mean,
we're able to provide information for it.
Yeah, so the CARM system,
for this project, we're taking a lot of lessons learned
from a pilot that was done in Colorado
with the same software system.
So in that implementation, the results showed
that there was a slight increase in the weight on a ramp
in exchange for a shorter, more reliable overall trip.
And the data showed that.
The average wait time, and we can provide
that evaluation report from Colorado if you're interested,
the average wait time was only, I believe,
one or two minutes at certain locations and then it would increase from there.
One of the components of the CARM system is if a longer wait time like three plus
minutes is detected that's a component where it'll take steps to speed up the
metering rate to bring that back down under control. Thank you.
Thank you. Just a couple quick questions and thank you for the the
the presentation or the thought you've put into this,
thinking about future proofing,
is there, the algorithm is set now,
can you modify it over time as you learn?
So there's a set of base algorithms,
part of the process and part of the reason
why there's folks monitoring at all times
is there's actually a lot of calibration that takes place.
So throughout the three year pilot,
the first three months, for example,
it may only take two months, it may take four months,
there'll be a lot of incremental tuning and calibration.
And then as we anticipate every three to six months,
there'll be a review of data and then continued calibration.
Yes.
As you're tweaking it,
are you gonna be reaching out to city staff
to see if they're getting complaints and you know.
Part of the MOU has a section on sort of ongoing
like working group.
We have a technical coordinating committee
as part of innovate 680.
We're basically drawing from that group the same
like Matt who was on it just continue to monitor
and meet regularly, quarterly, whatever.
If there's issues we can meet more
but I think we're thinking about quarterly at first
and then maybe pivot to something less frequent
if there's no issues.
But yes, the cities are, I think,
what's good about the MOU is that we have
a common understanding of what the partnership looks like
and what is required from each party,
and if they are issues, we are all in agreement
to meet and resolve them.
If there's a specific ramp that's of an issue,
CCTA Caltrans are committed to work with the locals
and to resolve it, not to walk away
after the installation of the ramp meters,
So that's what the MoUs really for.
Yeah.
And this is going to be a silly question.
Why are you doing detection on the freeway?
Can't you just use the cell phone data that Google uses?
That's a really good question.
So we hope to be able to use that probe data at one point.
Currently, the system needs to know
where every single vehicle is at any time.
That's why there's a lot of new actual physical detectors put
in place.
probe data from cell phones or connected vehicles.
That's something that we're really interested in using
to adjust the algorithm.
And we might use samples of that
to sort of tweak things and calibrate,
but the actual control of the system requires knowledge
of where every single vehicle is.
It's kind of based on industrial control logic
if you can imagine like an assembly line.
So until every single-
Transferring smoothly along that you know that's that's the idea so
There there are other ramp metering systems though
They're not quite as sophisticated as karm, but they're they're relying on that that cell phone data or connected vehicle data
But as as technology continues to improve that's something we're looking at sure great. Thank you
Thank you very much for the presentation and all of the work that's going into this and oh my gosh
Matt Redmond must be very excited to be participating in this project so my
question starts with the premise that we're trying to improve the performance
on the mainline by improving the performance on the ramps on ramps but
not impacting negatively the performance on the arterials so how do what kind of
baseline data are we going to have before you turn it on to know how the arterials are
performing.
So Scott spoke a lot about a bit about the three years, sorry, three months of calibration
of the CARM system.
Part of that is collecting data of the existing prior to turning it on, so we know what we're
comparing it to.
Thank you.
And not just one week's worth of data when school's out or something.
Correct.
Yes, yes, yes.
of data to help us understand the existing condition pre-ratt metering being turned on.
That will be the basis from which we would compare. And then we talked about, you know,
working with city to collect data from the local streets that they may have that could be useful
for us in that comparison moving forward. I guess I will say Olympic on-ramp backs up
every day all the way to the CVS. Correct. That's why you guys have the 680s. It's not just
At the bottom of the on-ramp, it is, and then it backs up in two lanes, and the third lane
that has going through to, on Westbound Olympic is just, don't go that way.
Yeah.
During certain hours.
Um, so we have three northbound on-ramps that are in this, Red Gear Road, Olympic Boulevard,
and North Main, Lawrence Way.
Beyond that and south of that, those are in an incorporated area, on the northbound.
Those are really unique on ramps. We all know we're all aware of that right because two of them are in the middle of an interchange and
then the Red Gear Road northbound on-ramp starts from the
West side and goes how are you where are you going to put the signals for an on-ramp that you can't see?
When you're turning onto Red Gear Road on-ramp
So I don't have the the designs in front of me
But there's advanced warning beacons that are in place on the ramp meter
So it'll let drivers know that a ramp meter is a head
That's there's also signage that will be installed at the entrance of the ramp
So on the actual arterial telling people folks that the ramp meters on so to look for that
But you know what I'm talking about it is a blind on ramp
Where you turn you come from two different directions
But you cannot see most of the on-ramp when you're going on to the red gear road northbound on ramp
so there the traffic signal itself for the ramp metering signal is placed based on site constraints and storage requirements, so
Okay
That will be placed and then there's additional signage letting folks know that it's that's happening and when the ramp meters active
We anticipate other vehicles to be there. So a driver shouldn't be surprised
The Olympic onramp feeds right into the off-ramp into Ignacia Valley Road.
That's part of the problem, is it's not really a free-flowing freeway at that point.
It's if there's traffic moving like this up there, you know that.
And then the North Main Lawrence Way onramp is just a very long city street.
So all of those make these three fairly unique.
So we'll have good baseline data to start with.
Why are we testing it if it has been tested and it's in play in Riverside County I-215?
Yeah, the Riverside County one is also a demonstration project, it's for two years.
It's for a lesser stretch of the freeway, I think it's for interchanges.
The reason why is that we need to demonstrate to Caltrans, this is an effective system.
They have deployed ARM throughout the state.
And CCTA is interested in proving
that the demonstration of CARM would be successful
in order for us to do more CARM elsewhere in the county,
well, elsewhere on 680 as well as other parts of the county.
We know it's been successful in Australia,
in Colorado, that Scott spoke about.
And then also with the demonstration project in Riverside
that's just starting, we kind of overlap a little bit.
We're hoping these two pilot projects will help demonstrate
its effectiveness.
So the point is to demonstrate that this
is more effective than ARM with its fuzzy logic.
I don't even want to want to know what fuzzy logic is.
It's a name.
It's a technical term.
It's their algorithm, just like Streams
is the algorithm for CARM.
I think you've answered my questions.
Thanks.
I think for the question of rights, why don't we go?
One point of clarification, and I'm glad you asked that question.
It's exactly what I was thinking about collecting good data ahead of time.
How are we going to monitor it?
And maybe it's a question for our traffic engineer, but do we already have,
like is this already data that we collect?
Because when I'm listening to the project, I'm getting the sense
that we're installing additional monitoring systems on these arterials
to collect this data, but is this data that we're already collecting from the traffic
department? I imagine you already have your eyes on these challenging ramps. Is there
new equipment or are there preparations that we're making as a city to prepare for monitoring
and impacts or is that being done purely by from the CCTA Caltrans standpoint?
Maybe I can add just one more note related to that.
I don't know if you guys are aware that CCTA is also doing a more countywide smart signals
project that are being deployed in all the major arterials in the county.
So part of that work will also have a way to collect data.
I just wanted to add that before Matt comes on for that question.
There's other initiatives or strategies that CCT is deploying outside of this, what we're
talking about on the signal side that can help really inform the ramp metering project,
the countywide smart signals that's ongoing.
I know we're going to construction in a couple months, and then we're also doing a phase
two of that, hoping to cover more areas and even deploy more smart signals.
strategy is part of our strategy for smart signals will help kind of inform the ramp
meter and have the connection between them.
And then the other thing is Innovate 680 has a coordinated adaptive traffic signals project
that is a companion piece to ramp metering, but that doesn't have as much funding, but
that's something we're thinking about on how to make them all connect better, the arterial,
especially at the ramp junction and the termini.
I just want to add that before...
Thanks.
Yeah, we definitely have some existing data sources, mainly traffic counts and some intersection
turning movement counts.
So this is like how many people took a left at this time of day at a certain intersection.
Actually right now as part of the general plan we're deploying, we're collecting those
counts at 20 locations citywide and along a bunch of other, you know, another 20 segments
of streets.
And so I don't know how much of those overlap here, but I think we can get a general idea
about how many vehicles are flowing,
and essentially what's the performance
of our intersections.
So that can provide a baseline.
And then the other aspect here is the probe data.
I mean, I think with the cell phones,
we're able to anonymize those
and provide aggregated information about speeds
on any roadway in the city.
And we have our own subscription service
that we can look at,
and then it sounds like they're gonna be doing
their own study independent that we could verify and make sure that their
data is accurate and we agree. So we do have a few data sources that that we
could use for a before understanding. Okay why don't we bring it to the public
communication now if there's anybody from the public that would like to make
a comment on this now would be the time to step forward and ask any questions
that you may have or any comments you may have as well. There are speaker cards
back there. Once you're at the podium please introduce yourself in the city of
residence for the record. Consistent with city policies related to public
comments each speaker will have two minutes to make your remarks written
comments submitted if any have been posted the city's website for public
review and are included in the meeting record but will not be separately read
into the record. So if there's anybody that would like to speak on this
particular agenda item please come forward now. Once, twice, okay we will
then close the public comment portion of this and bring it back to council for
discussion and or a motion. I had one follow-up question I think for Matt just
in hearing about kind of some of the improvements that are being made and it
sounds like most of it's happening within the right-of-way and I appreciate
my colleagues concerns about the arterials and about challenging nature
of some of these on-ramps. We haven't really talked about Lawrence Way and we
have our major city corporation yard located there with a lot of ingress and
egress of trucks is that being factored into the plans we have concerns about
how that's all gonna work yeah so the Lawrence treat Boulevard area that will
be I think you're speaking more of the express lanes project that whole
interchange will be modified in terms of ramp metering though once the express
lanes project is complete the ramp metering will be installed on the
Lawrence way on ramp we don't want to put on a ramp meter before the
completion of the Express Lane project because we'll just wipe it out and it's
kind of wasting money to put something up there that's going to be demoed for
the express lanes project the modification to the Lawrence way area is
is that the treat boulevard off-ramp will now be elevated
above the Lawrence on-ramp.
So it's called braided ramps.
So basically, it grace separates.
The treat boulevard off-ramp folks
will be above Lawrence on-ramp.
That really alleviates the weaving movement that happens there.
Those who are trying to get off-treat
are weaving with those who are trying to get on from Lawrence.
And additionally, there's the truck scale
at the end of treat.
So you're also competing space with the trucks.
So as part of the Express Lanes project
is an operational improvement to basically
grade separate the lawns on and the treat off.
And the impact to the courtyard is something we're studying.
We actually had a really good meeting with your staff
this week and went on a field visit
to really understand the current operations of the courtyard
and CCTA working with our designer will really minimize
the impact to the courtyard and making sure
that the Core VR operations will be made whole,
whatever improvements we're making.
But we've already tweaked our design
for the express lane side to really minimize
the footprint of any impact that we have
and working with your staff to better understand
what will work best for the Core VR operation.
So hoping that.
Excellent, thank you very much.
So help me understand how far back,
if you're going to elevate the treat off-ramp,
where does that start?
So what happens with, I don't have a picture here,
I should maybe put it in the backup slide,
but in the future, those exiting on treat
will get on the loop ramp where North Main is right now.
So North Main exit, it's a loop.
So people who are exiting on treat will take that loop ramp
and it'll come up and then it will elevate over Lawrence.
I'm happy to provide a visual afterwards to your staff,
to Matt, perhaps, if he wants to distribute it to you all,
and happy to come and speak on that project.
If that's desired, I know it's hard to visualize,
but I'm happy to.
We have pictures and visual on it, the presentation.
So yeah, you get off on Tree.
If you want to get off Tree in the future,
you take the loop ram as if you're going on North Main,
but you will then come up and there will be a,
like, through to go parallel to 680,
and you'll be higher up than Lauren's.
A lot of interesting construction.
Yes.
But that will greatly alleviate the whole weaving issues
that we have at that location.
That's this far on my iPad.
You have to zoom in.
Oh, now it's sorted.
That will be interesting to see.
I would be interested in seeing.
OK.
I'm happy to provide the materials to Matt.
And if you desire a presentation,
we'd be happy to come back.
There's a lot of commercial properties
as well as the corp yard.
Comment?
Comments.
Overall, I'm excited for this project
at the recent CCTA workshop I went to.
They were polling elected and other stakeholders
around the county as to what are the most important things
traffic related.
And the number one choice was always the traffic congestion
on the freeways was the biggest thing that people talked about.
So anything that we can do to improve that,
I think that's great.
I just hope it doesn't come at the expense
and the offset of spending more time
on the arterials and the on-ramps.
And so I'm glad to hear that in the MOU
will continue to have those discussions
and appreciate that process.
So sounds like a great project though.
Great.
Well, basically the action that's recommended
is of executing the memorandum of understanding.
so if anybody would like to make a motion.
I appreciate the time effort you guys have put into this
and so I am prepared to move to authorize the city manager
to execute the MOU for the Interstate 680 corridor
ramp metering projects on behalf of our city.
I'll second and I just wanted to make a comment too.
Thank you for the presentation.
Thank you for coming here tonight.
We didn't have a lot of public comment,
but I suspect in two years, we might.
You start building things up in the air, yeah.
So just would encourage you and it sounds like you're on it
to do the outreach that you're talking about,
robust outreach explaining to people
how this is actually going to be a benefit
and improve their lives.
And then I appreciate your comments
about working with our staff about any potential impacts
to the courtyard or any city facilities.
And if you could just keep doing that,
we would appreciate it.
Right, and to that point,
not just letting our transportation
and public works team know,
but also communications manager
who can put that out through our own social media channels.
That would be helpful.
all right thank you very much appreciate it oh we didn't oh you're right I guess
we have to vote we should vote on this all right we have a motion in a second
councilmember Davini aye councilmember darling aye councilmember Silva aye
mayor pro tem Francois aye and mayor Wilk aye all right now would it now it
passes oh we're good all right see mayor pro tem we need you around
all right okay how we're doing good all right move it now we'll move on to the
Next item, which is adopting resolutions
approving the assessment report
and the annual levy of assessments
for the Walnut Creek Tourism Business Improvement District
for fiscal year 2027 and setting a public hearing
for July 21st, 2026 and I ask economic development manager,
Mike Nieman forward to provide the presentation.
I'll lift that.
Good evening, Mayor Wilk, members of the city council,
as well as members of the public, I'm Mike Nieman
and I'm here to introduce this next item,
which is an annual assessment report for the TBID,
which stands for the Tourism Business Improvement District.
As you know, the city of Walnut Creek has had
this district established since 2010.
It's managed by the Walnut Creek Chamber
and Visit Walnut Creek DMO,
which stands for Destination Marketing Organization,
and it promotes our city and attracts visitors.
There are currently eight hotels in the city,
two are in unincorporated county,
but they're part of this district,
and this district is funded by an additional 3% assessment
on the transit occupancy tax,
which is collected from visitors
by the hotels in the district.
As part of this district,
There is an annual assessment renewal
and it consists of two steps.
The first one is tonight.
It's to receive a report and presentation
from the district and set a public hearing date.
And then the second step would be a public hearing
that would be set for the next council meeting on July 21st.
And with that, I would like to introduce Nicole Hankton,
who is the interim CEO for the chamber.
Good evening, everyone. Back up again. Thank you for your help at Art & Wine, Cindy and
Cindy and Kevin. It was a great, great festival. Very proud of it. Okay, here we go for our
renewal report for fiscal year 25-26. Obviously, as Mike touched on, these are our eight hotels.
Marriott, Embassy Suites, Renaissance Bay Club, Residence In, Holiday In Express, Hilton
Garden In, one of our newest ones, and Super 8, previously Motel 6, and then it was another
brand for just a hot second and now we're at Super 8, and Diablo Mountain In. Total
room inventory of 1,311 rooms in Walnut Creek. These are our partnerships and memberships
that we maintain this fiscal.
And we plan to move forward with.
Helms-Brisco is a third party organization
that helps organizations book rooms and book conference space.
Cal Travel is an organization that keeps
us abreast of everything that's going on in California related
to TBID funding, tourism funding,
and how much we have coming into California
and how much it trickles down to us.
Destinations International is a very strong marketing
organization, association that the DMO belongs to.
MPI, Meeting Professionals International,
helps us with leads.
We belong not only to the Northern California Chapter,
but also the Sacramento Sierra Nevada Chapter,
which kind of helps us converge
and cover most of Northern California.
Associations West is the associations market.
So there are several associations in California,
And our membership and partnership with associations west has been beneficial for regional meetings
for all kinds of associations.
We tried a membership with BAFTA this year, Bay Area Business Travel Association, and
also GBTA, Global Business Travel Association.
We are also very strong with sports, so we joined sports ETA as well.
Partnerships and sponsorships.
So this is more partnership driven.
We have a partnership with Copa Soccer Training Facility where we have signage displayed
inside the facility.
They list us on our hotels on their website.
We get a lot of visibility in their newsletter and their socials.
So that is helped with event tournament organizers.
Ultimate Field House has also been a beneficial partnership where we bring tournaments to
them and they bring in their own tournaments.
We are also listed on their website and the hotels are happy with the return on the tournaments
that come to Ultimate Fieldhouse as far as rooms go.
Of course our partnership with the Walnut Creek Chamber in regards to East Bay Women's
Conference and the Art & Wine Festival.
Specifically for Art & Wine we run a hotel trolley from, we have two routes.
One route takes three hotels and the other takes the other three hotels and we don't
include the two ends but they can walk to the nearest hotels and get on the
trolley and it just does loops and picks up hotel guests that would like to visit
the Art & Wine Festival drops them off and it comes around every 15 to 20
minutes it was a big hit last year so we did it again this year it was good
air conditioning good music and we partner with the Livermore Valley Wine
Trillies so the trolley so they look really good so we're doing we did that
again this year our partnership with Walnut Creek downtown has been very
beneficial. The hotels love to offer tickets and anything that where their
guests can attend these events, Oktoberfest, Walnut Creek on Ice and on
Corked, and it's been very beneficial. The guests love it. It gets them out in
Walnut Creek. It's them spending money. We like that. Broadway Plaza summer
concert series. The hotels love this one because they get tables at this event
and they can talk to locals and local businesses about their hotel and what
they have to offer. We are also still part of the Mount Diablo marketing co-op
which is ourselves visit Walnut Creek, visit Concord, visit Tri-Valley and visit
Pleasant Hill. We all pool our money into when there's a sponsorship opportunity
and we can't afford it on our own. For example Bay Area host committee that
hosted Super Bowl and FIFA. We all pool our money together and do a group
sponsorship and it's worked out very well for us. Art and wine hotel shuttle
just mentioning that again that's the route that we took and then also we ran
a special online called stay in play so if you booked your hotel wine your hotel
stay during art and wine you got two glasses and two free drinks and you
could take the free shuttle around to the art and wine and this year we ran it
for the first time last year, and we only sold two.
This year, we sold five.
So we're getting there.
We are getting there.
So we're going to keep going until we can build this up.
Stepping into our visitor's guide.
As you know, in past years,
we have done a actual printed guide,
and we wanted to really push AI enhancements on our website.
So we decided to do an AI visitor's guide this time
instead of print to replace print.
and it not only costs us less,
but we're not having thousands of visitors guides
sitting in the chamber office.
And this is great because you can go onto the website
and you can go on and just ask
on the visit walnutcreek.org website and ask a question.
Where's a good place to have brunch?
Please build an itinerary for me on a Sunday or a Saturday
or a Friday night in Walnut Creek and it will answer.
We're also building favorites lists for hotel staff.
So if there's a front desk person
who has like a list of favorite restaurants,
we've been naming those lists after the hotel staff
and listing them on in our AI visitors guide
and the hotels love being a part of that.
Social media, we're doing really great.
We are up to almost 10,000 followers.
It's leisure focused on our Instagram
and all of our meta actually.
We're also on TikTok.
And we're just giving people great experiences
in Walnut Creek and trying to bring them in from out of town
and running this in addition to our Meta ads,
bringing people into Walnut Creek.
So please check us out on Instagram.
If you don't already follow us, please do.
There we go.
This is a breakdown.
So for Google, we're looking at 106 million impressions
and over 55,000 website clicks.
On Meta, we have 1.3 million impressions
and those ads led to almost 33,800 website clicks.
So we're doing what we're supposed to do.
We're getting people driven to the website
where they can access everything that's going on
in Walnut Creek and also take them to other websites
like Walnut Creek downtown if they need to.
So we're just bringing the people in
and dispersing them where they need to go.
We also did some e-blasts to specific markets, so Weekend Sherpa, we ran an article there.
It's more of the outdoorsy audience, birders, hikers.
That's what Weekend Sherpa covers.
And then also we did a blast with Unique Venues, which was specifically our small meetings
big impact campaign.
We know that Walnut Creek in our hotels does not have the capacity to hold these big 300
to 500 people groups. So we have decided to embrace that we do small meetings the
best. So we name the campaign small meetings big impact, we offer small
incentives, we send out meeting, we send out email blasts, and we target meeting
planners and executive assistants specifically. We did a brand refresh this
fiscal year. So if you all remember Go Calapolitan, some of you were there. When
When we first started this rebrand, we didn't have a thing, so to speak.
So we kind of had to make up a thing, which was Go Calapolitan.
But this that we reviewed with our team and in our board meeting, everyone loved Always
in Season because Walnut Creek is always in season.
This can apply to our weather.
This can apply to our outdoor activities.
This can apply to our food, to our retail stores.
So everyone was in agreement that Always in Season is where we wanted to go.
And these are the two versions of our new logo refreshed.
We still trademark Go Calapolitan so it's not going away but this is our refreshed tag.
Collateral refresh, this is our meeting planner's guide.
So we have highlights about Walnut Creek, accessibility by the numbers and of course
our hotels are listed.
Our sales manager takes this piece out on the road with him to give meeting planners,
especially the ones that don't know where we are, a quick look of what we have to offer.
These are the data platforms that we use to inform us to make our digital marketing buys.
So Arrivalist we're using right now.
Nolan gives us the meeting market intelligence so we can see who is booking what, and that
can inform our sales manager on leads and who to go after.
Wipe is our direct room booking engine, so that is connected to Copa's website and Ultimate
Field House website, and then we're also going to be using it for our upcoming cycling race.
And if you go to our website right now, you can book a room at any of our hotels or inns
directly from our website.
These are visitation insights, 345,000 overnight trips, 85% of them came from within California
So we get a lot of traffic from Sacramento.
They love us up in Sacramento, and we did see an uptick in LA.
NYC had the highest out of state area volume.
Seattle had the longest average stay.
And the highest volume day was when J.P. Morgan Chase was at Moscone.
So we love that San Francisco is picking up those huge conventions at Moscone
because we get traffic from those.
Sometimes people don't want to stay in the city, and
And they're willing to take the BART to Walnut Creek.
This is right that I just went over.
We got 32 bookings, 62 room nights, about $10,639 in revenue.
And that is collected by the hotel properties, not by us.
Oops, sorry.
Hang on just a second.
Oh, wait a second.
Okay.
I got ahead of myself there.
Sorry.
Hang on. Can you start that over? Sorry about that. Right there. Yes. Thank you.
So I wanted to give you an update on a new campaign that we're doing called Very Local.
It is a set of videos that we're going to be running mostly up in the Sacramento area
and also in the San Francisco Bay Area. And it just gives highlights of Walnut Creek.
We have what we call micro docs, micro documentaries,
which are two minutes long.
And then we have 15 second spots and 30 second spots.
We're gonna be running those on meta and Google.
And it just gives a brief description of Walnut Creek
and things that we have to offer
and we focused on outdoor specifically.
Only 30 seconds.
It's quaint and accessible, but vibrant.
There's a true sense of community here.
We have gorgeous natural beauty.
could get lost at Mount Diablo for hours and hours. It really gives that
vacation feeling every time I come here. World-class dining, thriving downtown, all
of these amazing lifestyle things all in one place within minutes of one another.
Regardless of what you're looking for, you can buy it at Walnut Creek. So that is
one of our very local videos. These are the conferences and sales events that
we've attended to bring meeting planners into Walnut Creek. You'll notice what
that we've been in several areas of the country,
and these are all the organizations
that we partner with on conferences.
Familiarization Tours, aka FAMs.
We've done three this year,
and we've brought them down to what we call microFAMs.
Usually other destinations host anywhere from 10 to 30 people,
depending on the size of the destination.
They're very expensive,
and you may get an RFP out of it.
So we decided to shrink it down,
bring in people that book locally specifically,
and do a more, one of the biggest complaints
we heard from planners is a lot of destinations
keep them for like two or three days,
and they just can't spare the time.
So we got it down to one day, we pack in one day,
we give them a bunch of information,
and we've gotten three RFPs so far,
and estimation of 550 room nights,
and out of three tours held, it was 30 total,
so we keep it small, and we keep it relevant,
and it's worked out for us.
Some of you may have seen this at our tourism updates,
back in, was that April?
Yes, April.
This is California numbers.
So, travel related spending, 159 billion,
and that's up year over year, we love that,
and that relates to 1.16 million tourism jobs.
This is the visitation forecast.
So kind of flat, but it's going up.
There's been a lot of changes, but it's going up.
So we're happy about that.
This is the big news that we also
mentioned at the tourism update that the GFNY race is
scheduled for April 18, 2027.
That is an international cycling race.
They also booked a cycling race in Ventura on April 11, 2027.
And they are setting up a four-day bike tour
in between the two destinations.
So the GFNY is really going after California.
These are their first two races ever in California.
So the race will end on the Mount Diablo Summit,
and we're really looking forward to the room nights
that that's going to bring in with 500 to 1,000 cyclists
expected for the first year.
And we've signed a three-year deal for this event.
We actually had the hotels pick the month
that the race comes in a month where they're soft
and the hotels agreed on that date.
So we had some changes to our budget
and I just wanted to go over some highlights.
We made increases to all travel hotel meals,
conference registrations, everything is higher.
Hotels rates are higher.
Conference rates have increased from $500 to $1,000
just for registration more than last year.
More money was applied to our outside services category
to capture new vendors and new campaign creation.
Updates to personnel and outreach
to capture annual salary increases
and projected payroll taxes.
And then also an increase to our dashboard economic impact
to reflect crossover on a new vendor contract.
So we'll have some crossover in between our previous vendor
and our new vendor.
And are there any questions?
Great. Any questions? Councilmember Silva?
Thank you very much, Nicole.
And thank you to the Convention and Visitor Bureau
for all the work that you do to help our local hotels.
So I remember when this was established
and the comments from the hoteliers
was we need more heads in beds.
Statistics related to that?
Or have they moved occupancy levels, et cetera?
How is that going?
So we're still averaging between 71 and 73% per month
on occupancy, which is actually pretty good
as the state, the national average is around 67%.
So we're still above the national average, which is great.
We also are leading in our region on occupancy
with the exception of Pleasant Hill,
but that's because Pleasant Hill has long-term stays.
Most of their properties are long-term stays.
We do lead the region very much so
in our average daily rate, which is ADR.
So we're still moving along in the right direction
and holding occupancy between 71 and 73.
What I like more, absolutely.
But that's where we've been going
probably for the last two years.
And the opening of the Hilton Garden Inn,
how has that affected occupancy levels, et cetera?
So I know that has affected occupancy levels
at Embassy Suites because they're the same brand
and they can use their points at either one.
And everyone loves the new kid, right?
Love a brand new hotel.
So it has affected Embassy Suites a bit.
I think kind of, I think as we see time go on,
I think it's gonna balance itself out
because I had just come on board when Residence In was built
and we saw the same thing.
They pulled occupancy from the Marriott.
And then after about a year or two,
it kind of balanced itself out.
So I think we will see that.
But right now, the Hilton Honors members
are heading over to the new property.
I guess your question is, generally speaking,
are we adding more or are we cannibalizing?
And you can understand that it's what the market itself
is doing.
I don't think it's cannibalizing, but I don't.
So far, I have not seen that it's bringing more.
So we're going to keep an eye on it.
And they are back to being fully staffed.
They had some staff issues early on.
They're back to being fully staffed.
But I don't think it's cannibalizing.
Are all eight operators involved in the convention,
in the TBID, in the governance of it?
How's that going?
We have our regulars, our consistent properties
that show up every single time.
And we have our properties that I
have to go get them to make them participate.
But yeah, for the most part, they're getting more engaged.
We're going in the right direction.
And my last question has to do with,
I noticed that you're running a net loss.
and then you're running one budgeted projection this year.
And you may have been doing that for a couple of years.
Yes.
Are you spending down reserves that you acquired during COVID?
I mean, what's going on?
Cause you can't do that in perpetuity.
Agreed.
I will ask Anthony to come up.
He's our treasurer because he can give more
detailed answers on that.
But yes, you are correct.
We can't continue to do that.
and yes, that was a reserve from money
that we did not spend during COVID.
Correct. Yes, yes to those two, yes.
Okay, thanks.
So at what point will you be looking to basically
have your income align with your expenses?
It depends on the revenues are still a little shy
of what they're spending obviously,
but there's a million and $1.2 million in a fund.
And so the DMO's job is to spend that money
to get heads in beds.
I've attended every meeting since October at the DMO
and it's crystal clear what the hotels want.
They want visibility for this city.
They love this city.
They love deploying their capital in this city.
And they feel that once they have people coming to this city,
people want to stay here.
So two things.
Visit Walnut Creek and heads in beds.
And so that's what that fund is for.
So as the treasurer, I want those monies to be spent
judiciously and for the appropriate things and the DMO has been the board has been very involved by Clark on the budget and the
Decisions of the DMO since I've been involved
Thank you
For the questions or okay, let's open up the public comment right now if anybody from the public would like to come up and
Ask and questions or comments on this. Please complete a speaker card
Once at the podium, please introduce yourself and city of residence for the record
Consistent with city policies related to public comments. Each speaker will have two minutes to make your remarks
Written comments submitted have been posted the city's website for public review and are included in the meeting record
But will not be separated read in the record if we have any minute for the public that would like to speak on this
Please come forward now
Okay. Well, I guess we will close the public comment on that bring it back to council for any more comments questions or motion. I
I would just say thank you, Nicole, for your enthusiasm
and for taking an industry that got battered pretty hard
by COVID and finding ways to start to bring it back.
I appreciate all your work and if anybody, any others?
So I will move to adopt the resolution
approving the Walnut Creek Tourism Board,
Tourism Business Improvement District Annual Assessment
Report for FY25-26 and adopt the resolution of intention
to levy assessments for FY27 for the T-BID
set a public hearing for July 21st, 2026. We have a motion in a second. I'd like you
to hit the roll please. Councilmember Davini? Yes. Councilmember Darling? Aye. Councilmember
Silva? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Francois? Aye. And Mayor Wilk? Aye. And thank you Nicole, that was, yeah as we
just heard regarding during COVID we know that one hotel at least opened
right at the beginning of COVID so so it's great to get them back on track
here. Thank you very much. Why don't we take a five, ten, twenty-one. Let's do a five-minute
break until 8.05. All right. And we're back. Next on the agenda is a consideration titled
presentation of the draft economic development action plan for fiscal year 2027 and 2028.
And I invite again economic development manager Mike Nieman forward to provide the presentation.
Thank you, good evening again, I'm still Mike Nieman, your economic development manager,
and I'm joined here by Kasava Washington, and we are your economic development division.
So before I start telling you about this new action plan, I did want to caveat that while
the two of us are your economic development staff, our city's economic development efforts
extend much broader, so when I talk about economic development in this plan, some of
it is headed by our division but a lot of it is done by other staff and mostly in collaboration
with other staff, because the key essence of economic development here is the quality
of life.
So a lot of projects we work on closely with community development, with public works,
with the police department, and all of these staff are committed to the quality of life
here.
So we'll start with the background.
We've always done economic development planning in this city, but the 2018 effort has been
done on the five-year cycle, and that's been historically done here.
However, since COVID hit, there's been a lot of change in the economy, and to be more proactive
and more adaptable to some of the rapid changes, the city turned the next economic development
to an action plan, which is more task oriented.
And that was presented to you all in 2023
for the 2425 cycle.
There was a lot of community outreach
and a lot of input received.
And there were 12 tasks identified within that document
that we have implemented and carried forward.
Those tasks were mostly focused
on the city's office and retail base,
promoting this location and the city's image,
creation and support of the existing jobs,
support of the key industries,
which are healthcare and auto sales,
exploration of emerging industries and partnerships.
I mentioned some of the partnerships
within the departments within the city,
but also external partnerships
with economic development organizations outside of the city.
So the idea behind this new document
in front of you tonight is to extend this two-year cycle
into the fiscal year 26-27 season.
And I'll highlight some of the baseline trends
as well as the thinking that's encapsulated here
building on the work and the input
that has been done to date.
So first, a number of accomplishments
for the 24-25 action plan.
We have completed many of these tasks.
Our staff promoted Walnut Creek as a premier destination
and a place to do business.
We've done that through interviews with the media,
articles, what's new section,
and sharing of the positive and success stories
on our website, as well as many other strategies.
We hosted broker forums in collaboration
with the Walnut Creek Chamber,
where we have closely collaborated with the broker community
to make sure that we understand
the current trends are and stay abreast of the new and emerging trends to make sure that
we capitalize on those opportunities. We reinstated the mayor's business retention program and we're
happy to report that we are on track to complete for a year with two already completed this year
alone. We also implemented an outdoor dining pods grant program last summer and happy to report that
It's been an award-winning program via CALED,
and we now have seven pods.
And before the grant expires in June,
we have several more in the pipeline,
which we're really happy about.
We also engaged a consultant in the LEAN process designed
to improve the permitting process here
and focused on streamlining permitting.
And we have been underway since last year
and involved in that effort through the permit review team.
And you'll see the updates going to council later this year
with how that process is improving how the city is
processing applications from customers.
We've also continued to provide exceptional service
and support strategic customers such as Madsen and Five Star
Bank, which were our major success stories
from last year.
These are two major office tenants that came to town.
We've continued or adopted an ordinance
in collaboration with Walnut Creek downtown
enabling an entertainment zone
and are excited to see the entertainment zone events
come to light.
First one in the beginning of July
and the second one in the beginning of August
via the Locust Street Festival.
We've also completed an office demand market study
and that's something I'll touch upon
in a bit more detail later.
We continued meeting with hospitals
and tracking opportunities in healthcare
as those emerge, given that healthcare
is a critical employment cluster in the city.
We've also continued meeting with auto dealers,
providing support for their operation
and tracking opportunities in that industry,
given the significant impact that we are receiving
from auto dealers via the sales tax and employment.
We've also supported various tech-focused efforts,
more notably in collaboration with the chamber
via the founders and founders event,
as well as an ongoing collaboration and partnership
with DVTI, Diablo Valley Tech Initiative.
We also operate the city's economic development
website, social media.
I mentioned that we share a lot of success stories
and promote the city.
We are also the city's data broker,
and we track a lot of data and build customized reports
in efforts to attract business and publish
economic indicators.
Those are available on our website,
walnutcreekconnected.com.
And lastly, we continue to partner
with stakeholders, which include Walnut Creek downtown,
as I mentioned earlier, the Walnut Creek Chamber,
as well as Diablo Regional Arts,
East Bay Economic Development Alliance,
and Conch Costa Partnership among others.
So I mentioned the office study,
and we have conducted a study last year
which is called the Space Walk Analysis,
where we have retained services
from economic forensics and analytics
to look at what the future of employment is
via looking at employment growth,
identifying the portion of that employment growth
and converting that to demand for office
and comparing that with supply
of the existing office stock in the city.
And you could see that the finding of that study
is that given that we have somewhere
around 13 million square feet of office space,
no one knows what the future of office is.
There's a lot of changes that are happening
with the return to work,
with the changes in employment densities
and the types of industries that are occupying office space.
But given a range of likely scenarios
that you could see in the chart in front of you,
the consultant found that we have somewhere
between three and 20 years of future employment growth
that could be accommodated in the current office space,
depending on the scenario.
And this is important because this is an example
of the data point that is supporting
the general plan update, which is a very important effort
that we are embarking on that will be a theater
for a lot of the data that we collect.
And that also informs policy discussion
about how do we continue keeping a balance of uses
and how do we continue keeping a jobs housing ratio
that is focused on employment,
given that we're seeing some of the more recent trends
with office, particularly older and obsolete portion
of the existing inventory being converted to other uses.
We also wanted to share a composition
of the local economy.
Here, you see the top six largest industry clusters.
Not surprising, health care and local government
are the top two, and these are large office drivers.
They're also relatively higher wage generators,
as well as the third one, professional, scientific,
and technical services.
And then you see number four is restaurants.
We have a very large cluster of eating and drinking places
in Walnut Creek with over 120 in downtown alone.
Those have not historically created higher paying jobs,
but they have been important for creating a quality of life,
attraction of tourism, as you heard in the prior conversation,
and also sales tax generation, which then
has the spillover effect from visitors
to some of the other industries that these visitors support.
We also see a lot of large nursing
and residential care facilities cluster here,
reflective of the gradually aging population.
And then the sixth one is insurance,
which is really part of that, what we call fire,
which is finance, insurance and real estate,
which is part of that core demand for office users,
which we have historically seen here in Walnut Creek,
but due to some of the changes in office,
we're starting to see a reduction in that office user base.
As far as the fastest growth industries,
local governments have been one,
healthcare continues to be really strong,
and a lot of our local office demand
is driven by healthcare in particular,
and specialized office space that they look for.
So again, part of the general plan process
would be looking at how can we enable that growth?
How can we create a policy environment
that is friendly to health care, reusing
some of the existing office space inventory,
or potentially even creating new office space?
Personal services has been one of the fastest growing
industries here.
Some of it has gone into mixed use buildings.
Others has replaced retail.
And also, the personal services, a lot of it
is not known for higher wages.
it's been an important industry driver
because it's something that has kept retail vacancies low
and has gone hand in hand
with traditional brick and mortar retail.
And then you see federal government
and the fifth category religious grant making
civic and professional is largely nonprofits.
And then the sixth fastest again is nursing
and residential care facilities.
Here's an example of the type of data
that we collect and present.
This is an annual snapshot that also lives
on the economic development website.
Not a lot of surprises there for 2025.
You could see that Walnut Creek continues
to be an affluent community
with a highly educated labor force.
And what's interesting is we have a population
of 70,000 and roughly just as many employees,
which means that we have just as many people here
during the day from employment,
as we do in the evening when some of the residents
who may work elsewhere return home.
Now this number has been again affected
by some of the changes in the recent office shifts
because with employment from home,
not as many employees come to the office
or at least five days a week has historically been the case
which again brings up some interesting questions
about the types of office employees with healthcare
typically being the most proof from the strength
where healthcare employees do show up
to work more frequently with some of the more
professional and financial service industries.
I also wanted to highlight some of the recent vacancies
and these are broken down by land use.
You could see that the retail industry continues
to be strong in part because of the emergence
of the services that have been occupying
traditional retail space.
Retail in general has been turning to be more experiential.
So we're hearing from brokers that there's
going to be this continued growth in the service industry
going forward.
And we're seeing a lot of it even in downtown,
where we see an emergence of gyms and other types of services.
The occupancies in downtown are particularly strong now.
We're also seeing a trend where a lot of restaurants
have taken up previously retail spaces.
So that shows a strong demand for the eating and drinking
places over the traditional brick and mortar.
And we're also seeing that the downtown retail has been
particularly strong.
We've seen 20 million visitors in downtown alone last year.
So you could see that in part reflected
through a low retail vacancy numbers.
As far as the neighborhood shopping center goes,
the number is a bit higher.
As far as office, it's no surprise office has struggled
all over the state and the country as a whole since COVID.
We have been somewhere in the middle
with the city wide average vacancy of office being 20%.
some interesting trends is since COVID,
there has been a segmentation within office
and many communities are seeing that strong,
well-positioned buildings with high amenities
and a lot of occupancies have done even better,
especially when landlords have invested in amenities.
And you're seeing a little bit of that around downtown
because those are the office buildings
where proximity to downtown is the amenity.
So a lot of them continue to do well compared to BART.
But also what's interesting is Shadelands
has the lowest vacancies.
And that's another trend, because a lot of the office
inventory in Shadelands is older, and it's class C.
And what older class C is the most affordable office.
So this particular strength in Shadelands
shows that there is still a strong market
for affordable office space.
and some of that space through the Build a Remedy Project
may be lost, as well as some of the other proposals.
So the question for the general plan would be,
how do we continue?
Certainly when you look at the region,
a lot of office space is being repositioned.
For example, Bishop Prench alone
is taking most of the Chevron campus,
former Chevron campus, I should say,
some of the other offices that have been vacated
and converting that to residential, for example.
Now that will certainly reduce vacancies at Bishop Ranch
and make us a bit more competitive
on the regional scale.
At the same time, the opportunity
to support jobs at Bishop Ranch will not come back.
So that creates some questions about the right balance
from the land use perspective in Walnut Creek as well.
And then hotel, you just got the presentation.
So the city-wide hotel occupancy is 75%.
An average in the industry is about 70,
so we are doing better.
And to try to attempt to answer the question if we
are oversupplied or not, it's really hard
because hotel is a highly cyclical industry.
So I'm glad to report that we're doing well now,
but hotels have also been affected by COVID.
And the range in hotel performance has varied widely.
So it's really hard to say long-term.
And it is important to caveat that a lot of our hotel
performance is part of a much larger tourism ecosystem,
not only with the tourism that's happening in San Francisco,
but even national tourism, but a lot of changes
in national tourism trends, such as policy of visa
issuances and things like that.
So we'll continue seeing some of that reflected
through the numbers on the ground level in Walnut Creek.
For this 26-27 action plan,
we have continued conducting outreach
and we've spent several months doing robust outreach
focused on the business community.
We have shared the draft document
with over 40 stakeholders
and it includes a mix of a vast representation of businesses.
Of course, the boards for Walnut Creek downtown
and the chamber, as well as the board for the P-BID
and Shadelands, as well as the T-BID.
We've talked to brokers, developers,
businesses of various sizes, landowners, consultants.
We've shown the draft plan to educational institutions,
as well as the local and regional
economic development organizations.
And this document in front of you
encapsulates the spirit of the 24-25 action plan.
It's largely business as usual, and the strategies
remain a course.
A few smaller changes that we have
made is while we retained the major strategies and goals,
we did reorganize the document a bit.
We did continue to capture some of the prior market
studies, there's been a number of market studies that were completed in 2023, office, medical
office, and retail. We've incorporated the 2025 office market study that I just shared
this slide with you off. We've refined some of the tasks that have already been completed,
and we've also probably most notably added measurable goals for tracking performance.
So going forward, we will be not only sharing the completed tasks, but also the goals that
that I'll highlight in a second.
We thought really hard about what the right metrics are
to measure the performance.
And there are no perfect metrics,
because similar to the hotel performance,
a lot of the economic development performance
in the city just depends, at least in part,
on some of the macroeconomic factors that
are beyond the control of staff.
But nevertheless, there is at least some correlation
between the efforts of staff and some of these.
So this reflects the best thinking
as reflected through the outreach.
And you could see here that local unemployment rate
continues to be an important one
and we set a rate of 5% or below.
We'll be looking at year over year business license growth
for the city, sales tax growth,
a website visits to the economic development website.
This is an important window into the city
for many prospective businesses.
And we'll continue looking at vacancies, office, retail,
and hotels, as I just showed to you earlier.
These are some of the baseline indicators of where we are.
You could see that employment right now
is about 70,000.
Unemployment rate as of April, which
was the latest month available, is well below 5%.
That's a very encouraging number.
We did experience business license growth decline
slightly between the 24-25 period.
We're hopeful that that trend will reverse in 26.
Sales growth comparing Q4 from 2024 to 2025,
which is the last available data, is largely on par.
It's reflective of largely the rate of inflation,
so it's flat otherwise.
We now have a baseline number for the website visits at 11,700.
And we've also decided to track average commute time
for Walnut Creek residents.
Again, there's a lot of macro factors that affect this
as well, but it would be an interesting one to report
based on the input we've received.
And with that, I will pass it on to Kasava
to talk about our strategies.
Hello.
I'm Casava Washington, economic development specialist.
Thank you for having me.
Mike covered all of the homework that we did in the last AD
Action Plan, and I'm going to cover the group project,
basically.
In other words, you heard the why and the how,
and I'll focus on what's next.
For the fiscal year 2027-28 economic development action
plan, we identified six strategies.
As Mike just demonstrated, we're doing good work
in a great community.
And so many of these strategies build
upon existing efforts and successes.
I'll provide a high level overview tonight
of the action plan.
And the action plan has all the details.
So you guys have that attachment.
Our first three strategies focus on growth, investment,
and maintaining Walnut Creek's position
the East Bay's premier destination to live, work, shop, and do business. Strategy
one will continue promoting Walnut Creek as an economic epicenter of the East Bay
by building on key regional partnerships and leveraging our competitive
advantages including our strong health care sector. And also working with
organizations such as the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Bureau,
the Walnut Creek Downtown Association, the East Bay Economic Development
Alliance, Workforce Development Board, Contra Costa, and Diablo Valley Tech
Initiative, just to name a few. Strategy 2 will continue our efforts to attract and
retain businesses, particularly industries that provide quality jobs and
help diversify our community, or our economy, rather. While attracting new
businesses is important. Maintaining and supporting the businesses that we
already have is just as equal is important. So we'll continue with our
mayor's visits, our walkabout Wednesdays with the chamber, our business pop-ins
with the Walnut Creek Downtown Association, as well as other informal
efforts. Sometimes the best retention strategy is solving the problem before
becomes one. So strategy three focused on continued downtown vitality and
quality of life enhancements. And that's with working with our partners to
enhance the visitor experience, support events and outdoor dining and ensure
downtown remains vibrant, welcoming and competitive. And we'll also do we'll also
track best practices to attract visitors. While these first three strategies focus
on our economy today, the next three strategies focus on Walnut Creek for
long-term success. Through implementation strategy four of the general plan will
explore opportunities to align land use, economic development, and market
realities while identifying ways to strengthen and balance our commercial
corridors and employment centers. Strategy five will also continue
supporting the auto industry which remains one of the city's most important
economic sectors. By doing this we'll be we're maintaining strong
relationships with dealerships, identifying opportunities for growth and
and staying ahead of emerging industry trends.
And finally, strategy six.
We'll continue serving as the business resource
and the city's data broker.
Whether it's a major employer like Matt's and Logistics,
or a local small business like Dad's Barbecue,
economic development helps businesses
reach the right city departments,
navigate the process and move from application
to business opening.
We'll also continue providing quarterly economic updates,
annual community snapshots,
and customized market data
to support informed decision-making.
These six strategies serve as our roadmap
for the next two fiscal years.
As implementation moves forward,
staff will periodically inform counsel
with updates on measurable outcomes
and performance indicators.
so progress will be tracked and evaluated over time.
We're excited about the opportunities ahead
and look forward to receiving Council's feedback
and guidance.
Thank you.
Okay, let's bring it for questions then.
Why don't we start over here with Council Member?
Does anybody have any questions
I guess we'll ask that way first?
Council Member Dabenny.
So first, I just wanna thank both of you
for doing such a great job
with the Economic Development Department.
was really cool to look at all the accomplishments
and all the things that are currently going on.
And every event we go to, you're always,
every chamber event, every business event,
you're always there and supporting.
So I really appreciate the work the two of you are doing.
I wanted to just look at those last six strategic actions.
And I was curious, we singled out the auto industry
No doubt the fiscal impact of the auto industry in Walnut Creek is significant, but I wonder
if we wouldn't have the same wording and the same strategic action for healthcare, which
while not the same fiscal has a huge economic impact and is maybe our largest industry.
What were the thoughts that went into picking out the auto industry and why not the healthcare
industry?
Yeah, thank you for your question.
So we actually did identify both as strategic industries.
If you look, and I didn't make it
into the detail of the slide because we only
showed the strategies.
But under each strategy, there are underlying actions.
So under the business retention and attraction,
there's a lot of actions that focus on continued focus
on health care because of its importance and its sheer size
and growth and opportunity in Walnut Creek.
So it's very much a continued focus for economic development.
It's just that with the auto industry,
it's its own strategic action because of the uniqueness
and focus on that industry that is a little bit different
than business attraction and retention.
Particularly the thinking is when it comes
to other industries, if you convert them to land use,
there is a similar progress where
you're talking to certain industries,
you're attracting them, the retention converts
to your occupancies within land uses.
When it comes to the auto sales, it's a bit unique
because the manifestation of the land uses
is a bit different, it doesn't nicely fit
into retail or office, and the trend within
is kind of densification and even new dealerships
going into mixed-use development.
So the thinking is that it's its own action
because of the additional layer of the need
to understand beyond working closely with them
and the impact on land use that that would have
specifically within the general plan context.
If I could just add a little more background
for why the focus on auto.
If you go back to the plan that was created
a few years back, which this is building upon,
The city's long had a lot of open lines of communication
with healthcare due to the two big hospitals.
Healthcare is a little more organized and coordinated.
The auto industry hasn't necessarily been that way,
and so the big focus was to really outreach
to the auto industry, establish those relationships,
and try to have more coordination amongst the industry
so that we can interact with them,
understand their needs, their wants, their concerns,
that sort of thing, and help address those going forward.
So that's why there was more of an intentional focus on auto.
it doesn't necessarily downplay healthcare other industries,
but recognize the importance of auto
and the attempt to strengthen that relationship
and to further coordinate the industry overall.
Thank you.
Another question, well actually this was sort of a comment.
Yeah, even at the baseline for our current office,
you know, the black line there,
it was 2036 when we'd break even.
That's not that far away.
So I thought that was interesting,
even in a, just sort of in the baseline.
So that would speak to maybe
that we're not over supplied with office right now.
And then the question I have is local governance,
the fastest growing, what's the analysis there?
Why is local governance the fastest growing,
faster than healthcare?
What do you think that's all about?
I think it really depends on the classification.
I certainly think that it's more than just
city of Walnut Creek. In part, this data is based on zip codes, so it incorporates some
of the unincorporated area, and I think CCTA, for instance, is part of it. Perhaps the fire
district certainly their jobs in that that it's capturing.
Office vacancy statewide, 12 percent, Walnut Creek, 20 percent. Did I miss in the analysis
is why we're higher than the state.
You might have said it and I missed it.
But what is the thought on why we're 20 in the state's 12?
Yeah, we're hearing that a lot of other communities
around us are anywhere between high teens to 20s.
So we got the state average from a data source
that really aggregates, you know,
I think it really is kind of a reflection
of the kind of data that's used.
Maybe just not that, okay.
Yeah, that was my questions, thank you.
Just following up on building on Council Member Deviney's
questions about the office vacancy rate,
I had the same notice of discrepancy
between the state and Walnut Creek.
Have we considered outreach,
who's doing well in office statewide?
Who's more at the 10% range than the 20% range?
May I offer a question that also goes along with this?
Perhaps the denominator's changing.
If you have 100 empty office spaces
and you convert half of them to housing,
you no longer have so that could be part of it.
Yeah, another part of the answer is certainly
each city's economy is different.
Right now a lot of the media has been captured
by headlines of the San Francisco office market
and you're seeing a large net absorption there
with vacancies reducing in the last year.
Now, most of it is driven by AI investment.
And it's an interesting industry
because everyone loves to talk about tech,
but AI is kind of a unique subset of tech.
And one, it's very San Francisco focused
who I haven't seen a lot of spill over to the East Bay
or at least yet.
And second has been highly cyclical
and having gone on some of the tours
of the skyscrapers of some of these office buildings
in the city, even talking to landlords.
It's been really interesting from their standpoint
that they're seeing some of these tenants coming in,
starting with two, 3,000 square feet,
and then they grow to 10 or 20,000 within a year
when they get the next venture funding phase,
whereas others that come in and start with 2,000
just disappear overnight.
So it hasn't been a stable industry,
and there's just a lot of dynamic movement
between winners and losers
because it's such an early phase of development.
Certainly there's a lot of venture capital investment
that has been focused on San Francisco
and but that's been one of the anomalies
in the office market, at least in the Bay Area.
Related to, you'd mentioned that, and I had heard this,
anecdotally that the downtown office space
is performing better than BART,
But the vacancy rates, they look pretty much the same.
Is there something the numbers aren't showing there?
Yeah, and they're similar.
They're a little bit lower in downtown.
That comment was more based on just the regional trends.
What we're hearing from other cities
is there is a much wider vacancy difference
than what we're seeing on Walnut Creek.
And then just finally on retail,
obviously our overall vacancy rate looks pretty healthy.
There are some though high profile,
highly noticeable vacancies in Broadway Plaza
and a vacant site across from the theaters.
What's kind of our strategies about working
with Mace Rich and with property owners
on seeing redevelopment of those spaces in that site?
Yeah, we work closely with Mace Rich
and in some cases we even try to pursue our own tenants.
We go to the ICSC conference, which is the primary retail
focused conference where we pursue tenants
and try to make deals.
I know that Maesrich is really involved in that as well.
So we work closely with them to try to make sure
that their space is as utilized as can be.
Thank you.
Good morning.
Is it based on?
I just want to make sure that we hit everybody.
But I have a quick question.
So measure O was tied to the previous economic development
action plan or do we see how does how will measure O play a role in this
moving forward for this plan? Well certainly one of the measure O uses is
downtown and I mentioned downtown being our strategic partner so we'll continue
working closely with them and deploying some of the funding from measure O
towards uses that further the city's economic development. Okay. Yeah and I
would just add that you know to broaden that it's a little bit beyond this plan
but you know measure O was used to fund five officer positions for downtown
beat which enhances safety which is a big economic draw it's one of the
biggest things that we hear of why people like Walnut Creek it's safe and
it's clean we have also invested considerable measure O monies in the
leisure center and other programming to help draw folks into downtown so I think
when we're looking at economic development measure O investment to
look at it broadly obviously what's specific to this plan but beyond that as
well to support not only a healthy downtown but a healthy city in which
people want to be here. Just a couple quick ones thanks for a great great
presentation. Thinking about general plan one of the things that it might that I
want to find out if you guys have thought about including in the general
plan. We've seen a number of uses that have come to us and they are a mix of
personal services and health care and it seems like there's been a couple times
where people have come in with an idea, but because it's too far over to health
care it's not allowed in a retail space. Have we thought about doing something to
address that either through the general plan or in other ways? Yes, we have and
I'll answer this question more broadly, but I mentioned the broker roundtable is
is one of the ways that we continue seeking input
from brokers and we certainly want to hear
if we have missed out on the opportunity
to capture a tenant, especially if it's a desirable tenant
for the city's economic development.
So we'll continue looking at zoning and making policy
that meets our objectives.
So having healthcare come in and having it come in
and be enabled in a way that would really help
that cluster continue to form here
is something that we continuously look at.
OK.
And then when it comes to portraying the city,
I just want to pass on an interesting observation.
I had lunch with all the young people in the family.
And I'm always advertising that they
should move to Walnut Creek because they all have babies.
And one of the interesting things that they observed,
they wanted to know, well, how white is Walnut Creek?
because they're all in mixed-race marriages,
and they're like, we wanna raise our kids someplace
where they'll feel comfortable.
And that was interesting, that came out from all the kids,
including one who's a venture capitalist.
I would love to have moved to Walnut Creek.
Swattered Pass, that went on.
But anyway, thanks for your work.
No question.
All right, and do you wanna go back here?
It was about retail, and we were pointing out
some of the spaces that have been vacant for quite a while.
And I know there's been a history of certain spaces
and certain property owners that just seem to keep
the places unoccupied or sort of dilapidated.
Has there been, and I'm not advocating for it,
I'm just curious to hear your thoughts on it,
but what about something like a vacancy tax?
Has that been discussed?
Actually, why don't I just interject?
We brought that up about 10 years ago, eight, nine years.
Essentially, that has to be a full tax
of the entire city voting to do that.
And it puts our weight behind a tax that actually
has to hit everybody in the city,
similar to what we do with Measure O.
And so our city attorney, well, it was still Steve Mattis,
advised that do we want to use our weight behind that
where we're essentially targeting one owner that has perhaps
been vacant in taking care of the vacancies,
but we're penalizing potential landlords that are actually
trying to fill the vacancies.
And so at the time, 10 years ago, we decided not to.
But if you have anything to add to that, please do.
I just wanted to give you a little history there.
OK.
And that is exactly the trade-off
that that text would create.
It has been implemented by some other communities,
more notably in Oakland.
And frankly, every community seems like one landowner
who is kind of disproportionately affecting
some of the vacancies.
And really, from the policy standpoint,
you have carrots and you have sticks.
And it's considered best practices
to try to find the carrots approach
without risking negatively affecting other landowners who
may be experiencing or are good actors.
And that's the challenge with the vacant taxes.
Sometimes when you implement it, you
are inherently penalizing other property owners who
may be experiencing vacancies, despite their not
due to the lack of trying.
But if it were to be proposed, I'd
assume it would be proposed in some way where only
the most egregious outliers would actually
get hit by the tax.
It wouldn't be like, oh, you've been vacant for three months.
and be like, oh, you've been there for five years now.
You know, that kind of thing.
So that's where you get into the details.
Yeah, yeah.
I was just going to add, and it wasn't related to that,
but I was thinking of, we talked about the business
retention and attraction efforts,
but another thought would be, have you considered exit
interviews with, I mean, there's Katja Tai, I know his left,
I've heard about that, and people, you know.
I'm sure it's increased rent, you're gonna hear that,
but it'd be interesting to talk to owners
about St. Paul's Cleaners is leaving on Newell.
You know, come up with a list of five or six businesses,
and if the owners are willing, kind of sit down and talk.
That could be another data point
that maybe you're not getting from brokers
or from some other aspects.
Yeah, that's a great idea, and we try to do this.
We don't have a formal process yet,
but we do have an informal where we do try to
get as much feedback as we can.
And if something works, we want to know about it.
But if something doesn't work, we
want to know about it as well.
Why don't we open it up to public comment if we have any.
And if anybody versus.
We have a public comment.
Sir, please make your way down to the podium
and give your name.
I'm Ed Delbocaro, and I run a business here in Walnut Creek
for over 40 years, a brokerage company.
I'm also vice chair of EDA so Dan's on that.
Mike and I are on the DVTI economic committee
that's gonna do a case to bring tech
to North 680 and Walnut Creek.
So I have three sentences.
You have a fantastic staff.
Erica and her staff have made the brokers
and developers have noticed the process
is faster and better.
The economic development people have done a great job
of concierge services and reaching out.
So I just wanted to make sure you know
you have a great staff here.
And then one answer on the office development.
There's several markets in Walnut Creek.
The reason why the state has a lower is sometimes the stats,
as you mentioned, they count state occupied buildings,
which has nothing to do with the vacancy rate.
So the denominator's not the same.
So it's just that.
And in the case of downtown Walnut Creek,
we have several kinds of buildings.
So the upper floors are getting high rents,
lawyers and accountants, and they have smaller bay depths.
The lower floors in the Pacific, in a golden triangle,
which are 20 and 30,000 feet with deep bays,
those were meant for the cubicle farms,
the insurance companies, and the banks.
Those have categorically left the bay area.
And so they're, in one sense, the lower floors,
the wedding cake lower floors, or the dinosaur floors,
but the upper floors of Grower Square, 1333,
they're all rented at rental rates.
In terms of the vacancy rate, San Francisco, after leasing 5 million feet
to AI, is 30% vacant.
Oakland is 35% vacant.
Concord is 28% vacant.
So if you compare it just to the immediate Bay Area,
only the Silicon Valley is better at this point.
So that's worth it.
You have a great staff.
Thank you, Ed, and that's helpful comparison figures too.
All right, so with that, we'll close public comment,
to bring it back to council.
And again, thank you very much for the presentation.
Always helpful, great.
I mean, I can definitely vouch for the fact
that between Mike and or Kasava,
they're every time we have a new business that's opening
and it is great.
They love seeing the involvement from Walnut Creek
and from you and us being there.
So thank you very much for all that you've done
to date on this, and we'll have a good next,
six, seven months still to come, at least for this year.
So, any further comments or yes?
I didn't ask questions, I just wrote comments.
Ah, okay.
Thank you very much for all of the work
and it's good to hear from the public
that you're doing a good job,
because oftentimes we will hear random complaints
and you know there are outliers,
but you can't find enough information to balance it.
A couple of comments on the auto sales and service.
I think it's important not only to recognize it economically because of the sales tax
generation, but in this day and age, these are not grease monkeys anymore.
Those employees are high-tech jobs.
And so I think that's important to recognize and acknowledge because the public at large
tends to think still old school and not why these are important from a job perspective.
When we talk about visitors coming to Walnut Creek, we have this little outlier industry
called the short-term rentals that we need to straighten out what our policies are so
that we're not getting in our own way, strongly encourage that.
Let's keep an eye on the Innovate 680 that we heard about earlier because it plows right
through the auto sales area and the hotel area, so we don't want to, we need to keep
an eye on it. And we're coming into long-range planning at a regional level
and Silicon Valley has a lot of office low-office vacancy because they want the
jobs they want the housing here. They want us to be the colonies housing the
people they don't care about jobs out here and so we need to be advocating for
it's not job housing balance within this region it's making sure our region
doesn't get set to the wayside and that the jobs all go into Silicon Valley. How
do we create a mini Silicon Valley here or a place where it's satellites for
those jobs so that those industries and those the metas of the world so that
people don't have to get in their car but they don't have to sit at home
either. Those are my comments. Any further comments here? I don't think we're we
have an action on this one so thank you very much and we look forward to seeing
how this goes and into the next year and two thank you so next on the agenda is a
closed session we're going to reconvene in the second floor concert room for
conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation if there is anybody
for public comment on that one I don't see anybody here that's going to do that
so we will move on to that closed session. Our next open session meeting will be July 21st. We've
got a council break until then, so we will not be having a council meeting the week of July 4th
for Independence Day. Go to the city website to see what's happening in or around town regarding
Independence Day, and we'll see our open session again July 21st, and we'll move to closed session
at this time.