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. Pursuant to California Government Code
section 54953.4 SB 707, members of the public may also participate
remotely via Zoom. If you are participating via Zoom and would like to
make a public comment, please use the raise hand feature or press star 9 if
calling by phone, during the agenda item on which you wish to comment.
Again you will have two minutes to address the City Council.
Please keep in mind that this is a City Business Meeting.
The City Council has adopted rules of decorum to ensure that meetings are conducted efficiently
and effectively and that all members of the public have a full, fair and equal opportunity
to be heard.
The City Council Handbook outlines decorum expected in the Council Chamber and can be
found on our website. All remarks should be addressed to the City Council. Please do not
use threatening, profane, or abusive language which disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes
the orderly conduct of the Council meeting. Again, each speaker will have two minutes
to make your remarks. Written comments submitted and received up to two hours before the meeting
have been posted to the City's website for public review and are included in the meeting
record but will not be separately read into the record.
All right, well good evening, I'm Kevin Wilk, mayor of the city of Walnut Creek and welcome
to the Tuesday, September 1st, 2026 regular meeting of the Walnut Creek City Council.
And if you'd please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for
which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
And City Clerk, Susie Martinez, would you call the roll, please?
Councilmember Darling?
I'm here.
Councilmember Davini?
Here.
Councilmember Silva?
Here.
Mayor Pro Tem Francois?
Here.
Mayor Wilk?
Here.
All right.
So, the first item is a proclamation for Emergency Preparedness Month.
And I would like to invite recently retired CERT member Don Prosnitz to receive the proclamation.
Additionally, I would like to take a moment to recognize Don with a certificate of recognition
in honor of his retirement after 16 years of service to Walnut Creek CERT and our community.
And since completing his CERT training in 2010, Don has been a leader in building and
strengthening the emergency communications group.
He helped establish critical radio infrastructure, secured grants to modernize our emergency
communications capabilities, developed training, and used throughout Contra Costa County and
led our volunteers in regional and statewide emergency preparedness exercises.
Through his expertise, leadership, and generous commitment to mentoring others, Don has helped
ensure that Wall and the Creek is better prepared to communicate and respond when disaster strikes.
Don, thank you for 16 years of dedicated service and for the lasting impact you have made on
our community.
Now,
Yeah, I think we don't believe any of that.
All I can say is it's been a privilege to serve this city for so long, a city that has
We turned so much to my family, to myself and my family.
We've lived here almost 50 years, so it's been a privilege.
Thank you.
Well, thank you, Don.
Now, don't go away.
Don't go too far there.
We are going to take a picture with you and – do we have a – this proclamation?
This is – this is not it.
Is it up here?
Let's do the picture, and then we're going to grab the proclamation and we'll do a –
Okay. Next on the agenda is the consent calendar. Does any council member wish to pull any item
for discussion? And does any member of the staff wish to pull an item for discussion?
Yes.
Yes.
I have questions on item 2G, please.
2G. So we'll pull 2G. And does any member of the public wish to provide public comment
on the consent calendar. Either please come forward here. Thank you. Or if you're remote,
please use the raise hand feature or press star nine if you're calling if you'd like
to provide remote public comment. If you're attending in person, please complete a speaker
identification card and come forward and line up behind the lectern at this time. It doesn't
look like we have anybody in person. Do we have anybody?
And we have no remote comments.
No remote. Okay then. So can I have a motion on the remaining items on the consent calendar?
All right, well then I will make a motion
on the remaining items.
I move to approve items 2A through F and H.
Second.
We have a motion to second.
Susan, could you call the roll, please?
Mayor Welk.
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Francois.
Aye.
Council Member Darling.
Aye.
Council Member Daveny.
Aye.
Council Member Silver.
Aye.
I'm just curious.
And okay, so now item 2G.
Thank you very much, Mayor.
The item is a five-year agreement for a contract
for services and for software services
for basically ticketing in the arts and recreation department.
So my first question is, is there a separate system
that the Lesher Center uses or will this be the same system?
Chris Farrow, arts and rec director.
The Lesher uses a separate system for ticketing.
This is used primarily by our recreation and parks folks
for facility rentals, picnic rentals,
and then program registrations.
We, it was in May that when we approved
the first year of the agreement,
so this is now approving five years of the agreement.
Actually, this is a replacement of the previous action.
There was a staff error.
So previously, what was approved
was the implementation fee,
the technical account management fee,
and the annual subscription.
So the 582-674 which on page two if you look at that table,
what was included in the original ask
was columns one, two and four.
After the approval, staff as we were moving forward
with ActiveNet realized that we take in transaction fees
and it's basically a pass through.
So we're charging those using the system,
a transaction fee and then we're paying
that transaction fee back out.
So we did not include that in the original ask
and we need to because it is both a revenue
and an expense to us.
And even though it's a net zero,
we still need council authority for those funds.
So we recalculated the amount based on including
the transaction fees.
And since we were coming back to council,
we also decided to add some hardware
just in case we need it.
As of right now, we've been told by the active net
that our current hardware, the things that we use to scan,
for example, or to swipe, will work with the new system.
So that's why we hadn't included it,
but since we were coming back to Council anyways,
we thought it's probably in our best interest
to include some hardware costs,
just in case we run into a place
where we need to replace some hardware
to work with the new system.
So we did that as well.
So the total amount when you include those transaction fees
is 1,798,358, but I want to know
that all of those transaction fees will net out.
We just need to ask for council approval
in order to pay the expenditures,
but we will see that on the revenue side as well.
So let me clarify, make sure I understand.
Transaction fee seems to be like the bank charge
for using a credit card, a debit card.
So these are standard fees, and this is not a guaranteed amount.
This is just an estimate based on certain levels of revenue.
Certain number of transactions that we've experienced in the past
and then projecting out. Yes.
And does this system allow us to we recently at the last meeting
approved our user fees that included a resident benefit payment discount discount
Is does this system allow us to do this it does great?
Thank you mayor. Thank you. Do you have any other questions on this item?
Okay, and
I'm sure you like to make a motion move to approve item 2g in the consent calendar, which is the authorization of the city manager
For a five-year agreement with active network for recreation management software services in an amount not to exceed
Just about 18 1.8 million dollars second give a motion to second and a third
So next on the agenda is public communications
This portion of the meeting is reserved for comments on items not on the agenda
All remarks should be addressed to the City Council
Please do not use profanity during your comments under the Brown Act
the council cannot act on items raised during public communications, but may
respond briefly to statements made or questions posed, request clarification,
or for the item to staff. Consistent with section 9.5, the City Council handbook,
30 minutes will be allocated at this time for public communications for items
not on the agenda. Additional time for public communications for items not on
the agenda will be provided at the end of the meeting if necessary. Written
comments submitted have been posted to the City's website for public review and
are included in the meeting record but will not be separately read into the
record and this time I'll note that the time is 6 14 and we'll take public
comments and items out in the agenda till approximately 6 44 and then the
remainder of any such comments at the end of the open session portion of the
meeting please use the raised hand feature or press star 9 if you're
calling in if you'd like to make a remote public comment and this time if
anybody would like to make any in-person comments and please come forward it
plucked a lot of speaker card I see mr. Warren has one in her hand and you'll
have two minutes. Good evening Jan Warren from the Woodlands. It's maybe
technically not a City Council question but maybe you can direct me. A month or
two ago on next door somebody was talking about the if we get a lot of
action on Ignacio and I live off of Oak Grove and there was a car that was on
fire and it was between our city and like on the line almost by the way they
talked about it, our city and Concord. And of course we're a consolidated fire
department and so they were you know distressed that it seemed like you know
the Walnut Creek people were coming out or something and so I was just curious
is there a contact for the Confire or the whatever it's called now to ask how
that's done you know somebody calls in and I guess it's like a dispatch that
would go and say, hey, so but would they pull someone
possibly from our station and from a station in Concord
or do you have any idea who I could talk to?
Well, call and fire, I mean, obviously you would call 911
if you saw that and they would decide
where it's coming from.
What I would suggest is we have our chief of police
in the back of the room and he'd be happy to talk
with you about that but if anybody sees a car on fire
on any road that you're on, call 911
and let dispatch figure out who's going to get there.
Yeah.
Thanks, Jan.
And if I could add, the call-and-fire is a county, Jan?
Well, I just can let you know.
Call-and-fire, that's a county district,
so they're not responding based on city boundaries.
And when there's a fire, there's often more than one unit
deployed.
So someone's responding, and they're not
concerned about the city lines.
I'm aware of that.
I'm not understanding that.
Thank you, Jan.
Do we have any other any other public comment here in the chamber?
Right. Seeing none, do we have anybody online?
No one online and nobody online. So we will close public comment
and we will move to council member and staff announcements,
reports and activities or requests. Um, city attorney,
do we have any announcements? No closed session announcements.
City manager. Any report? Yeah. I do have, uh, when I,
One update this evening, Mayor Dan Buckeye, City Manager.
As many of you are, I'm sure, aware,
yesterday was the last day of the legislative session
in Sacramento for the state government.
This would be the 2026 session,
and it is the second year of a two-year session.
I just thought I would give a very high overview
just to give a sense of scale in terms of what's occurred.
So in 2026, the state legislature introduced 1,846 bills,
So think, 1846 new laws that were introduced.
Of those, 1,103 were approved by the legislature
and moved through, so more than roughly half,
or a little more than that.
Of that, 177 have been signed into law,
926 remain with the governor for his review,
and he has until August 30th to take action on those bills,
I'm sorry September 30th. Yeah, thank you. It would be hard to do wouldn't it?
And I would just highlight there are several bills that are quite impactful to Walnut Creek and to other cities
I won't go into those details
But I do anticipate
Some budgetary pressures as a result of these bills if they are passed and other regulatory changes that we will and challenges that we will
Be dealing with our intention is to have our consultant from towns and public affairs provide an update likely in October
With more details about those bills once we know what's actually signed or vetoed by the governor. Thank you, Dan and
Now we have city councilmember reports on AB 1 2 3 4 activities. Let's start over a councilmember Silva
Thank you mayor
so two items that I wanted to
Spend a little bit of time on the Diablo Regional Arts Association
which is our partner and our fundraising partner and program support partner
for the leisure center of the arts held its regular board meeting yesterday.
It's one month until on Broadway, which is October 3rd,
which is the annual fundraiser where they focus on raising funds to support
arts access programs and other special programs at the leisure center.
And the arts access program really brings
children from underserved local schools into the Lecture Center to experience some of their very first theater performances,
such as a Christmas carol.
The discussion focused on the upcoming event and what is sold out,
but you should go online at draa.org to see if you might get a single ticket if it's available.
They also described that Martina's refining company is
Basically launched a partner program with the local
elementary school in Martinez and
with the DRAA to provide
after-school enrichment programs that are choral about choruses and singing and
It is for grades K through 5 and they have 60 children signed up for it
and this basically reflects the value of the partnership that we have with DRAA.
The Bedford Gallery kaleidoscope which is its current show will close on
September 13th. Kaleidoscope is a play on words, it's all sorts of images that
are, it's kaleidoscope as in kaleidoscope and then the new show will
open at the end of the month called portraits in tuft so it's textures and
textiles and center reps opening night for glass menagerie is next week and it
should be a great show last week was the August meeting of recycle smart which is
the central Contra Costa Solid Waste Authority we are in the process of
implementation for the new franchise agreement which will start next spring
and one of the things we learned last week at our meeting and councilmember
Mayor Pertam Francois also joins me on that board one of the things we learned
is that there are 68,000 single-family households that we collect trash and
recycling and organics waste from in Aranda, Moraga Lafayette, Danville,
Walnut Creek and the unincorporated areas that surround us and about 30% of
those single-family homes will be having their day of pickup change in March with
the new routes and the new trucks so there's a major campaign communications
campaign that's going to be happening and all of us that were there said that
our cities will be supportive of it with our whatever outreach we have whether
it's PSA's on Walnut Creek TV the nutshell city managers the newsletter
because it's going to come as a shock to people now there's lots of ways to
communicate but it's all it's a third of the number of people the households that
we have in the territory the other thing that's going to happen starting
November is one of the concerns that we have with the landfill the black cart is
that people overstuffed them or they leave extra trash in a bag next to the
the containers. And these are a problem for a number of reason. Trash left on the
ground is, even if it's bagged, can sometimes end up in the storm drains and
then our public works people and the clean water people don't aren't happy.
Plus it is more likely to damage the cart when they're tipping it and cause
trash to fall on the streets. Republic Service currently, in their contract, is
is allowed to charge $10 each time there's an overage like that.
And now they have the technology on the trucks to be able to know that every address that
has overstuffed, that means the lid's not shutting tight, overstuffed or left a bag
at the side.
So they're also going to be reaching out and letting us, all the customers know that these
charges will start and it's really important to realize that if you have
it's every once in a while it's understandable but if it's a regular
occurrence what you really need to do is right-size your cart and pay for the
cart that you need which if it's most people are at a 32 gallon cart and if
you need a 64 gallon cart then you should get a 64 gallon cart and you
won't be having over overage charges and Mayor Pro Tem are you going to report on
the schools or do you want me to do it? Okay I'll let the Mayor Pro Tem do that
and there have been a lot of activities and events and more to follow in the
coming months. Great thank you very much well actually let's go to Mayor Pro Tem
so we can just get back to that. Can I ask a follow-up question on the over stuff I'm
just curious is this all the containers or they just? Just the black. Just the
black okay I was thinking the green waste in my mind you've always got a
branch that's sticking out of the top. And that's not so much of a problem it's
really the the black waste where they find the greatest level of it and one of
the our colleagues on the on the board suggested you make friends with your
neighbor because maybe what you do is just take your bag down to your
neighbor's pin. Thank you Mayor. So I'll start with Recycle Smart and council
members Silva. I just want to give a shout out to our great staff at that
authority who not only put us in a good position to have new contracts for
collection and post-collection services, tenure contracts, two years in advance of
the date that we needed them, which is next March, but also now have prepared
implementation plans, pretty detailed implementation plans, and worked closely
with all the providers, including Republic and MDRR, to make sure that
we're gonna hit the ground running next year which I have every confidence that
we will we did get our annual report school progress report and I'm pleased
to announce that several Walnut Creek elementary schools as well as middle
schools received waste buster awards which means they were successful in
in diverting 75% of waste from the black can
or the garbage can, it went to organics or recycling.
So these kids are getting the message
and doing a great job and we all need to follow their lead.
It was also interesting that Los Lomas High School
kind of clocked in at 71%.
High schools are kind of the hardest demographic
to get them to change their behavior,
as many parents will know.
And that's true when it comes to diverting trash
from the black can, but Los Alamos is doing a good job
and I think Northgate's numbers were up there as well.
So that's Recycle Smart.
I'm gonna let the mayor mostly report
on the partner city event with the youth delegation
from Kita City, Japan, but thank you for including me in that.
That was a really fun event at the leisure.
I know it was a week long event
and there were a lot of behind-the-scenes tours with staff,
but I participated in the reception at the Leisure Rotunda
where it was meaningful to hear from the students,
15 students from Quita City
who had prepared a really beautiful PowerPoint
and spoke very good English in terms of,
and presenting their city.
So, look forward to welcoming that delegation next year,
you all will, had I was able to step in for the mayor for an Eagle Scout Court
of Honor a week or so ago and it's always really just a delight to to
participate in those. It's quite an honor to see the years of accomplishment that
have led to this pinnacle and the the adult leaders who are there every step
of the way, encouraging these young men on Evan O'Kines, Robert Peterson, William
Pickett, and Nathan Wong, and their projects ranged from constructing wooden
steps to help the zookeepers at the Oakland Zoo access the lion exhibit
more safely to creating windbreaks at Contra Costa sustainable farms, creating
owl boxes for endangered species at the Lafayette Reservoir and a backpack and school supply
drive for Monument Crisis Center. So well done to all of them. And let's see, I attended
the Rossmore board meeting last week and was able to give them an update on our July and
August activities. They were attentive as always, had good questions. They are interested
in participating in the general plan update.
I assured them that they would be included
in an outreach effort there
and they had some questions about our EV strategic plan,
which I was able to give them an update on.
Let's see, rounding things out,
I was able to step in for the mayor
for a ribbon cutting at Avante aesthetics
here on Main Street, beautiful facility.
they do specialize in facial treatments and skin care.
I think I will be back for a visit sometime soon.
I wanted to congratulate Omar and Aisha.
Apparently they have several,
they're Pakistani Americans that own several
skin care type businesses in Pakistan
and other businesses here in California
and this is their first location in Walnut Creek.
So I was glad to see them there and the chamber was there,
giving them a warm welcome as well.
And then finally, along with Council Member Silva,
I attended the moonlight on the mountain event
on Mount Diablo, a fundraiser for Save Mount Diablo,
which is up on the mountain, kind of going up the South Gate.
And it's always a fun evening.
It's a beautiful location, great food.
It got very cold.
So even with the blankets, people were kind of making a beeline
for the buses while the live auction was still going on.
But next year we'll all come prepared.
And that's my update.
Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.
Let's go to Councilmember Darling.
Thank you.
A couple of things.
We all got a chance to I think you were there.
You were there. And I think you came with a civic crossing
and got a tour of the new construction there.
And it's fascinating because the building is still inside
and the inspector walked us around and explained
all the different safety features that go
into these multifamily buildings.
So that was quite fun.
You could tell I've been on vacation a lot earlier this year
because I have traded my farmer's market.
And I met at the farmer's market two weeks in a row now,
which is always an entertaining time.
A number of us went to the Chamber of Commerce's
Candidate Forum this morning to hear from our there are two seats open and two people running so we got to hear from them
other Chamber news
Their hundred-year celebration will be October 29th at Cali craft. So
Beer drinkers unite and head out to that
Angela Ashley and her husband opened their house to a reception for the new Chamber CEO, so that was really fun
I think most of us made it to that
the biggest things going on right now for me really are the MCE world at our
last meeting we walked through you know we'd had an ad hoc group working on the
response to the Marin civil grand jury and we have a draft that was approved at
the last meeting that draft is being finalized for the chair's signature and
I should be able to distribute a copy of that to folks here in the city but
basically we went through each one of the grand juries discussion items and
either agreed partially disagree discuss you know the bunch of different things
but basically we talked through in that report the things that we're doing to
make the operations at MC work better and that will be what we are doing
between now and the end of the year the next board meeting in September we will
have the CEO search firm coming to us as a proposal as well as the first report we
have a consultant that's working on governance because it's a very large
board the agency has grown tremendously it's four different counties 38 cities
or 38 member agencies so we're gonna be hearing from that the other thing that
we are looking at with the California power grid is very complicated and we
have been looking at how we are procuring our power to make sure that
we're maximizing the greenhouse gas benefits and are cost effective in that.
We have been holding a series of workshops a number of the folks in
Walnut Creek and in Contra Costa County interested in sustainability have been
coming. There is a survey in the field right now that is due by this Friday and
I've circulated that to the members in Contra Costa County that are interested
in sustainability and MCE if anybody else would like a copy of it I can get
that to them but overall we have a lot of work to do between now and December
and we are looking at making sure that we are an agency that can work together
effectively and represent our multitude in this multitude of ratepayers in a way
that makes us so that's my report for tonight thank you councilmember darling
And then we have council member Davini.
Thank you, Mayor.
I have a brief report this evening.
I was able to attend two chamber events
this last go round.
One was the business and social hour
at the new Condivo workspace on Tree Boulevard.
Very nice workspace.
So someone's looking for something like that
to get out of the house.
Great destination.
And then I wanna thank Dan and Angela Ashley.
Angeles, our chair of the board for the Chamber of Commerce,
they opened up their home.
And we were there to celebrate Katie Burroughs, the new
president and CEO of the chamber.
And that was a very nice event, so thank you to them.
And that's all I've got.
Thank you.
All right, well, a lot's been covered,
but a few of the things.
And I'll just expand a little bit upon what the mayor
pro tem had mentioned about the key to the city students
exchange, which is really phenomenal.
In fact, I had many families that were Northgate families
came to me during the event saying how wonderful this was
for their own family to be able to have that
and share that experience.
And if we think about how it was 30, 40 years ago,
you'd have an exchange program.
Maybe they'd share a couple letters and that'd be it.
But now, between social media and emails,
I mean, these students may be friends for decades
and visit each other in their own countries
with their own family.
So it's really phenomenal.
And we already have talked about the 10th anniversary
of when we had a partnership signing with them
nine years ago.
And so next year, the mayor will come out,
council members and leaders of Kita City
will be out here next October.
And we'll put on a show for Walnut Creek for them as well.
So, and you're not getting out of that one.
You may not be sitting right here,
but you're gonna be here as well for that.
So anyway, terrific.
We look forward to more exchanges
with not only Kita City, but our sister cities,
Niceto, and Sheo Folk in the future.
I had the true pleasure to cut the ribbon
for the 35th anniversary of Springfield Montessori.
Now, we cut a lot of ribbons here.
We go to new businesses.
We don't have a lot of personal involvement
with those businesses.
We just met them, and we wish them luck,
and we hope they're here for a long time.
My kids went to Springfield Montessori,
and they went there 27 and 25 years ago.
And so it was truly a pleasure to be
able to see the executives running Springfield Montessori
and bringing back some of the former teachers
that my own kids had.
And this is how this may be the best endorsement
that I can actually give of the Springfield Montessori.
Of course I remember the teachers.
They remembered my kids.
They remembered Shane and Dario when they were two years old
and one year old.
They remembered their best friends.
They remembered that the grandmother of Dariel's named
Booby, I mean, amazing.
And this is the care that they put into the kids that truly
become part of their own family too.
So it was truly a wonderful experience
to be able to cut the ribbon on that.
And thank you to Mike and Casava for joining me on that one.
Also had the opportunity to meet with UCSF Benioff,
with their government relations person, and talking about,
Obviously, there's a lot of investment that's coming from UCSF and Benioff right now.
So talk really about how we're able to open those discussions and future opportunities
in working with them.
So just a nice, welcoming meeting on that one.
You heard about the meeting of the Chamber CEO, Katie Burroughs, and the meeting of the
candidates today.
I will wrap it up by saying that there's going to be some interesting things that I'm hoping
to see with Walnut Creek downtown over the next few months and into next year.
I haven't been at one of the meetings now for about six weeks.
We'll have another one in two weeks.
And one of the things that we're talking about is making more of a tie-in between the
Lesher Center and some of the businesses that are downtown, and what we can do to really
help to foment those ties.
And if you come – if you're coming to a performance, there could be an opportunity
to be able to get a discount and save some money at some of the other restaurants or
services downtown.
working on that and I'm looking forward to seeing how that progresses and I'm
not going to say much else about Walnut Creek downtown right now because the
last time I spoke at the City Council meeting that comment went viral and we
were mentioned on People magazine as the viral comment of the of the week in the
nation evidently and so I'm not going to talk about nicknames just gonna say
let's close this portion of the agenda item and that is my update so next on
on the agenda is consideration item for policy direction
on regulation of short term rentals.
And I invite Community Development Director,
Erika Van Embrandt forward to provide the presentation.
Thank you very much.
Mayor, Mayor Pertin, Council.
I am Erika Van Embrandt, Community Development Director,
to talk about the regulation of short term rentals.
So the request that we have of Council right now is to,
we're seeking a policy direction
on the regulation of short-term rentals.
So what is a short-term rental?
Essentially, it's a rental that occurs less than 30 days.
And it's typically a home or a portion of a home or a room
during that time period.
And the reason why that we'd like you
to consider looking at whether or not
there are changes needed in the regulation
is that since the ordinance was first adopted,
There have been several things that have been happening.
So one is that there's an affordable housing crisis
in this state, and that whenever short-term rentals of homes
are done as a business, it takes away the potential stock
for longer-term housing.
Other trends are that short-term rentals
are an increasingly desirable lodging option
that people look for to have a more home-oriented environment,
whether they're on vacation, traveling,
or recovering from a medical procedure or at an event.
Then there's technology.
Technology has made great advances
that has really reduced the friction in, essentially,
the interaction between homeowners and visitors
to quickly connect and then transact
these rental agreements.
So we've all heard about Airbnb, the RBO, et cetera.
And so it's really, you know, you can get into this
as a business with a very low bar.
Then there's clarity.
So the city, as do many cities actually,
we currently regulate the short-term rental
through a bed and breakfast ordinance.
And then this requires a conditional use permit
so that in order to bring a business into compliance,
they have to go through a fairly lengthy process
to be able to operate within the city's parameters.
Then of course there's administration,
so that there's program administration enforcement,
and that while it's certainly possible,
and we do regulate the businesses this way and enforce,
it creates some challenges for us with clarity.
And then there's the transient occupancy tax,
that there's revenue collection,
that until folks come into compliance,
it's very difficult to compel compliance
with collecting that tax.
Now, one of the other changes that's happened
is that under state law,
these platforms are now required to provide data
to us as jurisdictions on who's operating,
where, and how many days, et cetera,
so that there's the ability to more efficiently
collect that tax revenue.
So this is a snapshot of short-term rentals
in Walnut Creek.
You'll notice a couple of things.
You'll notice that there are 111 properties advertised,
but certainly the map that's there
doesn't have 111 properties on it.
That's because things change on almost a daily basis.
So it's essentially looking at inventory
within the marketplace.
This data, these data are provided
by our business license folks who are,
who have been tasked with trying to help us look
at the different numbers with this.
So while there may be 111 properties advertised
across the different multiple platforms,
there are over 265 listings for those 111 properties.
Yet of that, only 13 are registered
and are playing on their business licenses
and some level of the TOT.
And of these, only three have conditional use permits
having gone through the entire process to essentially
operate legitimately in the city.
What we also found out from HDL, our consultant,
who's responsible for our business licenses,
is that their estimate, best on their best guesses,
is that the amount of additional TOT
that the city might realize if we were to more,
I guess make it easier to be able to access
short term rentals would be just under $169,000 in revenue.
So to give you some perspective,
how do nearby jurisdictions regulate short term rentals?
So the cities of Brentwood, Concord and the town of Danville
each prohibit rentals under 31 days.
So they essentially ban short term rentals.
Others like Dublin, use the bread and breakfast ordinance
do we and then still others like Arenda and San Ramon and then Contra Costa
County use short-term rental permits so you know a more administrative permit
type of process and then in addition you know and all the reading test notes on
the right hand side there are some nuances about you know is it hosted not
hosted operating you know certain number of days and so forth is it a conditional
use permit. But I just offer this information to you just as you know sort
of a like a shtalt of what's going on. So give that information and what you
know about short-term rentals. We are requesting guidance about first should
short-term rentals be allowed in the in the city or should they be disallowed?
However if they are allowed should the city continue to regulate them as a bed
and breakfast or develop a more streamlined option for consideration, for council's consideration.
And should council provide direction on that, in that manner, what aspects might you be
interested in getting feedback on from the planning commission in the community?
So things like, you know, should a short-term rental be hosted or not hosted?
restrictions, if any, maximum rental duration, operational requirements, and then
permissibility of events and anything else. So I think that, you know, just to
also give you a little bit of context, our current bed-and-breakfast ordinance,
you know, has no more than one week and it has, you know, has a week duration. It
has 500 feet away in certain locations, you know, from arterials and collector
streets it does not require that a host be present so you know just to give you
some you know I guess information about that and so with that any questions okay
thank you Erica do we have any I'm sure we do have questions let's start start
up with council member Davini first thank you for the presentation I
I'm curious, so we're using HDL companies, right?
And we've, are we right now in a relationship with them
where they're helping us with discovery and compliance
of short term rentals and collecting of TOT?
So we have them available for that action,
but we need to be able to get more clarity
on what we're actually enforcing and how,
And each effort to bring into compliance,
there's a significant amount of work that needs to be done.
So that as I had noted earlier, that to regulate a short term
rental requires a conditional use permit.
And there's a whole body of work that
needs to occur with an applicant to bring that forward
to Planning Commission.
So with 111 opportunities to do that, it takes a little bit.
But to understand that is within the scope of the contract
that we entered with them, was to help us with that collection.
So yes, they have that capacity and ability.
I think that we have had a lighter touch with them,
just simply because they've been collecting TOT tax for us
and so forth as part of the business licensing process,
but as part of the workflow,
one of the things they ask is are they a legitimate business?
Have they gone through and gotten
the conditional use permit?
And so that's where there's some,
you know, we're out in the community
trying to get folks to actually go through the process
to be able to have the conditional use permits.
And I can add to that if you would like.
So, in terms of, as Erica has noted, they primarily do our business license, they also
can do this service.
We have chosen, prior to having this discussion to input, that we have not asked them to proactively
enforce and collect the TOT and ask them to come into compliance for the reasons noted
that if we had 111 come in to actively comply, we couldn't handle that type of volume at
this point because of the process involved.
So, what they have been doing, those that have come in and have requested to pay, they're
certainly collecting and doing the business license.
But we also felt that we should not go out and actively ask 111 to be paying the TOT
if we're not giving them an avenue to come into compliance and given the current regulations
and how burdensome it is, we don't think we can handle that type of volume all at once.
So, we wanted to have this discussion about how to proceed with some potential changes
if the decision were to continue with the bed and breakfast ordinance going forward,
we'd have to talk through about how do we try to sequence that work so that it's manageable
if we expect all to come into compliance under the current regulations.
And if we did create a more streamlined process, would we outsource that to a third party to
handle that for us?
So if we created a more streamlined process, we could outsource a portion of that in terms
of communicating the initial requirements, but there would still be work involved on
by city staff, but it wouldn't be nearly as labor intensive and it wouldn't need to have
all the preparatory work and legal costs that are associated with the conditional use permit
process of the Planning Commission.
Okay.
I saw 111 was the number, I think our last meeting, and I looked at the number of myself
if I got something like 197 off of error DNA, which apparently
does look for duplicates.
So do we feel like this is a more accurate number?
Or why the big difference in those two?
So this is a snapshot in time that our consultant gave to us.
And as I had indicated, it changes on a daily basis
how many are advertised out there in the marketplace.
And then one of the other nuances to this
is that it may read, if you will,
or be characterized as a Walnut Creek short-term rental.
But it could be an unincorporated Contra Costa
County.
Or it could be giving a Walnut Creek address, quote unquote,
in a neighboring jurisdiction that
bans Airbnbs and short-term rentals and so forth.
So our feeling is that the 111 number is more accurate
than the 197, or we're sort of like,
I'm trying to get a sense of the scope
because when we estimate the 168,000,
when I look at that number and think about,
well, if we got like half of the properties
into compliance and they were generating say,
I think currently the place of the short term rentals
are about 70% occupied, and they're averaging like $175 a night.
Those are the numbers that I looked up.
You can correct me if there's a more accurate number.
But that would generate more than like the $4 or $5 plus $100,000 in TOT.
So I was also looking at the $168 and wondering how we arrived at that.
So I don't want to speak exactly on behalf of our consultant,
But what they've conveyed to us is that, again, they're
able to look at any point in time.
And so you, at a different point in time,
may have seen more advertised and different parameters
and so forth.
But they looked at that.
And then what they also tell us is
that whatever their experience has been in the past
is that whenever there's a significant effort
to bring short-term rentals into compliance,
Some people will drop out of the marketplace
so that that diminishes the number of short-term rentals.
And then of those the remaining folks decide
whether or not they want to go through the effort
for how many days, et cetera.
And again, it depends on the type of regulation,
whether it's hosted, non-hosted, et cetera.
Okay, I have like a legal question.
My understanding is that there's been laws passed
that sort of compel now these online platforms
to remit TOT directly to the cities.
Is that accurate, and does it require us, say,
passing an ordinance to sort of press them on that?
Or what is that way that's given?
The new laws require them to report
that there are short-term rentals happening in your city
that are being facilitated on their websites,
so Airbnb, VBRO, they don't actually require them
to remit the tax to as the city collects the tax.
Okay, I read that some cities are collecting
the majority of their TOT, like through the platforms.
You can collect them through the platform.
The host needs to identify the tax as part of the rental,
and then the individual, the renter, if you will,
pays it. I'm not exactly sure whether the dollars are then remitted directly to the
city or they're remitted to the owner who then remits them to the city.
Okay.
Because as you recall with TOT, those are remitted to the hotel operators and then the
hotel operators remit them to the city on a periodic basis. I think the Airbnb's operate
the same way.
Okay. And I think I read there was a city that had sort of passed some sort of legislation
that ordinance locally that didn't allow these platforms to operate in their city
unless they you know helped with the TOT like portion of it whatever that looks
like. That I mean that may have been correct before but by state law they're
now required to help. Okay all right and with with ADUs I have a question about
about ADUs. I believe in 2020 we passed an ordinance saying that there would be
no short-term rentals that ADUs would we would no longer do short-term rentals
on ADUs. Is that is that accurate? That is correct and so and that was based off
of state law. Okay. State law also allows us to prohibit ADUs that were built
prior to that but that would be a discretionary action on the part of council.
I understand that since that law was passed at the state level in 2020 there's been some
manipulations of it and that might not necessarily apply to all ADUs at this point after the
year 2020 from a state law standpoint.
current is that is that a an accurate picture or do you believe that 100%
unqualified we can confirm that but my my understanding of it right now is that
ADUs that are built pursuant to the recent ADU state laws are prohibited from
being used for short-term rentals but that might be if they only allowed
that if they used the law to build it so to speak like they're just that's
correct if they if they use if they relied on the law for the purposes of
getting the ADU built which is the way at least most of the recent ones have
been built have been pursuant to the state laws because they are they're more
expedited and more streamlined in their approval process than what were
historically local zoning requirements associated with ADUs. So it's probably
safe to say most people are using that but would we would it be wise for us or
should we look at our ordinance and see that maybe we should revise it to say
something like only eligible short-term rent or eligible 80 years may be
eligible for I'm sorry our cordon our current ordinance currently
prohibits 80 years that were constructed since that since 2020 to be served to be
used as short-term rental so regardless of whether it is you know following
state law or whatever so that could you know in the case that you
Offer be construed as being more stringent more students that may be just an opportunity to look at eligibility for those. Okay
That's it for my questions right now. Thank you mayor pro tem
Thank you
You asked a lot of mine
But just to clarify on the collection of the tote because I had heard information
I think similar information to council member Davini that it was kind of more of an automate automatic process that
Airbnb
Would remit the tot to the city, but it sounds like they they would inform us that there's a registered
Short-term rental on their platform and then we would still need to hire a consultant like HDL
to collect the tot
so maybe
different way of explaining it is that these certain platforms and certainly
the ones that are more sophisticated like VRBO and Airbnb have an ability to
essentially do that accounting feature with them so that you as a business owner
are able to track and then remit your you know business taxes and so forth
and keep track of your income too so you can pay your federal income taxes.
as a conversation goes on, maybe that's something.
Obviously if there's a way to streamline the process further,
that would be good.
And then, I'm curious in terms of,
from both legal and planning perspectives,
if we were to streamline the process,
would we still have the enforcement ability
if a business is operating once or more times as a nuisance?
if it was just a kind of a business license type permit,
to what extent could we revoke that?
So forgive me, my colleagues that deal with outdoor dining,
but the closest analogy is that within operators permit.
And so it's very similar to an AUP or CUP
having been required for alcohol and then
with outdoor dining.
And so those have processes associated with it.
But whenever we went over to our outdoor dining,
there was an operator's permit that
provided very clear direction on here are the norms, et cetera.
Here are the things you need to comply with.
And if you're in violation of it,
this operator's permit can be pulled.
Same thing could be true in the way
that it operates in other cities so that, based off of that,
versus going through a more complex and lengthy
and legally costly process
to pull a conditional use permit.
Okay, that's helpful.
And then in terms of the 170 or 190 folks
that don't currently have a permit
but want to continue to operate short-term rentals,
what's staff's plan to bring them into compliance?
Well, our first plan was to ask the question
of council policy direction
or whether or not you wanted to ban
or continue to allow it.
So with that question, once that is answered,
then we can develop a plan to be able
to follow policy direction.
So that if Council's choice is to continue on
in the bed and breakfast model,
then things would remain largely the same
for all the same reasons.
If Council instead were to choose
to go to more of an operators permit type of program,
then we wouldn't need to essentially stand up a program
much the way that the outdoor dining program was stood up
and come up with parameters and so forth
and then bring that to council for adoption
along with the new ordinance.
And just finally, do we have any estimates
of what the cost and time would be
to obtain an operators permit?
No, I we can certainly look into that if that is council's will to go to a different type of
Regulation of short-term rentals, but we didn't want to get too far down the road and presupposing councils will
Thank You councilmember darling. Thank you and thanks for the presentation and all the thought that's obviously gone into this
I know in a rinda the the big impetus for their ordinance was the
Party that went horribly wrong up there. What's been our experience with culture service from PD for the short-term rentals?
Have we had much of that here?
So it was much more prevalent during covet less so now, but you know PD responds for that most of the
Types of feedback we get about the short-term rentals are from neighbors
some of it might be, you know, noise related, some of it might be people not
being able to find their short-term rental late at night, and so that is, and
knocking on the wrong door. And talking with PD that hasn't been, you know, calls
for service at short-term rentals hasn't been a significant, you know, call, reason
for calls for service. Okay, that's good to know. So I know the Bed and Breakfast
ordinance limits it to within 500 feet of an arterial or collector street does
that effectively does that actually does that make no never mind when you're out
there or is that a relatively difficult requirement to comply with just thinking
about keeping people on the edge of neighborhoods rather than deep into a
neighborhood so it I think you know it's just it's a criterion that someone would
need to comply with but there are numerous homes that are on that you know
that meet that criteria so as to whether or not it helps or hurts the ability to
operate that business we haven't seen any evidence one way or the other okay
and then if we go through this and come up I know when we originally were
working on alcohol permits there was one set of standards and if you're willing
and to live with that, you could get the easy permit.
And if you really wanted to push things,
you could get the hard permit.
Is something like that possible here?
For example, if somebody is on site,
limits people to a certain number,
they could get a more easily acquired permit.
But if they wanna have a site where they can not be there
or do different things.
So that is definitely possible.
There are examples of that in the information
provided in your packet.
Usually those, the differences, et cetera.
Here you have a permit type of process.
And then if you want to do something different,
usually they've mentioned it in the context of having events
and hosting events and so forth.
And that you would go through a separate process,
getting a special event permit as an example.
Certainly in the example that you offered,
there's the potential to, if you want to have it hosted,
do it one way, if you want to have it un-hosted,
then you go through, presumably, a conditional use process.
I would just add, if I may, a consideration along those lines,
if we were to head down that path,
is the complexity in terms of the application process
and explaining that process through potential applicants.
And then it does make enforcement more complicated
if we get a complaint what's allowed or not allowed,
having to know that by address as compared
to knowing across the board what are the standards.
So those would be some trade-offs and considerations
if we had a bifurcated approach.
Yeah, that's good to know.
Because it's OK.
And then if we were to do an operator-type permit,
would there still be notice for neighbors to come
and express their opinion on it.
Unclear.
And the reason why I say that it's unclear,
because in most of the examples that are out there currently,
it's done through a process that doesn't
require that notification.
It's more administrative.
Trying to insert that requirement
there as a condition of receiving an administrative permit creates a whole
other set of things to consider which we haven't thought through yet. Okay and
then as far as it sounds like people kind of come and go out of the business
so have we talked to any jurisdictions that have a limit on how many permits
they issue in their city and how is that work if people are coming and going? So
So there are jurisdictions out there, typically, and more, you know, along shores or highly,
you know, tourism oriented that have programs like that, but our neighbors don't, typically.
And so there would need to be a justification as to why, or, you know, you have 100, whoops,
sorry, you're 101, you can't come in, but then that's very difficult.
And our city manager's saying from an enforcement standpoint
because our earlier discussion, is it 190?
Or is it 111?
And then last question, just thinking
about how we encourage compliance.
Have we thought about an idea where
if you apply in the first year of the program,
your application fee is much less,
But in out years, I'm just some way to get people to want to come to see us up front discount.
Yeah, that's it. So are you today?
Again, we were first focusing on the, you know, the policy question.
Does council want to ban or continue to allow this use?
And then in terms of operational kinds of things like you're talking about,
That would be a next step in the process if Council's direction is to continue to allow or use
But to do it differently than what we do now. Okay. Thank you
That's where Silva. Thank you. Thank you very much for all of this work and for the continued
Patrol of
some of our interesting operators
So let me start with cup versus operator permit. I
That was on the Planning Commission, but it was a long time ago. My recollection as a CUP basically is more
permanent than an operator permit which could be in fact you get it and you get it renewed, et cetera.
So I can answer this and how we're doing it more recently.
So I'm not going to step on our city attorney's toes,
I promise, but the conditional use permit typically runs with the land.
However, the way that we have been working through the process more recently is that once that
operator ceases operations at that site, then the permit sunset.
It's different as you had noted from the operator's permit type of idea. Most of the examples out there have an annual permit
that it's done on the calendar year basis and that you
have an incentive to come in early in the year as opposed to later
And that you know everyone renews for that particular year and so and
It's easier to both identify a violation
with the
Operators permit than it is with the CUP and to address it from a enforcement standpoint
Because to address the CUP it has to also go through a planning commission process
as opposed to
a more administrative process that's also, you know subject to appeal etcetera, but it's a lot easier
With their permits so 1111 1111 we're no matter what the number is one of the issues
I think is that some of the operators that are advertising on these platforms?
You cannot tell where where if they're in the city limits or if they are in an incorporated city
How can we actually figure that out? Is there GIS is there?
Do we have to make the elections department do it to figure out if that address is actually eligible to vote?
so the
On the platforms themselves. It could be a little bit ambiguous
But once the city has a specific address we have GIS capabilities that we can find out
You know is this advertising as a city of you know within the city of Walnut Creek
But they're actually in Concord for example are they in the city of Walnut Creek or they unincorporated Contra Costa County, okay?
So 111 has HDL had an opportunity to consider the location related
So we haven't gone down that path yet, and the reason why is because we wanted to get policy direction from Council
about whether or not you know wanted to ban because that's one pathway and one set of
Enforcement or do we you know go different round as the city?
Are we allowed I mean I noticed in looking in a even in our bed and breakfast ordinance now and looking at a Rindas
Short-term rental ordinance
proximity and
concentration so 500 feet from a major arterial or collector Street is
location specific and then there's the and you can't have more than three and within a certain distance because they there is a lot of
concern about
oversaturation whether it's
adult care facilities
alcohol
Sobering facilities and this as well. Are we able to?
specify that
So we would look into it further as a practical matter
we have many collector's streets so the 500 feet or more is not a huge
delineator of exclusion or inclusion in terms of looking at saturation and so
forth. There are possibilities and we have GAS capabilities but then the
platforms themselves and the ability to sort of cycle in and out because one day
you know you have 190, another day you have 111 and so we need to be we would
need to be very vigilant and also have a lot of clarity about what the
parameters are that council is looking for in terms of what that you know
density looks like. Under state law are we able to limit the size or is it only
specific to ADUs built after 2020 when that law went into effect with the
concessions and the streamlining. So when you say size, could you... I mean, could we
say you cannot rent a home with five bedrooms as a short-term rental, which
is more of a single-family neighborhood home? I mean, are you able to restrict
size to something small that would be considered larger than a hotel room but
smaller than a permanent home. So there are examples of that and certainly in
our current bed and breakfast ordinance it has a maximum number of rooms and
number of people per room so we can't see why not. The council has pretty broad
authority on setting those types of requirements. You can ban them if you
want to. And so anything that is short of a ban is generally within the authority
of the council. I think that answers the additional questions that I had. Thank
you. Thank you. Thank you. I think most of the questions I had have been answered.
One that I wanted to check on with you. I know these are all snapshots in time,
but do you find that there are more short-term rentals that are available
downtown like in multi-family housing versus outskirts of neighborhoods?
Popcorns around and so sometimes if there's a major event happening in
downtown there will be a propensity to you know rent out a short-term rental so
that there's access to less your center or to an event and other times you know
there are weddings or other things that are happening elsewhere and so proximity
the Heather Farm or, you know, other amenities, etc., are also there. So it
depends and there's not a hard and fast rule about where. Okay. I would just add
for context and correct me if I'm wrong on my housing units here, but roughly
speaking we have about 34,000 housing units in Walnut Creek and we have
somewhere between 100 to 200 short-term rentals that we believe are operating. So
on a percentage basis it's very small we don't see a large cluster of any in one
particular area or another it's a fairly dynamic situation given that it's a very
fluid platform and it allows people that flexibility to rent or not rent so it is
kind of bouncing around I don't think we have a high concentration in any one
particular area of the city okay thank you I think that's my questions for now
Mayor I wanted to just follow up on one issue. I did check the Airbnb website.
They do have the technology to allow for direct remittance to cities.
It does require that they be required through some mechanism so we can check
that further if the council would like to see what kind of mechanism is
required. I am aware that many cities collect TOT from short-term rentals in
in the same way they collect TOT from hotels
that is the property owner of the business operator
collects it and then remits it.
But Airbnb at least does have that technology
in their system.
Thank you.
Great, all right.
Well, Eric, I probably don't go too far
because I have some more questions afterwards.
But for right now, we'll bring this to the public.
And does any member of the public
wish to provide public comment at this time?
Please come forward or use the raise hand feature
press star nine if you're calling. If you'd like to provide remote public
comment if you are attending in person please complete a speaker identification
card line up behind the lectern at this time and written comments submitted have
been posted the city's website for public review are included in the
meeting record but will not be separately read into the record. Each
speaker will have two minutes to make the remarks and all remarks should be
addressed to the City Council and at this time we'll take public comment. Good
Good evening everyone, thank you.
My name is Lisa Blanco and I live in the Woodlands.
And oh boy, this is kind of, I could see the bit
of the rat's nest this is because as a resident
I feel that residential zones should be for residents
mid-term, long-term residents and not rent it out.
On the other hand, they're happening anyway.
And is the city benefiting from that in any way
through TOT or what have you?
And I think as a resident, I don't care for them.
Call me Lisa Nimby Blanco if you want.
And I don't think that they add to a neighborhood.
They take away from them.
But I do see the point of coming up
with maybe a better policy for these.
And I think a couple of things who
are that neighbors, residents,
actual residents should be involved for our input.
And then also that I know that the surrounding areas
pretty much don't allow them.
And that at least one of them,
the owners have to conduct the STRs.
So anyway, that's it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Next speaker, please.
My name is Pamela Trail.
I live in the Woodlands also.
Oh, sorry.
My name is Pamela Trail.
I live in the Woodlands also.
I agree with Lisa's point.
The city is not benefiting financially.
They seem reluctant to collect any fees
people who continuously violate in the face of the rules, and I don't think they
belong in the residence. And for the last public meeting that took place very,
this issue, there was only three days notice given to the public for their
and that's not enough time for people to contribute their thoughts and I think
the zoning should all and permits should be done by a site by site and in
consideration it should be looked at if there is elementary schools nearby or
daycares or places where young people gather. In our neighborhood there's an
elementary and a daycare two blocks away and that was not mentioned in the last
council meeting. There needs to be some kind of a background check for the
safety and community of the public and who's responsible for this background
check and who do these checks include and the council decisions should be
respectful of the people who elected them and permits should not be given to
repeat offenders and action should be taken against their repeat offenders and
my comment is specifically directed to you in the end of the last meeting
regarding Hector Krause giving him a lifeline maybe he could get a permit
when he continues to violate even this week thank you mr. trail next speaker
please hi Jan Warren Woodlands hard for me to read my notes I just appreciate
this topic being brought up I think it was time past time for us to look at
what's happening in the world today how things are being used that people don't
use their housing or cars or anything else like they used to so it would seem
like if you had a more reasonable process more people would comply I think
it should be set up so that the remittance is included. I mean anything we do, we go
like you're in a car, you know, you got a whole line of things. I just got through setting
things for a vacation. And they don't even always tell you all of them, but you pay for
them. So my question, my thought also has to do with what happens in HOAs. A lot of
people have HOA's, I don't know if that matters or not and it seems to me that
whether it's a neighborhood or an end of you know a high-rise we're building a
lot more housing that's high-rise so I don't think you should discriminate
from one or the other if they have something that they want to rent they're
following the rules you know maybe they're young and need some extra cash
to make their bills who knows but at any rate I do think we ought to continue to
explore it and see how we can improve on it and thanks for looking at it. Thank
you, Jan. Looks like we have no more in-person public comments. Do we have any
comments on the line? We have no one on Zoom. Okay, so we will close public
comment, bring it back to council for any further questions or comments and let me
just ask Erica, it looks like so you're looking for some specific policy
direction requested short term rental should they be allowed at all how
regulated and then if it should go to planning Commission and community for
discussions before coming back to council for a policy correct so the very
first question is a yes or no one and then if yes then and then if no then it's
okay so yes there were two questions that were asked from the public could I
I get answers to those.
And the first is, how was the last hearing noticed
and the hearing that was in front of the Planning
Commission?
So the hearing was noticed in multiple ways.
It was noticed in the newspaper.
It was noticed through all the standard options and so forth.
We had gotten notification, though,
from neighbors that the notice that had been posted.
And we have documentation of it being posted
on the property, and then also nearby lamps
have been taken down.
As soon as we received that notification, we reposted it.
Did homeowners or property owners
a certain distance from the property receive postcards
or mailed notices?
So they followed all the standard notices, and so yes.
So could you reiterate what those are?
Or maybe the attorney can, only because the public
is wondering if they may not have been
within the distance zone to receive a postcard.
Did you want to take that, Steve?
So essentially, postcards were sent out.
It was on the city's website.
It was sent out in all the notifications
in terms of the newspaper and so on,
so that all of our standard processes were put into place.
And so in addition, they're posted on the residence,
the site and then they were also posted on, you know,
lamp posts, you know, streetlights, et cetera,
that were there.
So we were very diligent in posting that
with all of the required postings.
And how many days prior is our posting requirement?
It's like a pop quiz.
She's waving her fingers at you.
So 10 days?
Thank you.
I can count that high.
OK.
My other question is, what are we doing with regard
to the one that we disallowed, we upheld the planning
commission decision.
Are they still operating?
And what is the enforcement mechanism
that we have under the law?
So we were notified of a potential short-term use
occurring most recently.
I myself went out and posted a notice of violation at the site.
And there's an active code enforcement case occurring.
So what under the law are we allowed to do to that?
I mean, can we lock the door?
Can we?
What are?
No, we would have to.
So what we would first do, as Erica did,
you would post it and try to give voluntary compliance.
If we don't give voluntary compliance to it,
then we would have to get a court order to shut it down.
So that's going to be a multi-month process?
It can be faster on an expedited basis
When there's a violation of a land use regulation of this sort,
when they're just operating without any permits,
you can go in on short notice to try to get a court
to issue at least an interim order stopping
that type of activity, which we will do if necessary.
So it is an active case?
It is an active code enforcement case.
Thank you.
So well, as long as we're with you, Council Member Silva,
any further comments?
Or maybe if we want to be able to go down and answer
questions. Do you have these the questions? Those are the questions right
there. All right I think we should allow short-term rentals we have they're in use
in very good ways for people to be able to supplement their income to be able to
rent a small room. My husband and I were in Seattle last weekend. Hotels were
unavailable due to a bridge being rebuilt and so in order to be within
than blocks of our children, we rented a short-term rental
that was in the basement of a house.
It was lovely.
It was not what someone would rent for a long-term basis
because it had a studio-style kitchen
and a very tiny bathroom.
It was all very nice, but it was not in lieu of them
renting it for permanent tenant.
I think the bed and breakfast ordinance
has run its course.
Bed and breakfast is a different type of commercial.
It's a more commercial operation.
And I think we need to have a short-term rental ordinance
so that we can make it clearer and easier to implement.
And I think we should use a user permit, not
a conditional use permit, unless for some reason
they're asking for things that we
want to have more stringent permitting on.
And finally, I'll mention that I think for a variety of reasons
these need to be owner occupied or host occupied.
Because if you rent a room in a hotel,
there is someone they're managing at 24 by 7.
So for the safety of the visitor and the safety
of the neighborhood and the safety of the property,
there's someone monitoring it.
When we were in the short-term rental in Seattle last weekend,
the family was living upstairs.
I could hear them walking around every once in a while.
But it was good to know that because it was good to know
that somebody was available to tell us if there was a plumbing
problem or something like that.
But I also think that without the Orinda issue
happened because the owner was not on property or anywhere
near the property.
But how would that work if it were a multifamily housing,
if it were something in the Lyric or one of the places
that it's a one bedroom or two bedroom apartment.
You want to know how the Aave was doing it?
Because there was a new apartment building
that wasn't filling up fast enough about five years ago
and we were finding rentals.
But there's management in an apartment building,
not in a condo building or a townhome building.
So that's a different issue.
But I'm just, and-
So you're saying that would count then?
If it were a condo in a multi-family housing,
the fact that there's on-premises management
would count as owner-occupied for somebody
that's looking at short-term rentals.
If there's on-premises management there,
if it's an apartment, if it's the Lyric,
it's an apartment building.
So the first one you mentioned is rental department, so.
I don't know about condos and townhomes
because generally people don't own two
in the same building, although they have,
but we'll have to condition.
And I'm just kind of going through the.
Yeah.
But I wanted to ask a question about the host,
because we don't currently have that requirement, right?
So what if it is a single family home,
and the owner would not be on premises?
It would not be hosted?
So if they're seeking to rent out the entire home,
then that could present complications.
However, if they're renting out rooms,
or if there is an ADU on site and the owner is living on that
and then they're renting out the home itself.
But that's another scenario.
Yeah, you're correct, Council Member Francois.
If it were an owner requirement on site,
it would effectively preclude entire house rental
for the most part, with the few exceptions that Eric noted.
I think what we'd have to figure out
is how many of their full house are being rented.
because the arena, it was a full house being rented,
which is a problem.
The one in the Woodlands, the guy went out.
He wanted to start a commercial business.
And basically, he was intending to rent multiple single family
homes around the area.
This was not his.
And he was going to turn them into a property management
agency.
That, to me, is not what we should
be allowing in single family neighborhoods.
That's not the intent.
Would you have a proximity then if an owner lived
within 500 feet of the property or how well we have we.
Yes, there's a proximity.
But it was comforting for the neighbors, for the visitors
and for the owner to know that their property is being.
Yeah, the I wrote down risks out of control event.
No one for the city or the neighborhood to a to contact
because if no one's nearby, who do you contact? And
You know everybody needs to feel comfortable with this in their neighborhood. What about the last couple of questions there maximum rental duration operational requirements
Operational requirements well I hosted non hosted local restrictions such as proximity saturation maximum rental duration
I think we're
I'm not into making it permissible to host events in single-family homes in residential neighborhoods. That's a commercial enterprise
thank you councilmember darling okay so it's interesting after I got the list of
who bans short-term rentals I looked up and every one of them has short-term
rentals listed on Airbnb so they're in the same position that we're in which is
they say you can't do it but people are doing it anyway and and given that
slipperiness I think it's better to go ahead and bring people into compliance
so we know who they are so we have control of the situation so I would not
favor banning it because we will be back here right away I do think going for an
operating permit makes a lot of sense something that is easier to administer
and anything we could do to automate those is to the good. The owner occupied
I have two minds on this on the one hand that was the problem with Arinda but on
the other hand the Joaquin Ranch Airbnb that was shut down by the Planning
Commission a few years ago the owner lived there and they still managed to
irritate the neighbors. So owner occupied owner is only as good
as the manager, the person and how proactive they are. So I am
interested in learning more about that. I don't have my
heart set one way or the other. I can argue that on both ways.
I ask you a question. Yeah. But with no owner required, you
definitely don't have on site management.
Think it's something that we need to think about carefully because I think if we just say you have to be owner-occupied
That would still have let the Joaquin Ranch one go forward and that one ended up really being problematic for the neighborhood
I didn't I wasn't in the hearing because my house is within 500 feet of it. You said
Yeah, let me go over to
across the street for hours
But it's not the panacea. It's not the cure. All it's not perfect. I
Think clearly no special events. I think that especially in single-family neighborhoods
But same is true of our multi-family housing. You don't want to have
And I know that you don't want to have the
Bridesmaid's Hootenanny in the apartment next door
I would like to see standards safety requirements as far as parking
Occupancy things like that as part of the permit. I
do think
Then how you keep the neighborhood informed is going to be an important part of this I can see
with an owner with a
An operating permit that makes it more difficult
And so we'll have to think through that carefully.
I can think of a couple different ways you could do it.
One is frequently when we have day cares that are coming in,
there is a requirement for them
to provide contact info to neighbors
so that if pickup and drop off gets to be a problem
and people are parking in front of people's driveways,
they know who to call.
So we'll have to think through
how the neighbors get recourse sort of calling PD
on a Friday night.
I'm not sure what the answer is there,
but we do need to find a way so that our neighbors,
it doesn't spin out of control
before we find out there's a problem.
Special events, safety requirements.
I think that's most of the questions for me.
Okay, Mayor Pro Tem.
Okay, I'm generally in agreement
with Council Member Darling.
I guess the talking about the owner occupied,
I'm worried about how that would be implemented
from a practical matter and especially given the 111
or 179 where we don't currently have that requirement.
And so how would we go back and you'd essentially say
they can't be, if it's a single family home,
then they can't do it.
No, the ones that don't have permits
that we're trying to bring into compliance.
So I think if we imposed right now at this point in time
an owner occupied requirement,
it's a big, I think it's a big administrative enforcement
issue for us and for staff
to try to bring them into compliance.
So I'm sensitive to that.
I think what I'd like to see,
I'd be okay with an operator permit
provided there were guardrails that said
if it's being operated in a manner
that's adverse to public health, safety, and welfare,
as reasonably determined by city staff,
the operator permit goes away.
And that can be done immediately.
And it requires enforcement as the city attorney said.
I think if you are or have been in violation,
you can't apply for a permit for 12 months.
It's similar if you've been denied a permit,
you have to wait at least a year to apply again.
I'm okay with giving someone the discount for compliance,
but if they don't comply within two months,
they're denied and they can't apply for a year.
Because I think the goal is to try to bring people
into compliance and get this regulated.
You know, I hadn't thought of, I hadn't,
I mean, you brought up the neighborhood notice.
You could kind of see that going both ways that it's I think it will be regulated by
staff as an operator permit then there's really not an opportunity for a notice public hearing.
You could do it a different a couple of different ways and provide notice to the neighbors that
an operator permit is going to be issued unless a request for a hearing before the zoning
administrator is said I don't think we want to make it necessarily appealable all the
way up to the council, but maybe there would be a hearing process before there could be
before the zoning administrator, saw your eyes get big.
That's one way to do it.
I mean, it could be an administrative use permit too, which is, I think that's how those
are run.
It's staff level, but it could be appealed.
Zoning administrator issues, and then it could be appealed to the Planning Commission.
So let's see.
I like the direct remittance a lot.
I think we should absolutely look,
and I know there are several different platforms,
but it sounds like one of the biggest ones has that,
and I think we should go forward with that.
Absolutely no special events.
What else?
I think I covered, I think I covered over.
So yes, sorry, I didn't go through your questions.
Yeah, short-term rentals should be allowed.
What other aspects in terms of operational?
I think maximum rental duration was the only other one
that you didn't mention.
Currently we have no more than a week
I'm okay with that. I actually missed that one when I was doing my comments
Um, I would be in favor of up to 30 days
one of the bigger uses is people that are relocating to the area and those those would not to be intended to problems or
traveling professionals traveling nurses traveling, you know people and
Those and so up to 30 days could work
for a situation like that
Council member Davini
Well, I'm thinking about it like the 30-day idea to I think about people going on vacation, too
Maybe they want to rent out their home. They're going for two or three weeks and that gives them some flexibility
One of the one of the things I think about is, you know, what I didn't like
about the last
Round we had discussion on this was that
We see this idea of residential homes being turned into commercial rentals, right?
So this was someone who not only didn't have a home,
but they were renting it from someone else
and then turning it into a commercial space.
So one suggestion I would have that we consider is,
should the person have to live in the house
for at least six months to be able to rent it out?
So more than half the year.
That would be I think a pretty reasonable thing to do.
I think if we do that,
It will cut down on this residential being turned into commercial.
It will be more homeowners that are choosing to rent it out for periods of the year.
I don't think that we need the collector contingency.
I think all residents should have the opportunity to rent their house out on a short-term basis.
I would recommend we only administer one short-term rental per resident so we don't wind up in
in situations where people collect houses
so they can rent them out.
I don't think we need a conditional use permit.
I think it should be a much easier, almost like a,
what are we calling it?
A operator?
Is that like a buy right type thing
if they just meet certain criteria, yeah.
Currently we have five guests.
I mean, I'm not so sure, I mean, we're a family.
We often travel and we rent out a home
and we sometimes have six or seven people, right?
We've got like us five and like maybe our parents
or something, we're trying to find a home.
I don't think it's unreasonable to increase that
maybe eight, I don't think that's a party size,
I still think that's family oriented.
And then I think that when we issue this permit
for the short term rental, they should have to display
that on the listing, whenever they list it
on one of these platforms.
So it's easy for us to pick out
like who's out of compliance, right?
if there's a rental, it doesn't have a permit,
you're out of compliance,
then that would be a violation in and of itself.
I think we should look at escalating penalties
so that we're not dealing with
folks going long periods of time
without having consequences for being out of compliance.
And I think that if someone is applied for the permit
And is remitting their TOT that the renewal process
should be very sort of just over-the-counter type thing
or just online.
Like if they're in compliance and they're
remitting their TOT, they should be able to renew.
Can I ask you a question just to clarify?
If they are in compliance, it means
if they have not violated the terms and conditions
of their permit, right?
Right.
OK.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, so I wouldn't restrict,
I don't think we need to come up with like a density
or a location criteria.
I don't think we're at that level.
I do think if you live in the home
and you have an ADU that's eligible to be rented
as a short term rental,
that we shouldn't put limits on that.
I think if you live in the home
and you have a space that you wanna rent out,
that should be allowed.
I think that with these types of changes,
we might see an overall decrease in short-term rentals
if we have folks needing to live in them for six months,
which would increase our housing stock.
But I also think that if we make the process easy
to comply with, it'd be increased compliance
and increased TOT for the city.
Okay, thank you.
I mean, obviously, short for rentals
are something that's in existence.
I mean, the cat is out of the bag on this and now we're trying to figure out ways to
corral it and put some and where to feed it and how to take it in, but it's been part
of the challenge that I have just emotionally on this is that here we are approving all
of these units and there was just a course at the planning commission last week approving
a eight-story development right in the heart of downtown and we're doing that, of course,
to increase the housing stock and I have a concern that, all right, are there going to
be investors that are going to be taking up these to be able to rent them out of short-term
rentals and now we're just losing housing stock along the way that we're trying to do
the best we can to meet the numbers and to do what's right.
So there are challenges there.
But I do think short term rentals should be allowed.
The question of a whole house versus in the multifamily units, it's hard, I think it's
just hard to say owner occupied, and we're like, if we go somewhere, and my wife and
I bring our son and daughter and their significant others, that's six.
And if we're going to rent a house that's two or three bedrooms, where is the owner
going to stay?
So we don't have a lot of mansions in Walnut Creek and a lot of these are just three or
four bedroom places.
So I'm not sure owner occupied is really pragmatic.
And certainly when we're talking about multifamily housing, while there is property management
on site, I think it becomes more of a challenge than anything else in being able to try to
meet that.
I like so yes, so I think we do need to develop a short-term rental agreement on this
I do think we need streamlined options for consideration
Absolutely not events mean whatever event whatever Planning Commission decides what our events
I don't think we should be able to have those maximum rental duration. I think 30 days makes sense
And I think that the other requirements that we've heard I think in general
The one thing I would say regarding ADU since council member Davini brought this up is that was specifically related to these?
Housing that is using the streamline state
Mandates to be able to build an ADU. I don't think they should then be able to turn that around as a short-term rental
They're doing that to be able to take advantage so that we can provide more housing for people not more rentals for people
So that's the one no understood and I agree and so
To be clear, I understand there's state law around that and understand that it's there to maintain our housing stock for people who've taken advantage of the streamline process
So those should not be allowed to be rented out as short-term rentals
But if you have an eligible
PDU that maybe was pre-existing or you didn't take advantage of those streamlining processes
I think those folks I would I would agree. Okay, just so we're on the same page there. I would agree with that
Well, we're a little over the board all over the board on this
but is there enough direction to move forward on so I think there's a good
stall to things to create a conversation with the community and planning
Commission and then circle back around okay can I make one more other as it
went down so I will correct my word from owner occupied to hosted because that
was the word that was in front of us and if somebody built an ADU and moved into
the ADU on their property which I know someone who did that then they can rent
out the house whether it's for long term or short term well I mean there's a way
there's a way to do it there was way to do it yes there is a way to do it okay
so it's great well thank you very much Erica that was a much longer discussion
than I thought it was going to be how are people doing here yes all right
let's take a 10-minute break till 8 o'clock and and we're back next on the
agenda is a consideration item titled update on 2025 and 2026 City Council
priorities and I invite assistant to the city manager Joe Caroza forward to
provide the presentation. All right thank you so much good evening council
members my name is Joe Caroza assistant to the city manager and thank you for
your time this evening to present on yes the update on the five City Council
priorities for calendar years 2025 and 2026 which were identified in February
of 2025. So tonight's presentation is going to include two things, first that update that we're
here for on the significant work accomplished since the last update to council which was in
May of this year and then I'm going to go ahead and close the presentation tonight with something
a little bit more forward-looking which is for the calendar years 2027 and 2028 upcoming city
Council priorities. I'm going to go ahead and provide a brief overview of in-progress
and plan community outreach to inform those future Council priorities.
So as done in the past, you'll be hearing directly tonight from the leads for each of
these five City Council priorities, and these staff leads are those that are ensuring that
these priorities become implemented and turned into real projects and accomplishments. And
And so you'll be hearing from them, which is economic development and downtown vitality,
which will be Mike Nieman, Candace Rankin-Mumby will talk about environmental sustainability
and climate action.
General plan update, you'll hear from Erika Vandenbrand, Rich Payne to cover park and
recreation facilities.
And then finally, Chief Hibbs will cover public safety and social wellness.
So with that, I'm going to go ahead and pass it to our first presenter, Mike Nieman, to
to talk about economic development and downtown vitality.
Good evening, Mayor, Council, Mike Nieman,
your Economic Development Manager.
And I will give you an update
for the Economic Development Priority Updates.
As you know, we have four major council priorities.
The first one is continue building resilient,
inclusive and diverse economy.
So we're making a number,
We have made a number of efforts on those fronts.
First and foremost, we are developing
a healthcare marketing campaign,
and we are getting ready for a healthcare conference season.
We have two in November that we're planning
to roll the campaign out for.
We are a sponsor, we'll have a booth there,
we will be marketing to recipients there,
and we also have a digital presence
following up on those efforts.
As you know, healthcare is one of the critical industries that we are targeting.
We also continue collaborating with educational institutions and other tech partners on various
initiatives.
Tech is another area of focus to build a diverse economy here in Walnut Creek, and we are sponsoring
Small Business Development Corporation Startup World Cup event.
Last Thursday, actually, it will be at the East Bay-Cal State campus in Hayward.
The second objective is to continue creating a business-friendly environment.
A number of efforts on that front include assisting the Shadelands property business
improvement district with developing and getting an entitlement for their master sign program.
is one of the critical priorities there for for creating a more distinct area
within the shade lands. We'll continue process improvements training and
implementation and that's the lead effort and as a matter of fact that the
next council hearing on September 15th you will get a much more robust update
on what various progresses and updates that staff has made on that regard to
streamline the permitting process and make the customer experience more
friendly. And we also continue an ongoing outreach to local businesses, property
owners, and other stakeholders. This of course includes business retention
efforts, communications, information sharing, things along that nature. The
third objective is enhancing the downtown experience and tourism
attraction. The folks on downtown over the last year has been on the outdoor
dining program which has really activated the streets with pods. We have
implemented councils direction for implementation of these pods by
deploying the hundred thousand dollar grant and thank you to this council for
allocating the funding exactly a year ago. We're happy to report that over the
course of a year all of the hundred thousand has been deployed and ten new
pods have been delivered and we estimate that that generated about four to one
private sector investment but most of these pods being north of $40,000 each
in construction so the ten thousand per restaurant have been leveraged really
well and has transformed the landscape on many blocks across downtown to the
tune where we have actually even won an economic development award for the
implementation of this program. We've also implemented an entertainment zone
and collaboration with Walnut Creek downtown and happy to report that they
have successfully hosted two events under the management plan that they had
conceived under this ordinance umbrella and both events have been very
successful and reported positive feedback from a lot of operators and
restaurants in downtown and we've attracted about 11,000 visitors through
those two events alone so there's more in the works for next season. And the
last objective is promotion of the city brand as a premier destination and high
quality of life community as we are. So I'm excited to share that we have just
last week launched a new data dashboard and it can be found on Walnut Creek
connected website and you could see here it's an interactive data
dashboard that captures 20 major data points and each one of them you can click
on and play around with the data going from historic to current and we're
currently in the process of sharing this with the development community with
perspective businesses. And also we are seeking input on it. We plan to
continuously update the data, but also if there may be other KPIs that are
helpful, it's something that we will continuously update as we get along and
make sure that it captures the most important and robust data as a living
document. We've also continued coordinating quarterly stakeholder
meetings and those are with our partners, the Chamber, WCD, Lesher. We've also
continued to support the general plan update through primarily through data
support and working with the economic sub consultant. And lastly we've
completed the city's economic development action plan and that was the
document that we brought before you in June which is a two-year document and
document documents the action steps for the city's economic development efforts in the next two years and were well underway in
implementing
the goals of that document and with that I will
pause for questions. Thank you. Do you have any questions for Mike?
It's a nice nice and thorough and glad to hear that our grant program was a success, too
Councilmember Silva, did you just wanted to say thank you for the report?
But it was concise. It was focused on the things that have been recent and key achievements. So great job
Thank you. I got to play with the dashboard and I found out things when I was looking I came across it the other day
I I didn't you know, we always talk about how many health care jobs and I'm like whoa that is quite a few
Good job. What is the percentage of the health care? It used to be 14% of the jobs, but
I don't have it off the top of my head.
You have to go look at the dashboard.
But I would encourage you to look on the dashboard,
and it will be there.
All right.
Thanks, Mike.
Good evening, Mayor and Council.
I'm Candace Rankin-Mumby, Sustainability Manager.
And I'll be providing the update on the next goal,
environmental sustainability and climate action, which
focuses on remaining a leader and reducing our pollution
related to the climate and other sustainability goals,
focused through implementation of our Sustainability Action
Plan.
So first, we'll discuss some of the work
that we've done on buildings since we last talked in May.
And a lot of this has focused on energy efficiency
within buildings.
So facing outward into the community,
we coordinated with MCE to send a targeted email campaign
to high users of energy between 4 to 9 PM, which
is when energy is the most expensive and also the dirtiest.
And so we was able to use the data that they have
to target 430 households with a specialized email
that you see here on the right,
really trying to make sure that we're putting
the message where it will be most used.
And then for our own facilities,
we completed the lighting upgrades
that had come to council earlier this year
at the Lesher Center for the Arts,
the Clay Arts Guild and the Walnut Creek Library.
And we use on-build financing for this program,
which is offered through PG&E and allows us
to offset the upfront cost and spread it out over time
through the energy savings that will be part of the project.
Next, we have a lot of transportation updates
from this summer as well.
So as you know, at our last meeting,
we went deep on electric vehicles,
focusing on our fleet and implementation
of our public-facing chargers.
And so staff are working on implementing the direction
that we received at that meeting
and are working on preparing a procurement
for a third-party vendor for public-facing chargers.
So there'll be more updates on that in the coming months.
And then wanted to note that from the goal
in the Sustainability Action Plan,
we're making really great progress
on expanding our bike network.
So we've expanded from our baseline 15% already,
and 3.2% or about a half a mile of that
has happened in the last year.
And we're really targeting that on expanding the bike network
increasing access and filling in gaps.
And you'll get more updates
on some of those specific projects later tonight,
but it is really important to sustainability,
so I wanted to mention it here as well.
And then on more outreach and programmatic,
transportation-related goals,
we've been doing a combination of both in-person
and online outreach this summer.
So we hosted Bike to Where Every Day
very shortly after your last update,
which was very successful this year.
We had our regular Energizer station
that we've done in the morning for several years.
And then this year, we added on a bike rodeo
in the afternoon, focused on the younger kids,
and that went really well.
And additionally, during this summer,
we were invited to some staff from Sustainability,
and Mayor Wolk joined us to the Sustainability
and Science Summer Camp, which was a new summer camp
that was offered this year.
It was mostly Recycle Smart programming,
and then on Friday, we joined to focus with the kids
on transportation-related initiatives,
and they were very enthusiastic about the topic.
We are also working to support the walk and roll program,
which is offered throughout the county
at elementary schools.
And for those participating schools,
they pick a specific day a week
and really encourage the students to come on foot,
on a bike, or in a carpool,
and students get incentives to participate over time.
This program's been really well received,
and it's gonna be receiving an award
at the upcoming sustainability gala.
And so we've been helping to promote it to more elementary schools in Walnut Creek and
we're seeing more and more participate each year.
And then over the summer we supported the Youth Ride Free Program from County Connection
which had I believe it was in their first month about 13,000 youth take advantage of
that program and it was a big increase over last year about 15 percent.
So that was a very successful program this summer and currently we have their fall version
of encouraging youth pass to class, which offers free bus
paths for the first two months of the year
to get students in the habit of riding the bus to school.
And so both of those work on reducing congestion
and pollution, as well as creating
a habit of taking transit from an early age.
In the area of waste, we've given a few updates
on a program through Recycle Smart
called Rethink Disposable, which works with local restaurants
to who use single use for dine in to see if they can switch that to reusables, which can
save them money, obviously reduce waste, and then also provide an elevated dining experience.
And we had low participation early, so we've really been targeting and focusing on that,
and over the year, we've essentially filled all the available spots in Walnut Creek for
this funding cycle, so we're excited to get those reusables out there so that we can promote
these great changes that the restaurants have been making, but there are about seven restaurants
are actively going through that process right now.
We also hosted our second annual repair cafe,
partnering with Sustainable Rossmore and Recycle Smart,
but it was hosted in Civic Park
and open to anyone who has a common household item
that they think they can fix
but isn't operating at the time.
They can bring it in and a volunteer
who has some sort of repair skill sits down with them
and they work together on seeing
if they can make the item usable.
And so we had really great turnout again this year
with 129 items that were brought in, and about 70% of them were either fixed or
the person walked away kind of knowing what they would need to do to fix it.
It's a really great environment in there. Encourage anyone to attend. We're
hoping to host one each year. People, if their item doesn't get fixed, they feel
really good about trying to do it and it helps add to our culture of reuse and
repair in the city. Then my last topic is just an update on our gas-powered leaf
Bloor Ban, which has been in effect since April, and so sustainably staff and
co-enforcement staff are working together to respond to complaints of potential
violation that we receive, and we're really focusing on an education-first
approach. We're averaging about 150 reports a month, and we have noticed we
send, if we get repeat notices, you know, we have steps that we follow up on that,
but about 85% of the properties we've only received one complaint about
them. So we're hoping that's a sign that the outreach that we're doing is either
informing people of policy they didn't know about or helping them see the
benefits of it and bringing them into compliance. With that I'm happy to take
any questions. Thank You Candace. I actually have a quick question on that
last one. So how what's the outreach that if we hear a complaint what's the next
step? We send a letter to the property letting them know that there may have
been a potential violation sharing the resources that we have on our website
We include a flyer that's targeted to landscapers along with that notice so they can pass that information along if that's the service that they receive
Thank you
On the reusable food where if we've had some conversations at recycle smart about this
What do you actually mean by reusable food where because quite frankly if I go into a restaurant and I get a plate at dinner
With their plates that's reusable because it's going through a dishwasher, but I don't think you mean think you what do you mean by that?
Yeah, so this program is pretty flexible and part of what they provide is technical assistance kind of working with the restaurant and understanding their
Operation so the photo on the slides a little small
This isn't an example in Walnut Creek, but it is an example of the kind of the wide breath this kind of
Program could provide so the photo on the left would be the before you come in and sit down and you get your food
In a clamshell even if you're eating it in
So they can provide dishes for that, but they'll also assist restaurants
Even if it's one of the participating
Businesses is looking at just reusable straws there
They mainly do beverages so even if they aren't able to transition everything if they could you know
Do just the straws as an example it still reduces a lot of waste being generated and can save them
the money they have to go all the way I guess the conversation centered around the dishwashing requirements if they're actually eating in and
that the food establishments
Utensils and food wear it and even that it might not even be available on site
Yes
So the technical assistance providers can work with them to see if the certain there are some
That sometimes it works without a dishwasher. They there are ways they can do it. Sometimes it doesn't
That it doesn't work for every site
But this program actually can fund a dishwashers which a lot of them don't so that that is a really great way about how it's structured
Yes, yeah, and thank you for the presentation and a lot of exciting projects. You're working on
Congratulations on the work with walk and roll. I was wondering with this reusable food
Containers did someone reach out to John Muir Hospital cafeteria?
because they recently they're a very high volume and they recently just made this change and
I imagine that the volume of disposables that they go through would probably equal five or six restaurants in and of itself
But they've transitioned to all usable foodwares.
And that's nice to see.
Yeah, that's great to hear.
I don't think, and just outside of restaurant,
and there's some other schools' programs
that Recycle Smart works on.
I'm not aware of them reaching out to health care.
Yeah, I'm cocky.
Yeah, it feels nice to see.
Thanks, Candace.
Thank you.
And I'll pass it off to Erika Vandenbrandt
to give the general plan update.
Hello, Fair Council, Erika Vandenbrandt, community
development director.
So just a little bit more than a month ago we were before you
talking about the general plan update and the fact it's a
multiyear community-based effort.
It's more of an Ironman than it is a 5K.
So with that I will share with you one slide and what's
happened since we last in front of Council on the 21st of July.
So if you recall, you know, there had been a significant amount of stakeholder outreach
that occurred in the community as well as having a joint commission, you know, kickoff
study session and then coming here before council on the 21st of July.
So since that time, we've been out in the community talking with folks about what their
hopes, aspirations, and dreams are for the general plan update.
We've been at the Locust Street Festival once upon a street at Bradley Plaza and then later
on this month we will be at both farmers markets so that the one in Shadelands on the 19th
of this month as well as the downtown farmers market on the 13th to share with the community
that this effort is underway.
And then the, you know, probably for you the least interesting paper-based type of thing
is that we have existing condition reports to document all the different existing conditions
throughout the community and so those are, you know, have been drafted, they have been
reviewed by staff and we're going back and forth with the consultant to make sure that
those existing conditions represent the community as we know it to be today and those will be
shared out a little bit later in the year with both the
commissions and then you with Council. The intention is that
by the end of the year that we have returned and that we are
able to share that information with you and have a further
discussion. Most importantly, however, there on Thursday,
September 24, there is a workshop upcoming at the civic
Park Community Center and so Mayor Pro Tem Francois has agreed to help welcome
the community to that on that day and so with that it's not nearly as exciting
it's the last time we were here last month or you know the month before that
but just if you have any questions I'm here to answer them. Thank you and I'm
I'm manning the staffing the farmers market booth on the 13th. So I'll see you or staff or both
What is an existing an example of an existing condition and when do you think council will see that report and will it be before?
mayor pro tem and I
good question
so the
The intention is an existing conditions report so there are a number of them some of them
deal with healthy communities some of them deal with the state of in our arts and recreation our open spaces still others, you know
document our
Demographics or economic development, you know what's going on and then our land uses and our transportation
certainly so that is the array of existing conditions and it's to make sure that
We all have the same facts that we're operating from in the community and that all those are documented
now in terms of your next question where it's a little I was sharing with council member Francois earlier, it's like one of these
period
television shows where you have the staff screwing around for the big event and so we're trying desperately to get all this done and
We need to be able to you know work to both with our consultants to get things done as quickly as possible
And then also find time on the council agenda
So I will defer that question ultimately to our city manager
Okay, I think that's thanks for the update Erica. Thank you very much. And I will introduce rich pain our public works director
Good evening mayor members of the council. I'm rich pain the public works director for the city Walnut Creek tonight
I'll be updating you on
The park and recreation facility this priority already includes
Many the measure O projects specifically a large one, which is the aquatics and community center
So I'll give you an update on that along with some other funded projects such as the transportation projects that we have going in
the city so
just first off I just want to recap some of the projects that we've completed using our measure O funding and
The first one here is the ball field lighting project at Tice Valley Park
I'm sure Mike Vickers is looking at this picture and asking why couldn't you use a better picture?
The turf is in pretty bad shape, but I wanted to illustrate this the lighting has
Enabled the city to expand the usage at this
Park, and you can see that it's being well used so I think that's a success even though
It's a little more work on our maintenance staff
It definitely is a success the synthetic turf project at Heather Farm Park is another one
just anecdotally, my wife and I were here on Friday,
drove past the field and looked at the,
just looked at what was happening out there
and I don't think there was a square foot
of that field that wasn't being used.
There were several teams using the field for practice.
It was really, you know, just to illustrate the success
that has got into this project.
And then I just want to point out the court resurfacing
at both our basketball court at Arbelato
and then the Rudgier Park.
So both, really, in talking to Mike,
it really has activated those spaces.
Before, if you remember, the basketball court at Arbolado
was in pretty bad shape and really underutilized.
And now that we've resurfaced it and proved that amenity,
it's really drawn people there for pickup games
and other types of activities.
Just to update you on the existing park at Civic,
we were in the process of,
this project has taken a little bit longer
than anticipated, one of the delays for this park
was just getting a hold of all the playground equipment.
So there's been delays in getting that.
But now that we have it,
we're working with the contractor to schedule the work
and it's slated to happen in the fall.
So, and as it states up there, it'll be about six weeks
for that project to happen.
So, next on the list is sort of our premier project
for Measure O.
As I offer these pictures,
just so you can kind of take a look at just the development.
It's really kind of cool to see just everything
coming together.
You can imagine how it sets next to the concrete pond
And just the experience that's going to create for the community center.
In terms of the pool, you can see that they've excavated the pool.
The next steps there will be to add some additional utilities associated
with lighting and other things, rebar it, and then the gun act,
which is concrete that they spray on, will go on.
I'm told this month, I was talking to the contractor,
and so later this month we'll see concrete going there.
I know the push is really to get all this done before the Super El Nino comes.
So we're, I know that the contractor is really concerned about that.
And then of course the next step will be vertical construction.
We'll start seeing things come together and I'll tell you that we're really excited
to see that happen, but just to update you, overall the project is going well.
We ran into a few things associated with the site development,
But I think so far, given the magnitude of this project,
it's going quite well.
Next on the list is all the pedestrian bike-friendly
development that's going out there.
The first one here is a trail crossing enhancements project.
If you drive around town, you can
see all these improvements that are being
made at all of our trail crossings.
And I definitely see, well, it has definitely
created a safer environment for people crossing
at these intersections.
Before, I think they were probably undermarked.
Now, you'll see the signs, lines, and legends,
an advance warning when you come up on these trails.
And this really has improved safety
for the pedestrian and bicyclists
that use this infrastructure.
The Broadway Newell Safe Routes to School project
is in design and that improvement is slated to happen in late 27, 28.
And that really is going to improve the safety for the school and the other users that use
that pathway to or that area to come downtown including the motorists that
use that area. So design is underway for the North Broadway road diet. This is
that section between Civic and YVR. Really it's a wide really expansive area
when you're crossing you feel kind of alone out there. It takes a while to get
across that area. So the improvements and design of are underway for that
project, and that's also a project that will probably
happen in 2028-ish.
But there's still a lot of design work
that needs to happen with that project.
And the same thing goes with the park side cycle track project.
These projects are similar in that they'll
both receive some type of cycle track.
And essentially, cycle track is where they have a divider
or something between the bicyclist and the motorist.
And sometimes they'll use a buffer like parking.
So they'll push the parking away from the curb out
into the street.
And this allows some security between the motorist
and the people driving.
So next one on the list here for bike-friendly and pedestrian
friendly infrastructure is the Oakland Boulevard improvements.
This is a section of Boulevard from Mount Diablo, Oakland
Boulevard from Mount Diablo to Trinity.
It's almost a connector from all that condensed housing
there to the BART station.
This one's a tricky one.
We've received funding for it, but it's a tricky one
just because the elevations are a little bit steep from just
the way it was built.
It's going to require a lot of engineering
to put sidewalks and other bicycle infrastructure
on this section of street.
The next one, and I think we're all aware of this project,
is on treat there.
Right now we're working with the county
just to make sure that we're coordinating our projects
together.
This project is slated to happen in late 27.
So construction probably in the end of the summer,
early fall of 27.
And that'll be interesting how that turns out,
but I know that there's a lot of angst out there
for that project.
And the last one here is the Walker Avenue
at San Miguel sidewalk.
This project is almost done if you've
driven through that area.
It's essentially a return for ADA.
And given the number of condominiums
and other apartments in that area,
there is a lot of pedestrian traffic
that come through there.
And so this will really make that corner, that section
of San Miguel and Walker really safe for pedestrian traffic.
And last but not least is the sort of phase three,
if you will, of the aquatics project.
As you recall, this project, or essentially, the plan
is to remove this from the site.
And so this we recently took to pros.
In fact, last night we took this to pros last night
and offered options one and two.
The pros commission recommended option two and sort of with the caveat that they that we plan to use the outreach information collected by the general plan.
As a foundation to guide the process with the focus on creating a mass the head of foreign master plan update with a focus on really this Clark.
you know kind of reuse of this space here, so
If you look at that blue line last time I was up here
There was a question in terms of what that footprint print looks like this is sort of following the fence line
So it's a pretty large space
That will be repurposing
So more to come on that
as I as we work through this the next update I'll probably have more information for you and
And that's all I have.
Is there any questions?
Toes in the water, 2027?
Toes in the water, 2027.
I have the sign on my desk.
December 31, 2027.
It's midnight.
I know what 27 is.
Could you go back one slide, please?
Maybe.
So I appreciate that the pros commission weighed in on this.
Yes.
And of course, they took the most.
But I think what they did is they took the broadest option
and narrowed it to focus on this space here,
not the whole park.
Did I interpret what you said correctly?
So kind of.
They did see the importance of doing an update
to the existing hella farm master plan, which was done in 2003.
And so I think that the plan would
be to use that, the existing master plan, and update it.
There's a few things that are updated, obviously.
We have an all-abilities playground there,
along with the dog park that aren't reflected in there.
The fields and all the other things,
there's not much to update in terms of the Heather Farm
update that was done in 2003.
And you know which part of the park is the third rail that you.
And then the folks would be here.
You know, just to have my understanding
is that they also asked for some additional information.
We may be going back in early October
to discuss some of the options with them.
And then we'll bring it back to council for further discussion
and ultimately a decision about how to proceed.
I mean, that's correct.
What would your estimation be?
Like if we're looking at option, if the pros commission,
if we look at option one, essentially the time frame
for making decisions versus option two time frame,
Because it seems like an option, too, that could be a couple of years
of discussions.
Right, and that was the pros commission's concern.
And so the idea was not to wait until the general plan was complete.
We were just interested in using some of the data
used in the outreach for the general plan
and aligning that data with an additional master plan of this area.
So it was kind of a combination.
And that would expedite any kind of delays in the process.
I'll summarize a little differently
in that they liked the idea of option two,
but wanted it done as quickly as option one.
There you go.
So there might be an option three coming back.
No, I was waiting for the we gave them option one,
we gave them option two, and they took option three.
And that's exactly what they did.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, you're welcome.
One thing, and I know this isn't necessarily this forum,
but as we go through these projects,
I know that just this last weekend,
we were out at a soccer game with our kids
around these new fields out in Dublin.
And everybody's 30, 40 yards from the field
trying to find a little tree to sit under
because there's no shade.
And it occurred to me that as we build these projects,
like I was looking at the one on Civic Park, and I'm thinking,
is there time to put up some shade sales for the kids
over the playgrounds?
I know maybe the ship sailed on the funding, but.
Yeah, I think that's something we can look at when that time
comes.
Yeah, because I know what a premium that is,
especially for the kids.
Yeah, Civic Park has a lot of tree shade around it.
So there is a lot of shade there.
But I see what you mean, especially with these all
abilities fields.
I mean, not the all abilities, but the synthetic turf fields,
those can get really warm.
You spurred a thought there that parking field that we're not
seemingly touching as part of this phase three,
Is there an opportunity to do solar car shade coverings
to generate, you know, we can cross pollinate
in terms of some of our priorities here
and make it a little less of a heat island?
Yeah, I think those are all things
that we can look at when that time comes.
Great, thanks, Rich.
You're welcome.
And I'll turn the time over to Chief Hibbs.
Thank you, Rich.
Good evening, Mayor and City Council members.
Ryan Hibbs, Chief of Police.
Here to give an update on the council priority of public safety and social
wellness. Uh, as a reminder,
the goal is here to ensure a high level of public safety by building on efforts
to support an effective and innovative police department, a proactive response,
police response to crime trends,
joint agency responses to homelessness and mental health challenges,
crime prevention partnerships and partnerships in neighborhoods or programs in
neighborhoods. Uh, the downtown and other commercial areas, uh,
improvements to traffic, transient, pedestrian, and bike safety, uh,
and community and regional disaster preparation and resiliency to meet the
increasing challenges of wildfires, earthquakes, droughts, floods,
and other hazards.
So the first strategic objective is to maintain an effective and innovative
police department. And I,
I've spoken a lot about the need to do a technology audit to ensure that we're
not using overlapping technologies.
And so the idea here is to get not only more fiscally lean,
but also to become more efficient. So, uh, I am pleased to report,
We have submitted into an RFP process for a new CAD RMS.
We did field test a couple different vendors for that.
We have not yet received any proposals yet,
so I don't know if the ones that we evaluated
will be a part of this RFP process,
but we're actively underway here.
As far as patrol technology,
we are evaluating the addition of in-car cameras
to the patrol fleet.
Those are commonly referred to as dash cameras,
but they're actually not mounted to the dash anymore.
are mounted behind the, or in front, I guess in front of,
in between the windshield, the rear view mirror.
So that system, in addition to a camera system
that covers the prisoner bay, is under evaluation.
I'm not sure if we're going to end up purchasing those,
but it is something we're actively evaluating.
Our social media engagement has jumped
since the last quarter.
The Instagram followers have increased by 7,000,
and then with the, Facebook is always probably
more utilized broadly and we're now up to 35,000 followers
for that part of our social media.
Citywide camera systems were continuing
to evaluate and manage camera technology there
and then with respect to our license plate reader cameras,
I did make a comment I think at the last meeting
that we are evaluating and actually building
a public facing portal to outline not just the best practices with respect to data sharing
from LPR cameras but also who we share it with and we plan on updating that frequently.
With respect to continuing proactive response to crime trends and with community involvement
we are continuing to host Coffee with the Cop events.
The last one was on June 16th and National Night Out was well attended.
We'll get to that in just a little bit.
in addition to going to National Night Out, did also attend a bunch of
neighborhood block parties, which is the more traditional way that National
Night Out is run, but we also found that we got a lot of great engagement and
participation by hosting it at Broadway Plaza, so that will continue.
I'm about 85 or 90 percent done with one-on-one meetings with all of our
staff and these are with everyone, these are with our sworn police officers and with
our professional staff to try not only to improve communication, interdepartmental communication,
but also the goal is to develop action items with the themes that I collate from all of
those one-on-ones.
And with respect to crime intelligence and analysis, we've been with Peregrine now for
for a couple of years and the things that this program can do, we're finding more and
more every day in fact, currently working on a new dashboard, informational dashboard
for the council as well as opposed, not opposed, but sort of a change in how that information
is delivered.
So instead of Excel spreadsheets and numbers and analysis, you'll receive a little bit
more of a thorough visual breakdown of what you need to know and I would be
remiss if I didn't plug the next coffee with a cop which is on September 8th at
Nordstrom at 9 30 a.m. the coffee shop at Nordstrom one down stairs I would
make it easy for people yeah national night out yeah this was we we had a good
attendance as well but 400 people were in attendance for for this national
night out we continue to see good crowds every year again it's it's it's very
beneficial to outfit it in such a a welcoming venue such as Broadway Plaza
strategic objective number three coordinate joint agency response to
homelessness and mental health challenges hop continues to collaborate
with the city and with the county and different resources to to address people
experiencing homelessness I am pleased to report that there aren't any
established encampments and city limits as I think I did the last quarter as
well. With strategic objective number four which is developed crime prevention
partnership and programs we continued business watch this was the brainchild
of our crime prevention specialist Kira Raman. This initially started off as a
crime free business model which is the more common way to build something
like Business Watch, but Cura took that and ran with the concept. So we've hosted a few
meetings to this point for events so far this year. They are increasingly getting to be
better attended and the idea is to have businesses communicating with each other so that if you
see something, say something, but also to open up lines of communication to the police
department. With that, our Detective Bureau presented on fraud, robbery, and business-related
crime at a business watch lunch and learn on the 18th of August.
And then the crime prevention specialists completed three environmental design evaluations
of local businesses.
And what that is, that's a service that we offer where the crime prevention specialists
will go and make environmental recommendations to the business to increase security and lower
the chances that they could become the victim of a crime.
And the neighborhood watch program, we've restoed that up, but it's starting to grow
a little bit, but again, that's the revamp from our crime prevention specialist.
With strategic objective number five, to improve traffic transit, pedestrian and bicycle safety,
I am pleased to report that overall traffic collisions have decreased 11% compared to
this point last year.
DUIs, we're seeing a lot more DUI arrests, and that's probably due to our officer's
comfort level based on some of the training they've received. They typically, when an officer is,
is, they go through the police academy, they do receive some level of training as to
alcohol and drug detection from drivers, but until you go through a more specialized class,
sometimes those things can slip by. So we did send a number of officers to that training
several years ago or a few years ago now, and now it's starting to take hold with the, I mean,
And we can't really use COVID as an excuse anymore,
but we did hire a number of officers through COVID,
and getting them used to going out and making traffic stops
and educating the public, again, was a bit trying.
So we're there now, we're making traffic stops,
we're out and educating the public,
but one of the products of that is an increase in DUI arrests
over the nighttime and weekend hours.
Today, or since September of last year,
we're at 118 arrests,
But I will note that in 2025, year to date 2025,
so January 1st to September 1st, we had 49 DUI arrests.
And since then, or since January of this year,
year to date, we have 89.
So that's quite a significant increase
and one that is a little surprising
kind of given the ride share that are out there
and the opportunities for folks to not drive impaired.
but now that we're out there stopping them,
they're being held accountable
if they're driving impaired.
Oh, and I did miss one thing.
For pedestrian safety month,
we are partnering with Ross Moore
on a presentation plan for October.
Those are always well attended.
For strategic objective number five,
which is to improve traffic transit pedestrian
bicycle safety, we continue to work
public works quarterly to discuss not just engineering projects but also
community feedback and evaluate roadway conditions and to review crash details
after serious collisions. So one thing that actually came up in our chief's
advisory board meeting was a fairly minor detail about a local parking lot
coming out onto a public roadway that Captain Slater has since started to work
with traffic engineering to see if we can come up with a solution for. So we'll
We'll take it from anywhere we can get it,
any suggestions or feedback, we're certainly open too,
and we want to improve our roadway safety
as much as possible.
On to eBikes.
So we receive pretty regularly complaints
about reckless eBike riders,
and I know council member Davini,
this is a passion project or yours.
And so I am pleased to report that we participated
a joint e-bike education on August 18th, so nine agencies in total participated. We were one of
them 45 officers and that's I don't think they're all pictured there but you see the numbers there
and and this is not just specific to Walnut Creek. This is this is a growing issue everywhere and
obviously with respect to e-bikes and and e-motorcycles we want to ensure that people are safe.
we want to ensure that they're licensed and we want to ensure that the public around them is safe.
So 194 contacts total made, 56 tickets were issued, 137 warnings or education contacts were made.
One was arrested for drug possession, which is always surprising to me on an e-bike,
and then we towed one for, I believe, being unlicensed with the next operation plan for
September 17th. With respect to Strategic Objective Number 6, which is community
and regional disaster preparation, we were provided with updated
training on when to use the Contra Costa County Community Warning System. This was
at one of our command staff meetings. A representative from CWS came and made
sure, A, that we were all signed up for the alerts, and we were, but B also assured
us that the system is working properly. There are times that sometimes we don't
feel like we're getting all the alerts they're they're sure us that we are and
so we are now well informed now I'll open it up to questions if any of you
may have some is a is officer young feeling the pressure of people that are
going to be on his tails for the award next year I can't speak for him but he
should be which is a good problem for us and the community frankly I was just
curious on the the CWS how is that different from Nixle because I think I
guess of Nixle alerts yes so yeah CWS is countywide it's the county emergency
system as opposed to ever bridge which is one that we have within the city as
well so we make the call when it goes out on Nixle correct the call on CWS
correct so we may never hear from them we may not but if we make the the
request from them they will make sure that it gets to the right people what's
the I mean what is the difference a refinery blows up coverage coverage
between that and ever bridge coverage okay thank you what is this we
frequently hear comments that why aren't we just abandoning e-bikes outright like
downville and I what is what's really going on at the this regional level
because you have to work regionally because people are crossing borders faster than they
used to.
Well, and you know, without giving away too many trade secrets, sometimes a planned e-bike
enforcement operation is the way to go.
Regionally this works better because, just to your point, Councilmember Silva, it is people
do kind of cross over borders.
California, the jurisdiction isn't an issue, it's the personnel and making sure that we
the personnel to catch people on the other end if they take off. One thing
we're not going to do is if it's a danger to public safety, if we were to
continue a pursuit of an e-bike rider or an e-motorcycle rider, we do need to weigh
that out. If it's just the violation of the e-bike or the the driving pattern of
the e-bike rider as opposed to maybe a violent crime that they're fleeing from,
we have to weigh that out when we're deciding whether to continue a pursuit.
Thank you, I think. Yeah I see e-bikes doing wee leaves all the way down the
street in front of my house now. Yeah and you know that's certainly unsafe and if
we were to catch that then we would initiate a traffic stop on them and
write a citation. Two weeks ago after this meeting I pulled out a parking lot
was going south on South Broadway or North Broadway and there were two coming
at me from this side and one coming at me from this. They were clearly in the
street but I couldn't even figure out what it was it was just a light maybe
they're like once because you were probably ahead of me oh and I do see
legislation coming down the pipeline eventually to regulate these a
little bit more closely but I won't comment on any other city ordinance that
outright bans them but I don't know if they're having any success with that to
Frank. Since we're on the topic just today I spoke with our emergency
medical care committee which is a committee at the county level and about
e-bikes and e-bike safety and so I hope that in the near future there'll be
stronger county-wide coordination and we'll certainly bring that back as soon
and as I hear more.
Excellent. Thank you, Geev Hibbs.
My pleasure.
I will now turn it back over to Joe for closing.
Thank you very much.
All right, well, thank you to all of our leads
for presenting.
So tonight we discussed priorities from 2025
and 2026 calendar years.
Believe it or not,
2027 is gonna get here very quickly.
So city council will soon be identifying
a new set of priorities for those two calendar years.
So I want to talk a little bit about that.
So at the May 19th City Council meeting,
City Council did approve staff to go forward
to conduct outreach with the community
to help inform development of the next
two calendar year priority cycle.
So since then, staff has developed a two-faced approach
to engage in our community with an overall theme
of your voice, our future.
And phase one was to begin with a broad,
open-ended community question, or open-ended listening,
to hear what issues matter to the community
over the next two years.
And so that phase, that first phase, did start this week.
We did launch a in-house designed open-ended survey
that was launched and shared in the nutshell,
which was delivered to folks this week
and is on our city website.
And it asks the question,
what would you like the city to prioritize
in 2027 and 2028?
So just an open field, share with us what you're thinking.
And that survey will be open to the public
until September 15th at 5 p.m.
And I'm just gonna go ahead and plug.
You can find it at walnutcreekca.gov
We will share a social media post on that as well.
So the responses we received to that open ended survey is going to help inform the phase
two, which is a more defined community survey where we're going to ask the public to rank
or prioritize the themes of most value to them.
themes will be of course informed by this open community listening section.
So we're currently considering whether that phase two survey will be done in-house more
informally or if we're going to go ahead and pursue the support of a consultant, especially
if we find from our phase one that there's a lot of complex, a lot of complexity to the
issues we receive.
And then we'll go ahead and provide to city council the results of that survey to help
and form as the next priorities are developed.
And that is all I have for tonight.
Any questions about the survey or engagement?
Could you send us the link to that survey
so that we can find it and have it handing on our device?
Absolutely.
Thank you.
Will that be promoted on social media?
Yes.
We will do that this week.
Great.
All right.
Thank you.
Thanks, Joe, and thanks, team.
All right, which brings us to our final item, the public hearing.
So this is the consideration of considering a waiver of the reading and introduction of
an ordinance amending the City of Walnut Creek Councilmember compensation to $1600 per month.
And I invite Human Resources Director Trish Raver forward to provide the presentation.
Good evening, Mayor.
Welcome, Councilmembers.
Trish Raver, Human Resources Director.
I'm here this evening to provide a brief presentation on Council compensation
The agenda this evening includes the history of Council compensation
applicable legislation inclusive of government code section
36516 and Senate bill 329 as well as compensation options for Council consideration
government code section 36516
Provides for general law cities such as the city of Walnut Creek to establish and adjust compensation by ordinance
There are two primary ways in which council compensation can be adjusted according to that government code section
Either based on the city's population size
According to a schedule or by adjusting based on a modest inflation calculator
This table provides the history of council compensation over the past 50 years
During which time only five adjustments have taken place the current compensation of six hundred and fifty dollars per month was adopted almost
25 years ago in
2002 I
Also want to note that council members are eligible for participation in the city's retirement and health plans and may be
reimbursed for technology and travel expenses in
January of
2024
legislation surrounding compensation council compensation was adopted to acknowledge that
compensation had not kept pace with inflation as a result the population-based salary rates were increased and an additional method was added to
adjust compensation based on inflation
Based on the population based salary rates the city of Walnut Creek at a population of seventy thousand one hundred and twenty seven
Would fall within the population tier between fifty and seventy five thousand at sixteen hundred dollars per month
This chart provides the compensation paid to council members in all general law cities in Contra Costa County
Except the three charter cities of El Cerrito Richmond and San Ramon who are not subject to these laws
The chart provides the population of the city the population based monthly salary according to SB
and the current compensation received as of December 2026. As you can see the
majority of cities set council compensation at the population-based
salary rate established by SB 329. However, the cities of Lafayette,
Arenda, and Moraga do not provide compensation to their council members.
I wanted to note that. SB 329 updated the maximum population-based salary amounts
to address in part the current economic environment, the time commitment required by elected officials,
and potential barriers to public service.
Council members contribute countless hours of time and devote a significant amount of
effort and energy serving as their role and council member to a community.
No increase has taken place in nearly 25 years, and compensation has not kept up with the
evolution of the role per government code section 36516 any change in
compensation would be prospective and does not apply to a council members
current term of office however when one or more council members begins a new
term of office and becomes eligible for a salary all members of the council will
receive the same adjusted salary general law cities who choose not to adopt an
ordinance relative to council compensation may submit the question to
electors at a municipal election. In summary, the compensation now provided to
California cities under SB 329 at the 50 to 75,000 population level is
$1,600 per month. An ordinance has been drafted for introduction that increases
the council compensation from $650 to $1,600 per month resulting in an increase of $950
per month. If this resolution is adopted, the salary rate for all council members would
become effective December 1st with the new council's term of office in December of 2026.
The council options are as follows. Introduce the draft ordinance tonight to increase the
salary from $650 to $1,600 per month effective December 1, 2026, modify the draft ordinance
and adjust the salary to a different amount under $1,600 a month for introduction at a
future meeting, modify the draft ordinance to effective date further in the future for
introduction at a future meeting, not introduce the draft ordinance and retain the existing
rate of six hundred and fifty dollars per month, submit to the electors at a
municipal election the question of whether council should receive a salary
for services and that amount, or provide alternate alternative direction to staff.
So finally the staff recommendation is to move to introduce and waive a reading
of an ordinance amending the compensation for the City of Walnut
Creek Council members from $650 to month to $1,600 per month to be effective on
December 1, 2026. I don't have a question slide, but I'm happy to answer any
questions you may have. Thanks, Frisch. I'll start with a question. I do have a
question of what has the cost of living escalated from, or what has it been from
the last time there was an increase in 2002, wait, was that 2002? Until now. What
does that cost of living increase been? Well, the cost of living increase
changes, you know, annually. So the whole park over the last four years. I would say
what, I'll say what this legislation allows for is 5% per year. So let's just
say for the last 22 years that'd be 120%. So if it was 5% per year, which
would equate to it would be it would take it from to $780 plus the $650 so it
would be $1,430 versus the $1,650 that so it's less than. That's if it's not
compounded. That's how the legislation would calculate but if you you look at
it from an annual basis which is how CPI is actually calculated because it
compounds year to year I believe it puts it close to $2,100. Correct. So had it
so had it increased every year just like salaries increases and contracts and all
that it would be about $2,100 a month right now and everybody's been at the
same 650 a month for the last 24 years correct and that's what we do with every
other salary within the city is looking at from a compounded perspective okay
thank you the questions other questions okay public comment if I guess there's
nobody here in the chamber is anybody online okay all right well then let's
public comment and if we have any if we have any comments here and and
actually I'll make I'll make the first comments anybody can add on if you would
like obviously we have a couple of council members here that will not be
here taking advantage of this afterwards so I think actually and what I found in
the last 10 years that of me being on City Council people are shocked at how
little we actually make on council that there is just this small stipend for
council and that it is really a salary I don't think it's meant to be a salary
but I did do a calculation of general costs when people have asked me what does
a council member make or what kind of time do you put into it and of course
this varies among different council members. We've worked with council
members that have put the minimum effort in and we work with council members that
to put the maximum amount of effort in.
So I'll just base it upon myself,
and then people can determine about that.
So for council meeting weeks, like this week or a couple
of weeks that we have during a month,
I find that with the meetings that I have,
the preparation, the committee assignments,
and multiple of the things that are going on,
it works out to about 25 to 30 hours a week for me.
Non-counsel meeting weeks tend to be more like 15 to 20 hours a week.
Again, weeks vary, but that's what it is about.
So, calculating that over a month is about 80 to 100 hours that are given.
Divide that into the $650, comes out to about $6.50 to $8 an hour for
the time that I'm spending on council.
Again, that may vary.
Now, we can probably add another 5 to 10 hours a week for
mayors who have additional obligations every week.
We are, the first time I was mayor,
I was shocked at how many things I was invited to
that I never even heard about
because it's the mayor that are invited to these things.
And that was during COVID.
This year it's been far more.
So that just adds to it.
So that's just on what we are doing here
in our normal responsibilities.
But we also get invited to 10 to 12 gala
and major fundraisers for nonprofit causes
every single year.
Each one is a cost of a ticket between $200 to $500 per ticket.
We pay for those out of our own pocket.
If we get two tickets to include a spouse, that's $4,000 to $5,000 for just the tickets.
And there are, as we know, usually additional fund raising requests during those events,
which can be $250 to $500 on average.
I mean, obviously it can be a lot more as well.
But that means that the GALAs alone cost about $10,000 per year for council members who often
do feel an obligation to go to these not these worthwhile nonprofit causes but
the council are always invited and we always make sure that we that we have
presence at many of them and so at $650 a month or $7,800 a year that doesn't
even cover the fundraisers and then add in the 80 plus hours a month so when I
look at all of that and I look at who we want to be able to serve on council we
want a diversity of everybody, young, old, different people
in different demographic or socioeconomic arenas.
People want to serve on City Council for a variety of reasons,
but none of them are financial.
I can promise you none of them are financial.
Nobody's getting rich being on City Council.
But council members shouldn't have to lose money or be
in the red every single month for serving either.
It'll never be a full-paying job being on the council.
But there can be somewhat of an increase in stipend, I feel,
which may allow for younger or more diversity on the council,
where this can be a little bit more help of a supplemental
income to allow for them to participate in public service.
So for all those reasons, I do feel
that it makes sense for the next council
moving forward to increase the stipend for council members. Is that your motion?
And I will make me on this button. First of all does anybody else have any
further comment they would like to make on that? Let me go. You know I've been on
Planning Commission for 10 years and my kids were right at the cusp of needing
somebody there at night and I decided I would just go to Planning Commission and
I just have the phone right there,
and if it started going off, I would have to leave.
It not having enough money to cover daycare
is a big barrier for parents with school-aged kids.
It keeps us older than, you know,
and I wanna make sure that we find a way
to encourage younger people to begin participating
and be interested in running in council.
And so I'm supportive of this.
You know, I personally have a deal with my husband that I keep track of what I spend and I don't always tell him everything
But I will not go into debt to be on
Don't tell him I probably do so no he's in bed
Yeah, I agree with everything that has been said in terms of the hours commitments the nonprofits I think it hasn't it's been
25 years since it's been updated and I think
The chart basically showed among comparable cities we are way down. We're not keeping pace
with inflation and and so
When the time is appropriate, I'll either make the motion or second it and actually Trish
Can you go back to that comparative slide if I can't so while she's doing that? I
Make a couple of comments
It's hard anyone to do the math as to what their differential is over after 20 years on the council
and there was an actual period of about eight years in which I was making less
than 650 during the recession and we didn't reach it back. I think the other
reason why this is important is it's not just because of families and you know
children at night. There are jobs when if you leave the job if you're a teacher
you have to pay for your substitute and we have daytime requirements that we
have to we have a burden that we if we work we have to take time off and that
is also not accounted for here and when I was considering running for city
council in 2006 I asked four council members what's the time commitment and
the answer and it was separate but each of them said 20 hours a week unless the
year you're mayor it's 40 hours a week you're underestimating what it takes to
be mayor. You're probably right but and so you know that all adds up and it is
interesting to open the publicly available pay scale for the entire city
and notice that we're on the last page. It's the lowest paid. Right and I think
again if you look at this comparatively to other cities the ones that we are in
the same population I think people feel that Walnut Creek in general they live
in a terrific city we do the best that we can we really put the city first and
foremost on there and I know that the headline states what the percentage
increase is but I think that you have to look at I mean percentages could not tell
a true story and especially I think in this instance it wouldn't either it's
it's an increase that would take a still below where it would be if it was if it
had been indexed properly from the last time it was increased.
So my opportunity to say I agree with everything
that's been said as the newest member of the council.
That was actually a bit of a surprise to me,
it was all of the money that I was spending going to events.
You left out meeting people for lunch, the commitments.
there are a lot of commitments outside of what is probably perceived we're
doing that are that that cost money and so I I don't think like you said anybody
with this increase is going to go into this job for the money but I do think
that the meaning behind the legislation is good not not just to lower the
barrier to access but to you know try to at least somewhat keep up with the cost
of living for as small as it is so I am I also agree with all that's been said
want to be on the record for that and if you could put up that slide again Trish
not the one with the options okay like this is the one you are looking for yeah
I will move to introduce and waive the reading of the ordinance amending the
compensation for City of Walnut Creek council members from 650 per month to
to 1600 per month to be effective on December 1st, 2026.
And I will second that as the other member
who will have to have no benefit.
Including the errata.
Yes, including the errata.
With the errata and council,
just because the increase does not take effect
until the council members are seated,
we've made the ordinance that the increase
effective December 2nd, not December 1st,
because you're seated on the evening, the first.
Susie could you call the roll please?
Mayor Pro Tem Francois?
Aye.
Councilmember Silva?
Aye.
Councilmember Darling?
Aye.
Councilmember Davenny?
Aye.
And I think that we've done something for the future of Walnut Creek and to help people
to run where they might not have been able to before.
I agree, I totally agree my recommendation would be, you know, that we stay on top of
maybe every four years in terms of the inflation or you do going forward. Thank
you and with that I believe we are adjourned.