Thread by @OpenPaloAlto

Live tweet thread on tonight’s City Council Meeting!

Check out openpaloalto.org/next for tonight’s agenda items, how to listen in, and how to provide your input to the Council. #pamtg

First up is Oral Communications (public comment on non-agenda items).

The Consent Calendar (CC) has passed unanimously, with Tanaka voting no on CC Item 2, and Kou voting no on CC Item 5.

Update from City Manager (Ed Shikada):
- County will provide pop-up COVID testing in PA on Fridays (1313 Newell Rd)
- Face coverings required in PA (even while walking/biking!)
- Continue supporting PA businesses!
- New public art in front of City Hall through November

Cormack motioned to interview all 7 applicants for Human Relations Commission, and only 4 applicants out of 7 for the Public Arts Commission (PAC).
Kniss: Would have been fine only interviewing incumbents for PAC
Kou: "Would like to make a subsequent motion to interview everyone"

Cormack: "distinction between those [with] professional & scholarly interest [vs. generally interested community members]"

Kniss: "[selecting] who we interview is important. Last time we spent 3-4 hours interviewing...[want to] choose those most interested [w/] best background"

Kou's motion to interview all fails --
No: Fine, Filseth, Kniss, Tanaka, Cormack
Yes: Kou (and thank you applicants), Dubois

Cormack's motion passes --
Yes: Fine, Kniss, Tanaka, Cormack, Dubois, Filseth
No: Kou

Now on Agenda Item 5B (17 minutes ahead of schedule).

Staff presentation on housing:
- Bay Area was determined to need 441K housing units on 6/9/2020
- 25% of need is very low to extremely low income category
- HMC is currently considering how much housing should be built in each city/county, of the 441K total needed

Staff recommendations in draft letter to HMC:
- Support 2019 existing households as baseline methodology
- Support income shift up to 150%

Final public comment tally:
🟩🟩🟩 3 - Please build us housing
🟦🟦 2 - Want citizens to be able to participate in this process more

Dubois: "I want to remind my colleagues we had an alternate letter....The original point of RHNA was to allocate affordable housing ....[so it's] not concentrated in slums”

Fine: "the alternate letter was your letter, Dubois, not from staff, & potentially skirting the Brown Act"

Kou: "How would we ask our lobbyists to request legislation to postpone this process?"
Shikada: "we would find a legislator who is willing to carry that forward on the behalf of the city"
Kou: "I would look into [is there] interest in joining [other cities] to push legislation"

Filseth: "what's happened in the Bay Area is that rich people get to live near jobs, and poor people have to live far away"

Then gives a presentation explaining why the Bay Area doesn't need/couldn't feasibly build housing. Instead wants to distribute *jobs* around the Bay Area.

Fine: "Do we track permits vs actual building? Do we know how many permits were actually built?"
Staff: "we will be wrestling with this soon, but maybe there is misalignment between zoning allowed & cost-benefits of building...isn’t an incentive for a developer to build there"

Kou: "[We] are paying towards MTC/ABAG, is it membership or dues, how much is it? We’re paying...they’re not even coming here to present to us"

Shikada: Yes, you’ve asked that before. There are membership dues that are applicable, will be shared with Council as soon as received

Kou: "There should be dispersion of these jobs amongst the other cities around us....Jobs should be put into communities that do have the housing"
Filseth: encourages job growth in other parts of the region
Dubois: suggests focusing on balancing job growth

Fine: "Palo Alto is not doing well on housing. Missing our 300 new unit goal every year. We have failed to build....We are not seeing extensive office or housing production in Palo Alto."

Fine: "Our county’s population is not growing because there is no new housing. That being said there is an increase in overcrowding [and more housing would alleviate that].
This proposal that Redwood City is considering tonight is more housing than Palo Alto has built in 5 years"

Cormack: "Palo Alto is not an island - we rely on people, and people moving around.
We have to think outside our borders. We have a responsibility to build affordable housing and we do have the means. We should provide some funding, it shouldn't all come from somewhere else."

Dubois motions (Filseth seconds) to consider a "new scenario that focuses on job spread through the bay area and recognizes cities efforts to limit job growth"

Motion:

Dubois: "limit job growth and spread jobs across the Bay Area"
Kou: "Mayor mentioned that other cities are building - they haven't limited their job growth like we have"
Filseth: "lots of questions from Santa Clara about slowing down job growth and pushing it to other regions"

Fine: "On job concentration, most Palo Altans would rather see new housing than new office. This Council and previous Councils have put a lot of limits on housing and job growth."

Council vote on Substitute Motion:

🟩🟩🟩🟩 4 Yes - Kniss, Tanaka, Cormack, Fine
🟦🟦🟦 3 No - Kou, Dubois, Filseth

Motion directs Staff to continue work on regional planning efforts and "return to Council with scenarios," and "submit a comment letter" to HMC.

Up next: Council will discuss the Summer Streets Program and vote on extension of temporary street closures for outdoor dining/retail. Will also discuss expanding range of permitted activities on closed streets. For more details:

cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/fileba…

Staff recommendation:
- Adopt resolution to extend street closure to end of year
- Extend closure on Univ Ave to include block between Emerson and High, and expiration date of Resolution #9909 to Sep 7, 2021
- Allow activities in addition to outdoor dining and retail

Community survey showed generally positive response to the Summer Streets program:

Parklet program also successful. Developing plans for at-grade parklets (vs. platform parklets), which are cheaper. Parklets are an expensive investment, and extending parklet expirations to Labor Day 2021 would help restaurants justify their investments better.

Staff: Need to think about how to rebrand/adapt the Summer Streets program to the fall/winter seasons. Open to suggestions!

"[Restaurant's opinions] pretty much 50-50... leaning twds keeping closures going"

🗣: Opposition is from businesses who aren't on closed streets. Solution is to instead expand the program and close more streets.
🗣: If you only consider fun dinnertime activity, closing Uni. Ave has been wonderful. But non restaurants are absolutely suffering due to closure.

🗣: Cal Ave is going extremely well. But would be good to assist all businesses that are struggling.
🗣: When you help 15 restaurants and you have 300 in town, it doesn’t make sense. A lot of the retailers are just dying. Extending parklets to Dec is “just crippling.”

🗣: 2600 people incl businesses voiced support for the program. Direct correlation betw. # of tables outside and revenue. Not a zero sum game.

🗣: Thank you for listening to us restaurant owners. Winter is coming & we need City support on permit approvals for roofs, heating etc.

🗣: PA Chamber of Commerce supports Staff rec. Important to compete with online shopping. Concerned about side street businesses. Haven’t heard any better strategy despite opposition to Univ. Ave closure.

🗣: I understand it’s great for those on Univ Ave, but it’s not great for us [on the side streets]. If everybody was allowed a parklet with heating etc. it would bring people into the city. Parklets are the answer to the DTPA’s problems.

Public Comment:
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 14 - Extend the Streets program
🟦 3 - Need to rethink / give everyone parklets

Kniss: We can't sustain COVID effects long term. Maybe look to Sunnyvale, MV, RWC? How do we help everyone overall?

Cormack: 37% said they walked to Univ or Cal Ave, which suggests chances to get ppl to bike/walk to other parts of the city. Music/art/plants to enhance streets?

Staff: Restaurants have been mostly successful, retail extremely mixed. Those on side streets have done worse than those on closed streets. Very few restaurants are doing above 50% of their pre-pandemic revenue.

Tanaka: Not fair to compare w/ pre-Covid numbers. Should compare pre-street closure and post-street closure.

Shikada: Retailers haven't seen street closures as positive. The Ramona closure this weekend had positive feedback from restaurants. But only 1 weekend of data so far.

Kou: [Is the City] paying for any of the enhancements to make the streets look inviting and clean?

Staff: Any items (flower pots, tables and chairs, ground coverings) are all restaurant costs. The city has paid for lights, street sweeping, signs to advertise businesses are open.

Fine: we can definitely invest in flowers and potted plants. Even if these projects are safe/fun/good vibes, doesn’t mean they’re economically viable. Should try to mitigate losses incurred by some businesses.

Tanner: No data yet on businesses elsewhere in PA, eg. Midtown.

Fine: Can we have a COVID surcharge that businesses can tack onto bills in PA, eg. $1 charge on $10?

Shikada: Could be done relatively easily, as it would be an endorsement by the City, not a regulatory charge. City wouldn’t collect this surcharge, can be kept by businesses.

Dubois: Street closures have worked great. We should open Hamilton back up, move on from mural and combat racism in other ways. Generally supportive of motion, but not permanent program right now. City should maintain its rights to reclaim its public property.

Tanaka: DTPA zoning ordinance is narrow, maybe expand definition of retail. Communal tables not tied to a restaurant? Using some of Covid fund for marketing?

Staff: Letting restaurants take charge helps with hygiene. Digital ads & signage in the works.

Kniss: Motion to accept staff recommendation. I’d like to add: (1) Field trips/calls to other cities so that we can learn from them. (2) Do we have an ombudsman program in place/do our stores know whom to call? We should make sure they do.

Shikada: ok

Kniss: Can we make a contest for the name of the extended Summer Streets program?

Fine: Contest is not a bad idea.

Fine: Amendments to the motion. (1) Endorse the idea of a Covid %-surcharge for local businesses. (2) Direct staff to come back with retail support plan for vacancies and expanded permitted uses.

Surcharge percentage TBD by staff.

Tanaka: Trees in boxes please. Temporary relief for restaurants so that they can stay in business.
Kniss: Minimum wage - "the difficult is...it's a state law, not a local law. When we discussed this previously that was our biggest problem."

Tanaka: "I'm just giving you feedback I've heard from restaurant owners."
Idea for name: Palo Alto Live Street Program

Cormack: "There are a lot of other activities besides eating and shopping."
Pandemic is accelerating buying services instead of items. Item F is exciting for that reason.

"I'm pretty sure Staff told us about the programs already"

General consensus: Item G is not specific enough everyone!!! For who??

MOTION to continue Summer Streets:

City Council
🟩🟩 🟩🟩 🟩🟩 🟩

UNANIMOUS!

Agenda Item 8 will be discussed at 10:30!!! Hang in there. #pamtg

Motion: TuBois motions to complete EV item and "push off" Agenda Item 8.
Staff: This is a Public Hearing. We would need to provide notice.
Clerk: Next week - 2 hours for auditor, Carbon neutral,
Fine: "Probably going to be another night similar to this"
Kniss seconds.

Motion to delay
City Council:
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Delay
🟦🟦 Don't Delay

Fine apologizes to the public for the delay. Fine and Cormack voted against delay.

Zoning Amendment for EVSE

"Currently our code doesn't define what motorcycle parking is."

Allow for case by case review to make minor adjustments needed to add EV when restriping.

"We want to make sure we have internal consistency in our code"

Can you spot the typo??

Filseth: "Does this cover parking lots in apartment buildings?"
Staff: Yes.

Fine: "I've seen chargers that play ads for you and steal 30 seconds of your life" Asking if that will be allowed for chargers
Staff: We would have to look into that for public spaces.
Fine: We have long vs short term parking?
Staff: Yes *elaborates*

DuBois:"We're not going to see if they're overflowing with cars or not right? We're just going to approve it?"
Staff: "Some of them might require a visit from a planner...we really need to get a sense:
DB "But the assumption is that the building owner knows what's best...right?"

Tanaka: "Are there any provisions for electric bikes, electric scooters..?"
Staff: we don't have any provisions on electric skateboards 😉
Tanaka: *nervous laughter*

Tanaka: How can we solve bike theft?
Staff: "I'm not sure there's a long term strategy for bike theft. I'll have to ask the police department"
Tanaka: but getting your bike stolen sucks. Where is PD Chief??

Kou: Do you know where we're going to lose parking downtown and elsewhere?
Staff: Our preference is not to lose any parking.

Motion for EVSE Amendment:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

UNANIMOUS

Meeting adjourned at 11:02! Thanks for tuning in! #pamtg

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See you next week!