Citizens for Balanced Growth Posts

The status of the Lafferty Communities’ “Garaventa Hills” housing development is one of the most frequent questions we are asked. It is an understandable concern for many of our residents in an environment where there is very little new information.

Real Estate Robots

Some online real estate sites have listings that add to the confusion. Many of them are robots that scrape old information, present it as new, and the search engines treat it as current information despite it being bogus. Thus, if you search for “Garaventa Hill” or “Garaventa Hills” with any regularity, you are bound to see some misleading results. Today, we saw this:

This deceptive site masquerades as a place you can get actual real estate information. The date – April 2023 – gives one the impression that it is somewhat current information about a downtown Livermore development with inventory. When you click the link, you are shown other properties. Classic clickbait.

Legitimate Media Not Without Fault

There are also innocent mistakes that have caused unnecessary confusion. For example, there was the electrical expansion project that PG& E failed to realize was no longer necessary. There is no need to expand infrastructure for a cancelled development. It was a disturbing episode, but the way it was reported by The Independent was far from perfect. The headline “”Litigants Surprised By Renewal of Garaventa Project” accidentally suggested that the developer was preparing to move forward. The content of the article was well done, but anyone who stopped at the headline could get the wrong impression.

Garaventa Hill Is Safe (until further notice)

The “Garaventa Hills” housing development project does not exist. Rest assured, nothing has changed since the Supreme Court invalidated the EIR. No substantive attempt to resurrect it has been made. All the funding necessary to buy the land for the purpose of conservation is in a protected account and ready to be used whenever the landowners would like to sell. In the mean time, there is no development option.

It is always possible that someone will try something with any undeveloped piece of property. Fortunately for Garaventa Hill, there are now several organizations which will be ready to act promptly in opposition if any hint of development discussions comes about.

There is a proposal for a hotel called the Livermore Wine Country Inn. It would be located at the intersection of Hansen Road and Arroyo Road in deep South Livermore. The project is separate and has no connection with the Presidio Companies’ proposal for a potential downtown hotel.

Progress on the development was halted by the Court of Appeals. The reason behind the ruling against the developer follows a theme that is becoming uncomfortably familiar, as it is a result of elected officials insisting on not doing what the regulations state they must do, and ignoring public advice to do what is legal.

The proposed site is located in the South Livermore Vally Specific Plan area (SLVSP), which articulates the requirement for 100 foot setbacks on that parcel for the B&B. Instead, both the Planning Commission and the Livermore City Council sided with the developer and against the residents. The developer wanted to bend the rules and require only half the required setback (50 feet) – officials were happy to go along.

Now the entire project is uncertain. If all parties would have simply followed the rules and developed the space as originally envisioned in the SLVSP, Livermore Wine Country Inn might be hosting guests already and supporting our tourist industry. Instead, it is possible it can’t be built at all, and tremendous time, money and attention will have been wasted.

Planning Commission should have done everyone a favor and rejected the design in 2019. Failing that, the Council should have listened to the pleas of residents to make the project conform.

The next mistake to be made is up to the City Attorney. He could keep it going in the courts, or support the community and accept the loss. Let us hope the legal process is over and that the project can be reworked accordingly into a form more closely envisioned in the framework of the South Livermore Valley Specific Plan.

New housing developments of 11 or more units are required to make at least 15% of those units permanently priced significantly below market value. This applies apartments, condos, townhomes, single family homes – any form of dwelling unit.

Developers usually don’t like building them, so they take advantage of a loophole. Instead of creating affordable units, they are allowed to offer a payment to the City as a condition of making more or all of the units available at market rate. This fee goes into a special fund that is held with the City, that is supposed to eventually be used in some manner to build affordable units in the future. There are a number of problems with this arrangement that directly lead to the inadequate affordable inventory.

Not enough units have been built

This is the obvious primary problem. Many people who work in Livermore cannot live there due to insufficient income. A variety of essential occupations fall into this trap, such as teachers, healthcare workers, first responders, and the list goes on.

Affordable projects take too long

As the fees are collected over time, the challenge becomes how to spend them. The typical scenario is that City staff and the Council should be proactive in getting them applied toward actual, shovel-ready projects in what would hopefully be a sufficiently rapid pace. The expensive market rate projects can be ready to be occupied in as little as a year or two, but the affordable projects can languish for decades. When they do get built, they tend to be 100% below market concentrated compounds. It has long been known that such a configuration is not the best way to welcome people with diverse income levels into the fabric of the city.

“Inclusionary Housing” is superior to affordable housing projects

Like most communities, Livermore practices inclusionary zoning policies (also known as inclusionary housing policies and IZ policies). They aim to create affordable housing units by encouraging or requiring housing developers seeking to construct new market-rate units to set aside 15% of the units as affordable for moderate-income to low-income tenants or homeowners. IZ policies are designed to encourage new housing developers to build affordable homes in market-rate housing areas with the goal of creating communities with diverse income levels.

Here’s how it works in Livermore

Inclusionary zoning can be mandatory, voluntary, or a combination. Livermore requires new constructions of 11 units or more to set aside 15% of dwelling units for affordable housing programs. Developers often claim that the project won’t be feasible for a variety of reasons and may offer to pay their way out of building as many, or any. Sometimes several factors interact to either increase or decrease the number of units built such as: density bonuses, expedited approvals, fee waivers, and subsidies.

Benefits of Inclusionary vs. Concentrated Affordable Zoning

1. Increased supply of affordable housing: Inclusionary zoning policies help increase the amount of affordable housing available to lower-income and moderate-income households. IZ also offers a path to meeting federal fair housing standards set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
2. Greater opportunity for low-income households: As housing prices soar, inclusionary zoning ordinances aim to help low-income renters and homeowners afford to live in areas with greater access to employment, schools, and public transportation.
3. Decrease economic and racial segregation: Inclusionary zoning can help create a more economically and racially diverse city by enabling people to live throughout Livermore and not just relegated to parts of town deemed less desirable.
4. Healthier: Living in a mixed-income community can have a positive effect on our residents’ health, such as a reduction in stress and overall improved mental health.

Solutions

Fees are too low

With developers so commonly choosing to buy their way out of building the units, clearly the fee structure is inadequate. The city council has the sole authority to adjust the fee.

The usual standard in the US is for the fee to be adequate to construct each of the unbuilt units at a future date. A case in point is the Lassen Road Townhomes, where the developer (WestGate Ventures) was allowed to avoid building 14 townhomes for a mere $776,000. In no version of reality could a future unit be built for $55,000. This has been a common condition in recent years, and fees need to be substantially higher.

Systemic Dysfunction

City Staff and Council are prone to run on autopilot when it comes to developers. Projects get proposed Planning Department, then run through Planning Commission with a lot of negotiations and modifications. By the time it gets to Council, it is easier to say “yes” than it is to challenge the process for adequacy, as was not done with Lassen Road Townhomes. Council needs to demand much more to ensure a better affordable mix within future housing developments.

The standard practice of producing EIRs was upended to some degree by a recent loss in the Supreme Court by the City of Livermore. We decided to investigate deeper into the process of how these reports are created and by whom.

In Livermore’s case, the report with the salient deficient information was produced by Lamphier-Gregory for a development that would have been called Garaventa Hills. Now, an effort by Save Seven Hills Ranch to preserve open space instead of developing it into housing gives us the opportunity to examine the DEIR documents of these two nearby proposed developments. The first one has already failed, and we believe this new one is on its way to a comparable

Recently, we noticed a striking similarity within a key element of each report: the “No Project Alternative”. This is the component that was found to be out of compliance with CEQA law in three different courts, with finality at the California Supreme Court. Although we are a Tri-Valley organization, we do share some environmental kinship with neighboring counties; we also receive court mandated compliance reports on water delivery in Contra Costa County, where Seven Hills Ranch is located. Thus, we’ll wade into the Spieker development for the purposes of education and study.

Comparing the “No-Project Alternatives”

For the Livermore “Garaventa Hills” proposal, the DEIR was written by Oakland based Lamphier-Gregory. The DEIR for the Spieker proposal was written by San Jose based David J. Powers & Associates.

EIRs are usually very long documents – well over 100 pages. As we have observed before, the purpose of these reports is often far less about environmental protection and much more about pushing a development project forward. For the good of the environment, CEQA requires a No-Project Alternative for a legislative body to consider. It usually is identified as the environmentally superior alternative among all the others, as to avoid describing it this way would be inaccurate.

Here they are side by side:

Notice the similarity in the language, and the general disinterested “mood” of the content. It is hard to believe the reports were prepared by two entirely different companies, for different counties, and different developers. Let’s face it, Lamphier-Gregory and David J. Powers are both essentially saying to their respective legislative bodies, “you seriously can’t do this”. As one of three alternatives presented in the massive EIRs, they occupy less than a page each.

We believe we see rather unhelpful brevity and insincerity of the overall effort to truly examine the alternative that is in the public’s best interest. That is what was struck down by the Court.

The Appellate justices noted (in “Save the Hill”): “As the Guidelines make clear, an EIR “shall focus on alternatives to the project or its location which are capable of avoiding or substantially lessening any significant effects of the project, even if these alternatives would impede to some degree the attainment of the project objectives, or would be more costly.” (Guidelines, § 15126.6, subd. (b), italics added.)” and:

“Lacking adequate information regarding the no-project alternative, the city council could not make an informed, reasoned decision on whether this Project should go forward. Accordingly, its decisions to certify the RFEIR and approve the Project must be set aside… (See Sierra Club v. State Bd. of Forestry (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1215, 1236;”

Getting Involved Earlier

The public often desires to make a real difference in how our government agencies impact the environment due to legislative actions. Typically intervention begins after the information spreads about an undesirable proposal, at some point after a DEIR is first produced. Community organizing then starts, with the focus on the legislative body being primary. This may be too late. Could there be a better way?

If the public can get ahead of the process at an earlier stage, (for example, if active concerned residents were to intervene at the bidding stage where environmental consultants first get involved) it might go a long way toward redirecting the momentum of staff and the elected body.

Let’s suppose an RFP is bid on by three consultants. The choice of vendor will be made at a public meeting, where comments could be given at this earlier date and perhaps encourage the bidders to reconsider their interest. Bidders may learn about crucial elements that might make the project unbuildable or very difficult evaluate. Perhaps they would need to adjust their bids to reflect additional costs, consider undiscovered obstacles, or not get involved at all. No consultant, no project.

Conclusion (for now)

CBG has not spent an extensive amount of time collecting the large number of EIR documents that would be required to discuss any definitive patterns within the Environmental Consultancy industry. What we do see in this case is an extraordinary similarity in the methods by which environmentally superior alternatives to development are disadvantageously positioned in legislative body reports. We expect to add more information as it becomes available.

The Garaventa Hills development process evolved from a fairly straightforward housing development proposal, onward through considerable public pushback, and now moving forward toward full preservation as open space. A core enabling factor of saving “The Hill” was the discovery of a specific sum of money to buy the land – the Dougherty Valley Settlement Agreement Fund, or DVSA. Many people have been asking for more details on the origin and structure of the funding, and how CBG relates to it.

Litigation Cornucopia

There were many lawsuits and other settlements associated with the various Dougherty housing projects. This page discusses our settlement as it relates to CBG’s actions and has nothing to do with other funds similarly named in Contra Costa County. Feel free to investigate, as we haven’t focused on that. There was some legal action with Danville. In San Ramon there was a lot happening – here is a Dougherty Valley Settlement document that might get you going in the right direction.

Zone 7’s Journey into the Abyss

It all started in 1998. Zone 7, the Tri-Valley’s wholesale water supplier, was considering whether to broaden its services to include delivering water to future customers in Contra Costa County. A series of housing developments, sometimes referred to as the Dougherty Valley Project, would be a massive, unpopular development of 11,000 houses that faced many obstacles. Crucially, it did not have a source of water and thus would not be buildable.

The developer was unable to find a supplier until cooperative talks began with Zone 7 (via DSRSD), even though the area was outside of its allowable service boundary. Dublin was agreeable to provide the infrastructure, but they did not have a source for water. That’s where some all too creative methods began to be employed.

Here’s what they figured they would do. Dublin would provide water connections, and Zone 7 would “wheel” water from the Berrenda Mesa source, and on to Contra Costa County. They reasoned that doing it this way wasn’t really servicing outside the Tri-Valley, even though it was, and they could get around the inconvenient restrictions. Illegal, but technically possible with the addition of some infrastructure.

CBG’s Dougherty Valley Lawsuit

A public hearing process was required. On January 28, 1998, the Board held a public hearing on proposed contracts and an escrow agreement associated with the multifaceted plan. Many members of the public, including CBG and some of our executives (such as former Livermore Mayor Don Miller, former Zone 7 Director Margaret Tracy, former LVJUSD Director Jim Day), as well as Livermore Vice Mayor Tom Reitter, future DSRSD Director Tom Ford, and Sierra Club’s Cynthia Patton, pointedly informed Zone 7 that they were about to break the law. The minutes also reveal that the negotiations were rushed and had just concluded, giving the public only hours to review the many pages of documents. They felt the process was being ushered through the approval too quickly.

Representatives from the housing development interested parties also stated their case and recommended that Zone 7 should indeed serve their development projects.

In the end, the Directors reiterated the many benefits they claimed justified the actions, ignoring out of hand the many issues of law and insufficient review presented by resident speakers. Setting aside all the testimony, the Zone 7 Board then voted 6-1 to authorize the President to sign five agreements approving and implementing the contracts for delivery of water by Zone 7 for the Dougherty Valley Project.

CBG sued Zone 7 on behalf of Valley residents March 19, 1998. Days later, we were joined by the City of Livermore. Months of court mandated proceedings ensued. To avoid prolonged litigation and a near certain loss in court, Zone 7 offered to settle our litigation in November 1999. As part of the provisions, the settling parties paid all of CBG’s and Livermore’s legal expenses, as is common when plaintiffs prevail in court, and the DVSA Fund was established.

So how does the Fund benefit Valley residents?

The purpose of the Fund is to provide some measure of relief from excessive traffic and also support habitat preservation. One of the many reasons I-580 is so congested is because our water agency in essence, played a small part in creating thousands more commuter cars that take to the roads every day. Many of them go straight for the freeway, and that traffic is reduced to a small degree by preserving some land that would otherwise be built up and therefore a traffic source. When such purchases protect endangered species, all the better. In this way, we got “something” in exchange for the traffic caused by the defendants.

Process of Implementation

The money itself resides with the City of Livermore. Over the years, the Fund has been put to use for its intended purposes as needed.

We believe that Garaventa Hill will be the next acquisition in the chain. It will be leveraged as soon as the City Council receives a request for funding via a bona fide buyer who enters a purchase agreement, and wants to own and preserve the Hill in perpetuity.

Expenditures are geographically limited. In the Tri-Valley, we can consider funding any open space purchase east of Collier Canyon Road and North of I-580.

Ongoing oversight

The City of Livermore, DSRSD, and Zone 7 continue maintain actionable responsibilities to CBG. DSRSD and Zone 7 make regular reports to us in connection with the Settlement. They have cooperated fully and courteously over the years.

Livermore performed admirably for more than a decade. Their performance has declined recently, most notably in their failure to inform us, discuss or pursue the possibility of protecting Garaventa Hill. We hope to make arrangements for improving the ways we work together on applying funding in the best interests of residents.

References:

Resolutions

• Berrenda Mesa EIR
• Contract with Water Transfer Associates
• Dougherty Valley Service

Minutes

• Zone-7-01-28-98-Minutes
• Zone-7-02-18-98-Minutes

As reported in The Independent:
“After noticing the PG&E workers near Bear Creek Drive and Garaventa Hill, nearby neighbors began asking questions about why power was being extended to an open space area that environmentalists recently battled and later won in court protecting it from a luxury housing project proposed by Lafferty Communities Inc.”

Vladimir Pavlushkin worked for an environmental engineering consulting firm and has experience with encroachment permits. He asked for a copy of the work permit and looked at the specifications. It showed that a residential power line was being pulled down Bear Creek Drive, parallel to existing utilities. It will serve no purpose and basically dead-ends with the street and never be needed.

It turns out that PG&E asked the city for a permit to do work on the street, which is a common activity for any utility, and the company did not look deeper into the issue of whether electrical service would still be needed. The housing development it would have supplied was to be called Garaventa Hills, and it should have been common knowledge by then that the site is not buildable for environmental reasons. That part of the memo did not seem to reach all the right people.

Apparently the previous developer of the proposed tract (Lafferty Communities) had requested the work be done at some point, and PG&E eventually followed up with a request of their own from the City of Livermore. It seems to be an extreme case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing.

We applaud PG&E for taking any steps to improve the grid reliability and safety. It would be prudent for them to more carefully determine which projects are necessary and which should not be pursued. With all the power outages we had recently, priority should be given to areas that suffer failures due to capacity constriction.

The City of Livermore had difficult choices to make

Lafferty Communities‘ attempt to develop Garaventa Hill into a housing tract began in 2011 and ended in 2022. Here’s a brief look back at the series of tasks were undertaken, and how it all unraveled in the courts.

• 2011 Lafferty sought out Lamphier-Gregory to begin the environmental review process.
• 2011 Lamphier-Gregory arranged to be paid by the City of Livermore to produce the EIR (no competitive bid)
• Lamphier-Gregory drafted a Notice of Preparation

Our City staff submitted the Notice of Preparation to the State in 2011

Various episodes followed over the next several years, including a Draft EIR in 2012, a “Final” EIR in 2014, and then a “Reissued” final EIR in 2018. Upon the Council’s (now illegal) 2019 certification of the FEIR, a lawsuit was filed by residents which ultimately resulted in their Supreme Court victory.

Upon being “noticed” that a lawsuit would be filed, City staff had the responsibility to make recommendations to the Council. Legally, when a legislative body votes on a decision, they must stand by that decision in court no matter how regrettable the original vote might have turned out to be in hindsight. So, Staff was responsible for presenting options for the kind of defense case they would mount on behalf of Livermore residents, against Livermore residents. Though unfortunate and ironic, it is not an uncommon corner into which agencies can find themselves painted.

The best possible outcome would be for Livermore to lose the case, and thusly save The Hill. Public opposition to Lafferty Communities and concern for the health of the environment made for an attractive potential outcome – win by losing.

Three options to consider

1. Concede the case and negotiate a costly compensatory arrangement with Lafferty Communities.
2. Have the City Attorney prepare a reasonable case and argue it in a manner which satisfies the legal defense obligation but might not have the greatest chance of winning. Cost would be minimal. (Pro Tip #1: losing is winning on this issue).
3. Make a side deal with Lafferty communities where they would manage the case, cost, and liability. (Pro Tip #2: winning is losing on this issue).

They chose option 3. The City would fight its residents in the most aggressive way at their disposal. Lafferty Communities was motivated by tens of millions in profit if they won the case, and were willing to finance a vigorous defense. City Staff thought this would be a good idea, as it absolved them from having to do any work. They also mistakenly thought they had a winning defense case.

The Trials

Livermore outsourced its defense to the discretion of Lafferty Communities. They hired the Buchalter Law Firm in San Francisco, with their attorney Doug Straus heading up the case. On the advice from CBG and others, the residents (“Save the Hill Group”) hired Greenfire Law to serve as plaintiff’s representative.

CBG was able to witness the trials in action. We were highly impressed with Mr. Straus’ performance and command of his various arguments. Basically, he really knew his stuff. Likewise, Greenfire’s Jessica Blome was every bit Straus’ equal, and based on the final result, superior.

Lafferty Communities was disadvantaged from the beginning. The property is more environmentally sensitive than the nearby Farber property, where developers tried to get an EIR for 15 years before giving up. Livermore’s Council received some bad advice from Livermore’s City Attorney during the EIR process. The EIR also had fatal flaws, as Lamphier-Gregory (the company that produced it) left out some key research and findings related to preserving the property as a “No-Build” option. In the end, all things being equal, this case was lost from the start.

Conclusion

Greenfire was able to tease out the necessary facts of the law in order for the plaintiffs to prevail on the merits in all three courts where the case was heard. On this basis we don’t believe Council made a good decision to fight their own residents with everything they had. In hindsight, we hope they would agree. All parties would have been much better served by gracefully allowing the inevitable loss to transpire with far less drama. It would have saved Lafferty Communities time and money as well. The saddest part though, is the magnitude of mistrust created by Council’s desire to fight their own constituents tooth and nail. That’s not how good government is supposed to work.

Livermore’s appeal to the California Supreme Court in an effort to erase their Appellate Court loss was unsuccessful.

Lafferty Communities cannot develop Garaventa Hill

The Garaventa Hills Lamphier-Gregory Environmental Impact Report (originally prepared by Rebecca Auld of Lamphier-Gregory) was upheld as defective on July 13th 2022 by the California Supreme Court. The case remains officially published, despite the additional request by the City of Livermore to have the decision “depublished”. As such, it is now “California Case Law” which can be referenced in other environmental lawsuits indefinitely.

On March 30th 2022, a three-judge panel on the California Court of Appeal First District ruled in favor of the residents who brought the case.  The Livermore City Council erred in allowing a housing development to proceed on the environmentally sensitive property. 

The proposed “Garaventa Hills” housing tract was to be located in Northeast Livermore between Laughlin Road and Vasco Road, just north of Altamont Creek School.  For nearly a decade, developers attempted to push their plans through the City’s processes, only to be repeatedly thwarted by a myriad of unmitigable environmental consequences that would result from development.

The Hill is home to a number of threatened and endangered species, including the endangered Vernal Pool Fairy Shrimp, California Tiger Salamander, Burrowing Owls, the Livermore Tarplant and other species on and around the site.  The U.S. Dept of Fish & Wildlife Service has designated it as critical habitat for the Vernal Pool Fairy Shrimp.

The Appellate panel of judges agreed with the Save the Hill, who argued that the City Council failed to adequately consider whether Garaventa Hill could be purchased and preserved in perpetuity for conservation as a part of a “No-Action” EIR alternative. Lafferty Communities, the applicant and developer at the time, paid for the EIR, then court actions, all the way through the eventual defeat.

Conservation funds have been available to buy it for decades, and the California Environmental Quality Act requires that there be appropriate attention applied to a “no project” option as part of the EIR certification process.  The funds were left completely out of the Report, as Lamphier-Gregory failed in their due diligence to include conservation funding as part of their research and discovery process. Without this vital information, even after being asked to provide it by the plaintiffs during public testimony, the City Council’s certification of the EIR violated the law.

What is an EIR – why did Lafferty Communities need it?

An Environmental Impact Report is required by California law whenever a new proposal will have enough potentially negative effects on the environment to be of significant concern. This is a very broad description, and the law has many complex parameters and requirements. If we attempt to peel back several layers of metaphorical curtains, here’s a very abbreviated example of how one might be created.

After a developer decides that it is worth risking capital for the chance of making a profit, it all begins by a public agency’s staff being approached about starting a permitting process to build a project . The agency, in this case a city council and staff, invokes a “positive declaration” to indicate a developer’s proposal will require a legal EIR prior to permits being issued. A private company that specializes in writing these lengthy documents is required.

An environmental consultant is first retained.

Typically, the developer will assure the retention of a company with a reputation that supports the likelihood of success, not necessarily one that leans toward environmental protection, as the stakes are very high if the report doesn’t get certified. Here’s where the potential for conflict of interest begins and the players start to dance an ethically loaded tango.

By law, the agency (council in this case) is the customer of the EIR company. This is because the council should be looking out for the best interests of the residents, and the primary allegiance of the EIR company should be to the council and residents. However, the report costs money; it is nearly universal that the agency will include a side deal with the developer where council will not be liable for the costs of the report – the developer pays back the agency as soon as the agency pays the consultant. While the council has the final word in choosing the EIR company (the one often requested by the developer), the REAL customer is the developer, and they will demonstrate their alliance throughout. Corrupt? Unethical? There is nothing illegal about this sort of out-in-the-open money laundering.

Enter Lamphier-Gregory

In the Garaventa case, Lafferty sought out and chose a company called Lamphier-Gregory. They may have done so in part because of Lamphier’s extraordinary success in another controversial local project: The Sunol Valley Aggregate Quarry. Similar to Garaventa, the conversion of a productive stretch of farmland to a gravel quarry faced stiff opposition from virtually every environmental group that spoke on the matter. The locals were infuriated by the prospect, and made every effort to derail the progress. Lamphier-Gregory’s EIR was a resounding success, as the property was converted and not stopped by a successful lawsuit.

After Lafferty instructed Lamphier-Gregory (see pg 54) to pursue the Garaventa project, they went through the administrative movements to get themselves hired by Livermore as the environmental consultant without a competitive bid. The deck was stacked against the residents from the outset. The weak approach by Lamphier-Gregory to expend only minimal effort to include a legitimate “no project alternative” was ideal for Lafferty’s interests. It was also their downfall. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for Livermore residents, that’s illegal. The Supreme Court said so.

More about the attempted “depublication” of the ruling

Save the Hill‘s Supreme Court win was a powerful message to any California agency that is required to adhere to CEQA. There are many public and private interest groups who generally prefer to avoid protecting the environment, as it can get in the way of their development plans. After the Appellate Court victory, no less than five separate entities decided to take action.

With the goal of making it harder to protect the environment in the future, they thought it would be wise to try to cover up the ruling by requesting “depublication”. They submitted their requests to the only remaining court that could do it – The California Supreme Court. If successful, future development strategies would no longer face the inconvenience of complying with the newly enhanced CEQA power.

It didn’t work. As a published case, Save The Hill Group v. The City of Livermore is far reaching and widely relevant. For the record, the five requestors were:

• The California State Association of Counties. Attorney: Robert Tyson Sohagi of the Sohagi Law Group
• The League of California Cities. Attorney: Robert Tyson Sohagi of the Sohagi Law Group
  The League of California Cities seems to approach depublication aggressively. Their letter involving this Lafferty Communities Garaventa Hill decision is fascinating reading, as they attempt multiple arguments to justify why protecting the environment is a bad idea. They were even bold enough to write an instruction manual to teach other people how to hide court judgments (they removed it from their website).
• The City of Livermore. Attorney: Sabrina Vansteenki Teller
• The California Building Industry Association. Attorney: Linda C. Klein
• The Building Industry Association of the Bay Area. Attorney: Linda C. Klein (who tried three times!)
• That’s not all. A more complete list of the parties

The effect of the published ruling is that in the future, any plan for new developments that do significant damage to the environment must include a genuine study of a “no-project alternative”. This means that there needs to be a sincere effort to investigate any and all ways a damaging project can be avoided in order to protect California from unnecessary harm. Not all development projects threaten the environment, so this ruling does not unduly impede development in California. But, if you want to abuse the environment for profit, you can’t do so in an illegal manner, or as easily as before.

Will there be another EIR ordered by the City (Developer)?

Since the court decision, there have been ongoing communications between City staff and Lafferty Communities regarding Lamphier-Gregory. The City performed their court mandated duty to rescind the approval in November 2022. The election of a development opponent to the council district (Ben Barrientos) in 2022 will provide for at least four years of pushback within the City administration that never existed before.

Attempts were made to contact Lamphier-Gregory in order to gain more insight, but they did not want to speak with us. We hope they might reconsider, as we want to make sure the information we post is accurate and fair. One particular item we would like to explore is a statement they made about the project. “Lamphier-Gregory was also asked to help the City negotiate the process of choosing an identified alternative in place of the project at the Final EIR stage.” This was precisely the issue that the justices called out most explicitly in ruling against them, so it seems odd to have promoted this service to Livermore as a “value added” feature.

After such a publicized defeat at the supreme court, one might speculate that Garaventa Hill is too hot to handle, and Lamphier-Gregory may decide not to participate again. Other environmental consultants may also need to carefully consider the potential downside as well.

For eight long years, the resident opponents did what they could without a completely equipped skill set to guide them through the various complexities. Though poorly armed, they brought their case all the way to the Supreme Court and won. Now, the same people are more motivated, have a GREAT Environmental law firm, are apparently well funded, highly visible, and have newfound political power. It seems unlikely that Lamphier-Gregory will reenter the fray, but why would any competent environmental consultant want to walk straight into a buzz saw? The same question applies to Lafferty Communities.

Maybe they’re thinking about trying anyway.

Lafferty Communities have said very little. They are active on Facebook, but seem to ignore their Yelp page which has a 1 star rating. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle just after the court defeat, attorney Alicia Guerra stated, “Lafferty Communities remains fully committed to its in-fill housing project in the city of Livermore which will offer needed excellent and affordable housing to the community.”

The process itself would really be a return to where they started in 2011, but from an even more disadvantaged posture. It’s a lot of work, new surveys, a greatly expanded “no-project alternative”, etc. The public scrutiny will be substantial, and could be overwhelming.

Actions do speak louder than words though, and a bewildering action by PG&E did take place. A high capacity power line was run up to The Hill a few months after the court ruling. Apparently there was an old request for infrastructure and they failed to put the brakes on in time, as they were unaware that Garaventa Hill is no longer being urbanized. A lot of money went to waste.

What if Lafferty Communities were to restart the process?

The procedure would not be easy, quick, or cheap. An RFP for a new EIR has to be ordered by city staff, and they will be encouraged to exactly NOT prepare one. If an RFP is produced, this time it will be challenged. Then if it goes out for bids, bidders may be reluctant to participate (based on what happened to Lamphier-Gregory). If it receives bids, the applicants will become the subject of immediate public attention (and not the good kind). Don’t forget the Notice of Preparation, and the staff time it takes to process that prior to any work on a new EIR.

Unlike the passive exercises that took place in 2011, nothing will be left unattended. Active vigilance can be expected from the very first moment, now that the residents know what to do, and with a greater sense of confidence.

If all of this somehow gets as far as a draft EIR, it has to first go through planning commission and be posted as a public hearing item in advance. At the meeting, it will face unrelenting scrutiny and public input. That’s the first test of its survival, and if it somehow succeeds, then it will be on to City Council.

Once there, the same obstacles apply, and more. DEIR for public comments. Advance posting. City Council public hearing with expected opposition. In addition, Garaventa Hill is habitat sensitive territory that would be unlikely to obtain buildable evaluation. Even if a future council did certify one, it would undoubtedly face more lawsuits by an even better prepared legal team. Finally, the legal defense Lafferty employed did a splendid job, lost anyway, and it is doubtful Lafferty Communities could find more effective representation.

Final Thoughts

The story of Garaventa Hill is a tribute to what local residents can do if they are persistent in an attempt to pursue justified environmental protection. Neither a hostile City Council, aggressive developer, nor lack of legal sophistication or money can overturn the will of the people as long as it stays strong and resolute.

References:

• 2012 Lamphier-Gregory Garaventa Hills DEIR. This is the original proposal for 76 homes. The “no project” Alternative A is included
• 2014 Lamphier-Gregory Garaventa Hills Final DEIR. This includes public comments and letters.
• 2018 Lamphier-Gregory Garaventa Hills Reissued Final DEIR

Many people spoke to object to the refusal of the City Clerk to advance petitions of Move Eden Housing.

Transcript with timestamps

0:00
on tonight’s monday july 25th 2022 virtual regular meeting of the livermore
0:05
city council at uh 7 pm uh calling the meeting to order can we have
0:10
the roll call please i am here
0:18
council member cake here council member monroe i’m here vice mayor bonanno it’s absent
0:24
for the record mayor warner uh with an excused absence and uh
0:29
here so and now join me in the pledge of allegiance please
0:38
i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands
0:44
one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you
0:55
so we’re now on to a proclamation declaring august 2022 as muslim
1:02
appreciation and awareness month presented to munir sifi of the islamic
1:07
center of livermore and councilmember monroe will read the proclamation
1:20
sorry i was trying to find my unmute button it gives me a great pleasure
1:26
to present this this uh proclamation for muslim appreciation awareness month uh
1:33
and i will read it as follows unfortunately i’ve tried holding this up to zoom and because of the nature of
1:39
zoom backgrounds didn’t work so well but trust me it’s a lovely proclamation and we will be
1:45
delivering it in person to uh the islamic center shortly this is what it says whereas the city of
1:52
livermore has been and continues to be home to people of different national origins immigration or refugee status
1:59
cultures histories races ethnicities religious affiliations or none gender identities sexual orientations
2:07
ages education economic status and physical mental or emotional abilities
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our strength is derived from our diversity and inclusiveness from respecting one another from welcoming
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immigrants and others and from collaborating with one another across our differences and
2:25
whereas the city council believes that a city can best stand against bigotry
2:31
intolerance and hate through leading by example and living our shared community values of welcome
2:37
inclusion and respect and by developing common ground in venues that allow us to talk and work
2:44
together in service to each other and our community and whereas muslims have been part of the
2:51
u.s history from its beginning and have contributed to the production of wealth and the construction of the nation
2:58
they are also part of the rich history of the civil rights movement over 90 000 muslims live in alameda county and make
3:05
innumerable contributions to the cultural political and economic fabric and well-being of our state in our
3:11
country and whereas the coven-19 pandemic forced the temporary closure of the islamic center
3:17
of livermore and other mosques in the tri-valley during this time these mosques and community organizations
3:24
provided online programming and service service sermons with small faith group
3:29
prayers outside they also answered the call for help by donating funds distributing food and by sewing masks to
3:37
help those on the front line and they have educated their congregations about social distancing guidelines and
3:43
practices to keep the community safe now therefore the city council of the city of
3:48
livermore proclaims august 2022 as muslim appreciation and awareness month
3:54
and thanks the members of the islamic center of livermore for their contributions to the city and encourages
4:00
members of the community to come together to celebrate our diversity
4:05
that’s on behalf of the city council of livermore and the actual proclamation i’m going to see if i actually can hold
4:10
it up here no it really doesn’t work um that will
4:16
be delivered to uh to the islamic center tomorrow or the next day thank you so
4:23
much okay thank you we’re now on to item 4.0
4:30
citizens forum uh city clerk would you please explain the process uh for participating in tonight’s meeting
4:37
yes thank you mayor the city council’s agenda provides opportunities for the public to participate in the meeting by
4:42
addressing the city council in the following ways first for non-agendized items the public has the opportunity during citizens
4:49
forum to address the city council on any item of interest that is within the city council’s subject matter jurisdiction
4:55
second for agendas items the public can address the city council on each item of business it considers when the mayor
5:01
opens public comment and should be focused on that particular item please note the speaker is not required to
5:07
answer questions from the city council and the city council is not required to answer questions from the public
5:13
however the mayor has the discretion to ask staff to address the speaker’s comments when a council member believes
5:18
it is relevant to a particular business item when participating in tonight’s meeting one comment may be given per
5:24
person per item members of the public can participate in person as noticed on the agenda apologize
5:30
remotely as noticed on the agenda to provide a comment please use the raise hand feature
5:36
using zoom or press star 9 if you’re calling in when the item begins once the public comment opens each
5:42
participant’s name will be announced and their three minutes will begin upon being unmuted if you submitted a comment
5:47
earlier today by email or e-comment those comments have been provided to the city council and posted to the city’s
5:52
website earlier this afternoon the mayor will announce conclusion of the public comment period after comments have been
5:58
voiced into the record thank you mayor
6:04
thank you see we’re starting just before 7 10. so we’ll allow the first uh 30 minutes for
6:11
uh citizens forum if there’s any spillover we’ll pick it up at the end of the meeting
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uh before item eight so the uh so that means 7 40
6:21
and uh city uh clerk staff will announce there’s a five when there’s five minutes
6:27
um remaining and uh the city clerk will announce how many speakers will be heard
6:33
after the matters for consideration so if we could do we have any members of
6:38
the public that wish to address this this evening
6:43
yes mayor the first request to speak it’s from vic avila followed by carol
6:49
silva and darcy kent vic avila please and meet yourself
6:58
yes hello
7:06
and can you hear me and or see me
7:13
uh vica we can faintly hear you okay i i will okay how’s this am i can i can you
7:19
hear me now hi
7:26
hey yes we can hear you okay very good uh thank you good evening mayor and council i feel the voters should be
7:32
given an opportunity to vote on the referendum the previous mayor and council fueled
7:39
the train that carries this downtown development a development that in my
7:44
estimation is a metaphorical baker’s dozen it’s trying to put too many eggs in one
7:50
basket trying to do too many things in a plot a plot
7:57
that is not large enough to com accommodate all the uses the previous mayor and council fueled
8:03
the train you want to send it down the track i feel overloaded
8:09
i feel it’s a very poor idea for an an iconic western
8:15
downtown thank you for listening
8:23
next speaker is carol silva followed by darcy kent and donna caban carol silva please meet yourself
8:32
thank you city council members i’m carol silva a livermore resident who opposes
8:38
the currently proposed location of eden housing at l street and railroad avenue
8:44
recently i was talking to one of my friends about the relatively recent changes and the
8:50
proposed changes to livermore’s downtown specifically the four-story legacy
8:56
complex at the old growth brothers site and the location of the yet to be built four-story eaton housing complex
9:03
my friend stated that she knew absolutely no one who wants eden housing to be built at the old lucky site she
9:11
asked me if i knew anyone who wants bean housing to be built at that location
9:17
i thought for a moment trying to recall if i personally knew anyone who wanted it built there and then i told her i
9:25
don’t know anyone who wants eden built across the street from the monstrosity of the legacy apartments
9:32
barry fandom the attorney for move eden housing organization
9:38
is quoted in july 21st edition of the independent the news article entitled
9:44
city clerk declines to process referendum mr fatham provides both
9:51
election code specifications and case law to support that the city clerk is in
9:56
violation of her duties by refusing to process the referendum signatures on the
10:02
petition that was signed by more than 8 000 registered livermore voters
10:08
i asked the livermore city council to allow livermore voters a voice on the
10:14
location of eden housing this is something that should have been done a long time ago
10:20
instead of trying to strategically fight against voters who have to organize
10:26
against the council’s decisions to have a better downtown that respects livermore’s history and
10:34
that benefits all livermore citizens and visitors please accept the petition and let’s
10:42
move on from here thank you
10:48
the next speaker is darcy kent followed by donna command and zoom user darcy ken please unmute
10:54
yourself
11:02
darcy kent please don’t meet yourself
11:11
sorry about that um good evening to the mayor and to the city council
11:16
my parents have raised me along with my sisters to be working woman we’ve all
11:21
spent our time since since we were teenagers in either part-time or full-time work
11:28
we were trained to be to work hard to be honest and to be fair with the belief that women
11:34
what could be um are equal in every way
11:40
in the world and able to contribute equally in the workforce i have taken that to heart and i now own
11:47
two businesses with my two daughters and my husband
11:53
through the years the thing that i’ve despised the most
11:58
when working is when i was bullied by someone who thought that they could get their way just by intimidation and
12:05
threat i’ve never experienced a bigger case of
12:10
bullying or i’ve never seen a bigger case of bullying than what i am seeing now
12:18
our city clerk marie weber is experiencing the greatest act of bullying intimidation and threat that
12:25
i’ve ever seen it’s unconscionable the city clerk as the elected officer
12:32
for our city is in is a constitutional officer with the
12:37
duty to the citizens of livermore
12:44
the tactics used by move eden housing and the independent paper are the most
12:51
egregious i’ve ever seen marie weber this is a small group
12:58
and their tactics are ruthless and unfair
13:03
i support you and i know that the majority of the citizens of livermore
13:08
also support you i fully support
13:14
the eden housing project it was made over the past years with
13:20
several votes by the people and the council and we are ready to move forward
13:27
thank you the next speaker is donna caban followed
13:34
by zoom user and david b kent donna kaban please meet yourself
13:41
good evening donna caban livermore resident for 40 years
13:47
let the residents of livermore vote eight thousand residents sign petitions
13:55
eight thousand livermore residents signed the referendum
14:00
the city voters want a voice on the location of eden housing
14:07
the city should respect the process and allow a vote
14:13
the residents never had a vote on the location of eden housing the previous
14:18
vote was on the location of the hotel and
14:24
giving rights to the development there the courts will determine
14:30
if what the city is doing is legal however
14:36
forcing this measure to go to the courts is wasting taxpayers dollars
14:41
taxpayers dollars that could be better spent on more critical issues
14:47
instead we should be putting this issue in front of the voters immediately
14:54
respect the democratic process government of the people
15:00
by the people for the people let liver more residents vote on this
15:07
issue thank you the next speaker is has the username of
15:13
zoom user followed by david b kent and lisa tramovich doom user please don’t meet yourself
15:22
hi hello mayor and council this is deborah mcqueen and i’m a 30-year resident and homeowner in
15:28
livermore i’d like to thank you for your work for maintaining and supporting our city
15:34
i’m asking that the council let livermore vote on the issues at hand allow the 8 000 livermore citizens who
15:41
signed the petition to qualify for the referendum and give the city voters a
15:46
voice on the location of eden housing the city should be respecting the process and allowing a vote
15:52
the courts not the city will determine whether what the city is doing is legal or not but by forcing this measure to go
15:59
to the courts you’re wasting taxpayer dollars again so instead we should be pulling this
16:05
issue in front of voters immediately i respectfully ask that you allow this to go forward thank you very much
16:15
next speaker is david b kent followed by lisa tramovich and laurie souza david b kent please unmute yourself
16:25
good evening well apparently we’re all talking about the same issue tonight the the referendum
16:31
uh i would like to express my gratitude to the city clerk for doing her duty
16:37
upholding the law and preventing our city from descending into administrative
16:43
gridlock where no legitimate policies can be implemented based on the illegitimate actions of a
16:50
disgruntled political action committee this entire episode which is a direct
16:56
attack on our system of representative government also makes me question if moni knop is
17:02
fit to serve as our next mayor according to the independent newspaper
17:08
money was a leader in the petition gathering the citizens of livermore elect the
17:14
mayor and their district councilperson to represent their interests and act on
17:19
their behalf this is how a representative government works apparently money doesn’t agree
17:26
as mayor will moani fail to act and simply kick every decision back to the
17:32
voters and will he delay the implementation of every vital city program
17:38
until the next election because he is uncertain and inexperienced if so city services would would come to
17:46
a complete stop if if money opposed the downtown plan
17:51
including the locations of the hotel stockman’s park and affordable housing
17:56
why didn’t he circulate a petition to block the plan at the time these legislative acts were taken that was in
18:04
early 2018. well probably it’s because virtually everyone including the independent
18:11
supported building affordable housing at l street and railroad avenue
18:17
that was what came out overwhelmingly in the outreach process and everyone supported it at least right
18:24
up until the very moment when it looked like housing would actually be built
18:29
and 130 working families would have a safe and affordable place to live
18:35
did people really support affordable housing here or were they just going through the motions
18:41
i think it was a ladder moni’s claim let the people decide is self-serving the people decided in 2016
18:49
when they removed two council people who had an unpopular vision for downtown and in 2018 the voters rejected every
18:56
candidate who opposed the new downtown plan in 2020 the voters again upheld the
19:03
location of the hotel by a two to one margin and in the fall the voters elected
19:08
supporters of the new downtown plan and rejected naysayers such as moani who
19:14
sought only to dither and to delay completion of our downtown
19:20
so what is moani really saying let the special interests decide
19:26
let their money talk and screw the will of the people if money is opposed to representative
19:32
could you uh your time is up if you just conclude yep if if he’s opposed to
19:37
representative government why is he seeking office and will he represent only special interests when mayor
19:45
thank you next speaker is lisa tramovich followed
19:50
by laurie souza and lenny thompson lisa tramovich please don’t meet yourself
20:01
uh hello uh honorable mayor and council i’m lisa tramovich livermore resident
20:06
and homeowner i’m taking this moment to support city clerk marie weber’s recent action to
20:11
deny the petition for move eden housing because it is simply not a referendable
20:19
item the city clerk is an elections official for our city she is a constitutional
20:24
officer with a duty to the citizens as a whole to uphold the election laws the duties she performs support not just our
20:31
city but the democracy of the united states lawyers for a recently formed group
20:36
calling themselves move-eating housing are attempting to intimidate marie into altering her assessment and
20:42
determination and submit petition signatures for further review against the rules and laws that govern the use of taxpayer
20:49
dollars to put a referendum on the ballot this group is pressuring our city clerk
20:54
for their own erratic political purposes i’m sorry she’s going through this and i
21:00
want her and council to know there are citizens out here who support her and
21:05
anyone willing to stand up for what’s right against those using money and intimidation to get what they want
21:11
without regard for the democratic process that process has already been fully respected in the case of the downtown
21:17
development including the use of housing funds to purchase the land and the requirement to build housing on a
21:24
portion of that land we’ve had multiple elections referendums and propositions and months and months
21:30
and months of public engagement activities we are now simply moving forward on due process already taken
21:37
the beautifully designed eden housing project will complement the adorable legacy apartments almost completed these
21:43
projects are part of the overall plan to support local businesses and our city as a whole
21:48
everyone i’ve spoken with looks forward to these much needed additions to our city my friends and co-workers support
21:55
marie lee and all city staff working against bullies and instead keeping our city moving
22:02
forward i commend our city clerk marie weber and the rest of our city staff who literally
22:08
worked tirelessly to help create the wonderful city of livermore that we all
22:14
enjoy thank you very much [Music]
22:21
the next speaker is laurie souza followed by laning thompson and gene king lori souza please don’t meet
22:27
yourself good evening mayor warner city council
22:33
members and staff i’m laurie souza and i’ve lived in livermore for 43 years my comments this evening are directed to
22:39
marie webber marie i want you to know that the vast majority of the residents in livermore
22:45
appreciate your integrity in fulfilling your role of constitutional officer
22:50
you recently had to deny a request from the move eden housing group knowing they would likely respond
22:57
unprofessionally i was disappointed to read the exchange you have had to have with the move eden
23:02
housing group they’re not interested in the truth or fairness their actions are not beneficial to anyone
23:09
it’s outrageous that they are suggesting that we’re you’re wasting taxpayers money when they’ve been wasting millions
23:16
of our taxpayers dollars over the last few years even though they tried to intimidate you
23:22
and with their disingenuous posturing you have shown great courage and leadership in upholding the law they’re
23:29
attempting to once again mislead livermore residents by claiming this action is that of the city council
23:35
instead of acknowledging it is what it is a legal matter i’m sorry you have to
23:41
deal with this it can’t be easy your job is challenging and sometimes disheartening and you have earned our
23:47
respect and gratitude thank you for standing up to these bullies and for doing the right thing
23:54
thank you next speaker is lanny thompson followed
24:01
by gene king and robin groth hill landing thompson please don’t meet yourself
24:12
good evening council members as a long time affordable housing
24:17
advocate and current officer of interfaith housing i find it reprehensible that the group known as
24:25
safe livermore downtown slash move eden housing
24:30
etc is accusing marie webber our city clerk of not doing her job properly when in
24:37
fact she is doing just that fulfilling her obligations as the city’s election
24:44
official city attorney jason alcala has determined that the council’s made 23rd
24:52
decision to amend its previous legislation regarding sale of the parcel at the
24:58
southeast corner of railroad nell streets to eden housing is not in itself a legislative action
25:06
and therefore is not eligible for a referendum this property was purchased 17 years ago
25:15
with affordable housing funds specifically for the construction of apartments for families who can’t
25:22
otherwise afford to live and work in livermore there is a national shortage of workers
25:28
to staff restaurants and hotels drive buses and perform countless other tasks we count
25:35
on every day and the situation is even worse in livermore because the cost of housing is
25:41
extremely high move eden housing’s petition to challenge the council’s recent decision
25:49
so that some future council might decide something different what’s on
25:55
shaky grounds to start with and is just another of their delaying tactics
26:00
i pray that future council members will be able to discern that the elite citizen group’s
26:07
alternative plans to move the housing across the street are impractical unworkable and possibly
26:16
unfundable and probably just a ploy to ultimately eliminate this desperately
26:22
needed affordable housing as our election official ms weber weber’s job is to ensure that
26:30
our elections are completely legal and that ballot issues are not inc
26:36
encumbered by confusing trumped-up referenda i see her actions as totally appropriate
26:44
in this case thank you next speaker is gene king followed by
26:51
robin grothhill and alan marling gene king please don’t meet yourself
27:03
good evening this is jean king i ask you to submit the referendum petitions for
27:08
verification the more than 8 000 who signed the petition are asking for a voice in the development of the downtown
27:16
the signers must not be ignored we are not a small group more citizens would be here this evening
27:23
to speak in person but are discouraged since most comments must wait until the
27:28
end of the meeting but it is uncertain how late that will be i’m not saying there’s anything wrong
27:34
with the process to have the agenda items heard before the citizens forum just that it does make it less likely
27:40
for citizens to wait to speak until the end i thank you for accepting written comments by email and including them in
27:47
the supplemental comments in the agenda packet in that packet there are 75 additional
27:54
comments submitted there in favor of the referendum and allowing a vote
28:00
there are four comments supporting the city this is such an important decision for
28:05
the heart of our city let the citizens be heard listen to us take our comments
28:12
seriously we are not a small group we are largely supported by the community members
28:19
citizens have the voice with the city development they should be speaking the voice and deciding what is
28:27
going on downtown the legal decisions about what exactly
28:32
is the proper legal method to move forward will be made by
28:38
knowledgeable legal authorities in the meantime let’s make sure that the
28:43
voices of the citizens are heard thank you very much
28:49
next speaker is robin groth hill followed by alan marlin and alan burnham robin groth hill please and meet
28:55
yourself
29:04
can you hear me hi this is robin grove hill and i am a lifetime livermore resident 53 years
29:12
third generation of livermore um family to be here obviously i’m very invested
29:17
with what’s going on downtown given that my old dealership was the site um where
29:23
the legacy buildings are now built i am very frustrated sitting back
29:29
watching the citizens of little moore be withheld a voice and a
29:35
part to be in this decision to loan the money to eden and also to
29:41
complete this purchase before this can go to a vote to the citizens
29:46
if you know what i’m hearing is all of these people saying that everybody’s for it that’s not been my experience
29:53
everybody i’ve spoken to and again i know a lot of people in this town being here 53 years i’ve not heard anybody
30:00
that is for the downtown placement of the affordable housing everybody is for affordable housing just
30:08
not in that location so i believe that it is something that
30:13
the city council should put to a vote of the citizens if you are so sure that
30:18
this is what the citizens of livermore want there is no harm in letting us have a voice come november and finding out
30:25
that this truly is what is voted by for by the majority of livermore citizens so
30:31
i believe that the referendum should whether the referendum stands or not stands but this
30:37
should be put in some capacity towards a vote to deliver more citizens so we can
30:42
find out once and for all what the majority of livermore wants thank you
30:51
the next speaker is alan marling followed by alan burnham and marianne brent allen marlin please add meet
30:56
yourself i’m born and raised in livermore uh
31:01
mayor and council members first of all i would like to thank the city clerk mary webber for her work she is doing her job
31:09
in service to livermore and does not deserve to be attacked for following the law
31:14
i wish i could say that respect for the law is shared by the move eden housing campaign and its plutocratic sponsors
31:22
they view our legal system as a tool to veto decisions made by democratically elected officials even unanimous votes
31:29
in favor of affordable housing the plutocrats are willing to fundraise for lawsuits that delay necessary
31:36
infrastructure no matter how many taxpayer dollars that litigation wastes
31:42
this referendum is no different first of all it’s illegal the past administrative decision made by
31:48
the city council cannot be changed no matter how many signatures you pay people to gather
31:54
the referendum organizers knew this but still deliberately wasted everyone’s time signing outside supermarkets as a
32:02
promotional stunt for move eden housing and as another delayed tactic
32:08
neither can eden housing be moved the city doesn’t own the alternative land
32:13
and even if it did trying to relocate the affordable housing would delay it by at least half a decade
32:20
housing is a matter of social justice and justice delayed is justice denied
32:26
campaigning to move eden housing is a continuation of the smoke and mirrors deception from the independence owner
32:33
jones seppla strip away the unethical journalism and impossible promises and
32:38
you have a campaign platform against affordable housing in a housing crisis i would like to
32:44
think that livermore is better than that the move eden housing campaign claims
32:50
the signatures they gather gives them a mandate nothing could be further from the truth
32:56
the people they paid to lurk outside supermarkets pitched the referendum as a
33:01
way to help house the homeless people signed in support of affordable housing like eden not against it they
33:08
wouldn’t have been so quick to sign if the paid gatherers had been at all truthful say if they had said will you
33:14
waste a few minutes of your time to delay local affordable housing another year to satisfy the whims of plutocrats
33:21
joan suppla and gene king who think they own the town and are furious they don’t
33:26
own the city council yet anyway sign here the affordable housing is for people
33:33
making our wine people answering calls at the police station people caring for
33:38
our elderly in nursing homes and people teaching our kids we owe so much to these workers and to
33:46
return their service by scornfully denying them a place to live is not the
33:52
coming of livermore thank you excuse me mayor and council members we
33:58
have five minutes remaining in citizens forum
34:06
the next speaker is ellen burnham followed by marion brent and jackie coda alan burnham please don’t meet yourself
34:17
for four years group known as save livermore downtown has worked against the city on
34:24
revitalizing a town instead of with it wasting both their money and the city’s money most recently they collected
34:29
signatures on a referendum with legality that is dubious at best sld either knew
34:35
or should have known that it was likely that any such vote if held would be meaningless so it was clearly just a
34:41
political ploy now that the city clerk has declined
34:47
to process the referendum signatures moral outrage accompanies their disa information campaign
34:53
i support the city clerk not doing something of such a dubious legality
34:58
i will restate my position i have expressed earlier two to three years ago it might have been possible to come up
35:04
with a compromise plan that would be better than the current plan but the ship has sailed if the city
35:09
is not sued by the save little more downtown group or one of their affiliates it will be sued by affordable
35:15
housing groups unless someone comes up with tens of millions of dollars very soon we will get the current eden plan
35:22
or worse after wasting more time and money on pointless posturing it’s too bad that they didn’t put a
35:29
referendum in front uh or collect students for a referendum for raising 50 million dollars give or take in order to
35:35
move the housing plan if they really wanted to move it and see how the voters thought about that sort of
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initiative thank you very much
35:48
next speaker is marianne brent followed by jackie cota and doug mann marianne brent please unmute yourself
35:58
good evening mayor werner and council members and staff i am disappointed that the city wishes
36:06
to reject a petition for a referendum against the transfer of land to eden housing
36:12
however the legal decision regarding the petition is not yet concluded
36:18
the progress of the petition has been interrupted livermore voters have a right to
36:24
petition the city the city accepted their petition
36:30
and the city clerk had a duty under the elections quote to process the petition
36:36
this did not happen little more voters who signed the
36:42
petition for a referendum deserve to be recognized the petition should be processed and
36:48
forwarded to alameda county registrar voters which checks that the signatures are
36:53
from people who are registered to vote in livermore the referendum then returns to livermore
37:00
where the city can adopt the referendum or put it to a vote in november
37:06
livermore voters wishes need to be recognized that is the issue here
37:13
thank you for allowing me to speak
37:20
next speaker is jackie coda followed by doug mann and money knopf jackie excuse
37:25
me i think this will be the uh last speaker before we uh pick it up at the end of the meeting
37:33
jackie coda please don’t meet yourself
37:40
over the last two years we’ve seen council take steps consistently to punitively punish community members for
37:47
exercising their rights according to the law why are we surprised when presented with 8 000 plus signatures in one month
37:53
gathering we the people’s objection to more stack impact building than the heart of our downtown looming over
37:59
blacksmith square is ignored let livermore vote eight thousand plus livermore citizens
38:04
signed petitions to qualify a referendum giving city voters a voice on the location of any more housing why do you
38:11
feel it’s fair to sell city property to only a single entity i thought you had an obligation to present for sale
38:17
property to bid i could be wrong but it doesn’t seem equitable or inclusive
38:22
the city should be respecting the process and allowing a vote just like they did with the hotel location
38:29
this has not been voted on by the people in fact the community outreach um unlike
38:34
what was said previously said that people wanted open space and to maintain the downtown ambiance our community
38:41
members have spoken in swift action multiple times the fact the city is playing political games with the preservation of our downtown audience is
38:47
puzzling when presented with the facts that more there will be more housing where that parking lot is currently the
38:52
community is against it no matter how many special interest comments council picks meetings with community members
38:57
are against it furthermore the city marketing as workforce housing trying to appeal to the uninformed motion by
39:03
painting misinformation that first responders and teachers will be living there is unconscionable salary levels of
39:09
those professions exceed eden’s limits we’d rather it remain an open lot then why not farmers markets can be there
39:15
local car shows food trucks festivals would be much better use of that space complementing the black box theater and
39:20
science center and um unlike mr he them who said the city doesn’t own other land they do across from heritage uh estates
39:28
there’s city-owned property outright right there they can move it and there’s schools fuel grocery stores over there
39:36
so why not farmers markets can be you know where the current open space is local car shows like i said there’s
39:42
plenty of other spaces we’ve presented that make more sense for housing well i encourage every community member to remember this from going to the polls in
39:49
november this council on their personal agendas have gone too far certainly do not re-elect any current or previous
39:54
council mayoral members people are moving to livermore because they enjoy the ambience of our downtown festivals ultimate car cruisers shows
40:01
parades rodeos and the good hometown feeling don’t ruin our center gathering places by infringing on commuting the
40:08
open space with intrusive housing don’t forget about what the city is doing to our downtown come this november it’s
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time for livermore to get back to making livermore great again
40:21
okay that concludes the first 30 minutes of our citizens forum we’ll pick it up
40:27
again after 7.3 we’re now on to the consent calendar
40:34
consent calendar items are considered routine in nature and are acted upon by the city council with a single action
40:41
members of the audience wishing to provide public input must submit uh speaker carter used the
40:47
raise hand feature in zoom during the public comment period to comment on any of the consent
40:52
calendar items uh and before i go to public comment would the council like to pull any of
40:58
the items for discussion council member monroe
41:05
um i do not wish to do that but what i did want to do is actually return to the
41:11
proclamation i believe i saw the mcc zoo moderator generally we allow someone receiving a
41:17
proclamation to have a comment um i don’t think we did that and i just wanted to uh see if we could return
41:24
there briefly and give a chance for a response
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okay uh you you saw this earlier but didn’t let us know or anyway go ahead is there
41:35
someone who would like to i i saw it during public comment and did not have a way to really respond this is the first
41:42
opportunity sorry that’s fine
41:49
hello council yeah yes thank you so much for allowing me to
41:54
speak this is munir safi with the muslim community center uh good evening mayor
41:59
and council thank you so much for honoring our state’s designation of august being muslim appreciation and awareness month uh this is the seventh
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year this destination has happened in california uh and this is the second year this happened in livermore i can
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tell you the hundreds of muslim families in livermore and the nearly 15 000 muslims in the tri-valley we truly
42:18
appreciate the livermore city council presenting this proclamation today uh so i’m representing the pleasanton muslim
42:24
community center we um serve the entire tri-valley we’re a vibrant regional mosque and
42:30
we’ve been on uh in pleasant for the past 11 years and i’m also joined by colleagues in congregation from the
42:36
islamic center of livermore they’re all they were watching online and probably are still watching i just want to quickly say american
42:42
muslims we’ve lived and contributed to our community since our country’s founding in the last decade and a half the impact of islamophobia has been real
42:50
but despite this we continue to do our blood drives our bulletin drives our highway cleanups our
42:55
weekly food distributions we have an open door policy at our friday services we serve as a red cross
43:01
disaster site uh host esl classes interfaith events open houses uh we’re
43:07
green moss special needs friendly mosque so you can hear we’re just part and parcel of our community and i can tell
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you that this recognition makes a world of difference for your livermore constituents who are muslim so again on
43:19
behalf of livermore resident and center muslim and tri-valley residents who are muslim we thank you so much for the
43:24
support from the proclamation and this recognition thank you well thank you for all your do and thank
43:30
you councilman monroe for uh recognizing that he was still in the audience so thank you very much
43:38
so sorry about that and zoom is just an odd thing to work with isn’t it yeah
43:44
okay so i’ve seen no counselor wants to pull any of the
43:50
consent calendar items for separate discussion i’ll at this point open public comment
43:55
on the consent calendar is there anyone who wishes to address us on any of the items
44:03
yes mayor there are three requests to speak the first is from aces straw followed by pranam chef and carl winty
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aces stroup please don’t meet yourself hi uh thank you i just wanted to uh
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thank you for taking the time um for this um i was looking over the matters in consideration i was actually um
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thinking about this for the last couple of months and i’ve noticed that you guys are authorizing the purchase of a couple
44:27
items here and i was wondering um why we’re even voting on this if anything we
44:32
should be taking these things to the people to vote on this i know we’re purchasing something for 250 000 that’s
44:38
a lot of money um we should be taking all of these items off and then taking it to the the people um simply because
44:45
we are purchasing things and um as we’ve heard the last couple of uh days in the local media and uh in tonight’s public
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comment um that purchases like this should not be um voted on by council even though
44:57
you were voted on to do so that they should be taken to the people um and for anybody listening
45:03
if uh that sounded ridiculous is because it was complete sarcasm all of these items are you know
45:09
standard uh things that the council does and if the everybody
45:15
in livermore was expected to vote onto these sort of items nothing and i mean absolutely
45:22
nothing would get done these are the things that we have voted
45:28
everybody on this council to do to represent the citizens live more and i’m thankful that they’re
45:33
taking their time to do so because if we didn’t we might as well abolish the council on the mayor and just have a
45:40
direct democracy for every single item and get nothing done so again i want to thank you for your
45:45
time i want to thank the staff for putting all this information together and providing it to the public so we can see
45:50
in a transparent manner how this money is being um appropriated for various things that
45:56
keep our city running smoothly um for everybody’s benefit and that’s my comment thank you
46:03
next speaker is pronum chef followed by carl wintee and jackie coda pranam chef please don’t meet yourself
46:14
hello there hi this is pranam sheth uh he used to be a resident livermore and then pleasanton and active involvement
46:20
in many items concerning valley this is regarding uh 5.9 which is the um
46:27
the resolution to temporarily suspend the airport development policy and create new policy
46:33
as council is well aware there was over 6 500 people signing petition to
46:39
[Music] really against the kaiser project which is a large project um
46:45
and another 1500 people actually read council in 2004 if you recall um really not looking for an airport
46:51
expansion um i do applaud the um airport management for wanting to redevelop the
46:57
uh policy um it’s it’s outdated and uh needs a lot of work
47:03
what really does no need to happen is that in the development this policy my recommendation is that you actually
47:08
select non-aviation related citizens to be part of the committee to develop this policy
47:15
the city of livermore has two major impacts um in that development of the airport
47:21
one is that you actually set the policy of how development happens this is something
47:26
that the faa doesn’t do the second thing is you as council and and the city of livermore
47:33
you set the policy the land use so if you want large hangars you can put large hangers in your policy
47:39
if you want a certain restriction on height which would lower the types of planes or the types of activities on
47:46
that land you get to set it this is something that livermore staff have highly failed to
47:53
consistently inform the council that they actually you actually have control on the airport land and its land
48:00
use and the policy so my recommendation on this particular resolution several things one is it has
48:07
community involvement non-a non-aviation related members are on the committee so that the public
48:13
voice the community voice the mass majority of citizens is involved in the development of this
48:19
policy and not just something that’s built from a set of airport principles and rubber-stamped later
48:25
second is direction to airport staff to put in this policy
48:30
what is needed to either limit or restrict the land use that the citizens of livermore have
48:37
asked for for over 15 years now third is the transparency
48:42
that all applications are immediately provided and made public as opposed to be hidden they’re right now hidden you
48:49
can’t find out what they are um in whatever the current process is
48:54
so at the end of the day really make sure that this policy and this is the direction i’d like for you to give to um the airport staff that the
49:02
policies align with the public sentiment of no large fpos large jets and
49:08
additional noise this is your choice now council i want to thank you very much
49:13
thank you next speaker is carl wintee followed by
49:20
jackie coda carl winty please don’t meet yourself
49:26
hello city council mr mayor uh staff of the great city of livermore my name is
49:32
carl wente i’ve been in this town around this town for five generations and care
49:39
deeply and i’m talking on the consent calendar which is about really the process of
49:46
government what is good government how does government work and we are a constitutional representative democratic
49:54
republic um and then the constitutions are stacked with the u.s constitution which
49:59
laid out the three the legislative uh executive and judicial uh california constitution which per
50:05
article two section nine does provide for referendum process process of government california constitution then
50:12
there’s alameda county general plan city of livermore general plan there’s various other area plans specific plans
50:18
that go into it but good government is a process and the good thing about it too is
50:24
we document this stuff so we can bear witness we can go back and look at what the truth was of situations because of
50:31
the process like this again i’m speaking on the consent calendar as a representation of how you go from our
50:38
proclamations to our open to the consent matters uh or to
50:43
matters for consideration to matters initiated part of the process that goes through
50:49
and so legislative executive and judicial but in the city the legislative and executive sort of
50:56
overlay with the city manager and how it operates and the mayor so that becomes administrative and article two section
51:03
nine per this good government and this flow sort of clearly states what our legislative acts and what our
51:09
administrative verse executive what are judicial because of this stacked constitution because of how this process
51:15
works so i just like to again thank the city government the people that can
51:21
help us continue to make this work this this worst form of government except for every other form of
51:26
government that’s ever been and it happens indeed because of people
51:32
of the people by the people for the people by all means follow the process follow the good books of those staffed
51:38
constitutions go back and where we can go through and we understand how it works so i just want to say thank you
51:44
for those that care that lean in and that are trying to hold this little experiment together the best that we can
51:50
i’d also like to thank those who put on a bulletproof vest to go to work keep us safe those who wear a badge
51:57
those that are fighting fires and knock on wood uh may we not have fires come our way
52:02
but just those that serve take part in the community i salute you the elected officials ye mr mayor city council thank
52:10
you for serving thank you city staff for knowing your duty is to have this be an
52:17
open public and purposely slow process
52:22
you know our voices matter so i appreciate everyone leaning in speaking up and caring about our city namaste
52:34
the next speaker is jackie coda checky coda please unmute yourself
52:42
thank you i’m speaking specifically about uh on the consent calendar there’s a couple of
52:48
items uh with regard to like to make a few um uh comments um the
52:53
fleet service truck uh the petersons truck in corp um incorporated
52:58
um you know i i think it’s good to see that um the city is is spending money
53:04
where uh it’s appropriate because um city services and law enforcement truly what is
53:11
government’s um number one role and that is to serve the people we the people
53:18
um one more item also you know that’s on here is the airport policy i see that
53:23
it’s going to be rewritten i just want people to keep in mind you know that um you know increasing hanger space so that
53:30
repairs can be done over at livermore airport is not such a bad thing actually it’s
53:35
it’s a good thing and plus you know everybody who’s purchased a home within the flight path you’ve all been warned and you’ve all been notified years and
53:41
years ago i know i was when i was considering buying a house over in that area that the airport would be expanded
53:48
so the fact that people are bellyaching about it still is is unconscionable but
53:55
more so as far as we’re wrapping it up with regard to the consent calendar mr strout’s comments being um quite
54:02
sarcastic you know um we the people have a right to make comments public comments
54:08
on any item that we want and um you know telling people as far as the consent calendar some people that are online
54:14
right now think that the council is going to cover each agenda item that they have to wait until they uh raise their hand until they get to that agenda
54:20
item before they make a comment not realizing that on the consent calendar they need to speak up about anything
54:27
underneath there right now otherwise they’re going to lose their opportunity that not being clarified before has made
54:33
it so that people on zoom in the past have had their voices squashed just like the referendum where the people the will
54:40
of the people are being squashed you know it’s not okay if people want to speak up it’s
54:47
they it’s important for the council to listen to we the people because that’s their job to listen and when they
54:54
don’t listen then we the people have to take steps to force them to listen especially when
55:00
they’re contradictory in their words and actions and not only that when they spread misinformation
55:07
such as saying that the city clerk is an elected position it’s not it’s not an
55:12
elected position i’m saying that she’s miss ms webber’s being bullied hey
55:17
following the legal process is not bullying someone and then coming back and blaming something on money knock
55:24
you know that’s absolutely ridiculous you know these consent items that are here under the calendar these are for
55:30
what the council needs to be reviewing as well as the public and saying that someone who is against something that
55:37
someone the community is bringing to the city is bullying is ridiculous
55:46
mayor at this time there are no more requests to speak close the public comment bring it back
55:51
to the council any uh discussion or do i have a motion council member carling
55:58
yes think i just wanted some clarity on 5.9 mr
56:03
brought that up about the makeup of the the folks that would work on the policy
56:10
uh are what what is the do we get to weigh in on that at some later date
56:17
uh i know we’re just going to approve the fact that we want to suspend the current policy but i just
56:22
wanted to know what the process would be moving forward can somebody help me with that
56:28
absolutely um honorable mayor if i may this is your city manager mariana matashiva
56:34
council member carling you’re absolutely right item 5.9 will suspend the current
56:41
administrative policy we do not have a council approved comprehensive development policy
56:48
staff will take time to draft a comprehensive policy and that policy will go through
56:55
at least two rounds of review one is with the airport commission that is
57:01
comprised of pilots and non-pilots and there will be an opportunity for the public to weigh in
57:06
on that policy during commission meeting or meetings the second round of reviews will be with
57:12
the city council where the city council will review the commission’s recommendations and staffs
57:18
recommendations as well hopefully that answers your question councilmember carlene yes great thank you very much
57:23
thank you mayor any other comments
57:29
so i’ll just say that on that i’m pleased that that 5.9 is on the agenda
57:35
i think that’s what we need to do to look at the airport and to get the
57:41
input on it so do i anybody care to make a motion for the consent calendar councilmember
57:48
monroe i’ll move the consent calendar a second okay moved and seconded uh any further
57:55
discussion if not we have a roll call please that’s member carly hi councilmember
58:01
kate hi councilmember monroe hi mr bonanno is
58:11
unanimously uh we’re on now to uh 6.1 hearing to adopt a resolution approving the waiver
58:17
and refund of a 132 k in penalties and interest related to the delinquent special taxes
58:24
levied in the city of livermore community facilities district 99-1
58:29
that’s the tri-valley technology park on property owned by the livermore valley joint unified school district we have
58:36
the staff presentation please yes good evening honorable mayor warner and members of the city council this is
58:43
your city manager mariana martial item 6.1 will be presented by tina olsen the
58:49
city’s administrative services director ms olsen
59:04
miss olson if you’re trying to speak we can’t hear you must be muted
59:15
there we go sorry i’m going to try again with this do you hear me now
59:20
we can hear you miss olsen but we can’t see your slides anymore if you could put them up please
59:32
almost there let’s go there you go thank you okay
59:37
uh good evening sorry about this
59:45
uh so good evening mayor warner
59:53
yesterday uh good evening mayor warner city council members this is tina olson your
59:58
administrative services director to provide some background
1:00:04
on this evening the item before you this evening in 1999 the city established the community facilities district or cfd
1:00:12
99-1 to support the tri-valley technology park development that allowed the city to levy special taxes in that
1:00:19
district to be used to repay bonds and related administrative expenses those bonds were used to help pay for
1:00:25
infrastructure improvements and the tri valley technology park area in 2018 the livermore school district
1:00:32
acquired three properties in cfd 99-1 the school district mistakenly thought
1:00:37
it was exempt from paying the cfd taxes and therefore did not pay them for four years
1:00:42
in march of this year the school district paid the back cfd taxes and 132
1:00:47
562 dollars in penalties and interest the school district requested a waiver
1:00:53
and refunded those penalties in interest since we do not require the 132 562
1:00:59
dollars to pay debt service on the bonds or to administer the cfd staff supports the school district’s
1:01:05
request to waive and refund the penalties and interest as such
1:01:10
staff recommends the city council hold a public hearing and approve waiver and refund of the school district’s cfp
1:01:16
penalties and interest after deducting expenses of two thousand dollars incurred by the city to address
1:01:22
delinquency and waiver requests and that concludes my presentation and
1:01:28
i’m available for any questions okay i’ll open the public hearing at this point is there anyone who wishes to
1:01:36
address us your no comments have been received
1:01:42
close the closing the public hearing on 6.1 bring it back to the council of for
1:01:47
deliberation any questions comments or a motion
1:01:54
move approval thank you councilmember monroe hey well
1:02:00
a second thank you moved in seconded uh no further discussion do we have a roll call please remember carlene hi
1:02:08
councilmember kik aye councilmember monroe aye
1:02:13
voicemail banana is absent for the record and mayor warner aye passes uh unanimously thank you
1:02:19
we’re on to 6.2 hearing to consider comments and protests relating to the disposition of
1:02:26
city-owned property at 2324 second street that’s the former switch and two um
1:02:34
to mr michael messenger for the purposes of converting it from an office to restaurant use and a resolution
1:02:39
improving the sale of the property and authorizing the city manager to execute the first amendment to the purchase and
1:02:45
sale agreement with michael messenger to update the schedule of development we
1:02:52
have the staff presentation first yes honorable mayor warner members of the city council this is once again your
1:02:59
city manager mariana marshawa item 6.2 will be presented by fran reisner our
1:03:06
housing programs manager ms reisner okay thank you ms marshava
1:03:13
oh excuse me one second
1:03:32
okay um can everyone see my see my screen properly now
1:03:40
yes miss rice we can see you very much thank you okay good evening honorable mayor and city council i am fran risner
1:03:47
housing programs manager tonight for council’s consideration our actions and approvals necessary to
1:03:53
complete the disposition of the 23 24 2nd street property to the buyer mr michael messenger
1:04:02
the subject property is located at the corner of south livermore avenue and 2nd street
1:04:08
the building was constructed in 1928 to house the bell telephone service and
1:04:13
continuously operated as a telephone related use until the city’s former redevelopment agency purchased it from
1:04:20
svc in 2004. the building was intermittently used for storage until 2011 when the city
1:04:27
solicited letters of interest from prospective buyers and selected mr michael messenger who proposed to
1:04:34
convert the building into a restaurant use mr messenger also owns the pete’s
1:04:39
coffee and tequila’s taqueria building next door and his concept creates some
1:04:45
opportunities for synergy between the properties upon dissolution of the redevelopment
1:04:50
agency the asset was transferred to the city the city’s long-range property
1:04:56
management plan identified the site to be sold to mr messenger for the stated purpose and the oversight board for the
1:05:03
former redevelopment agency approved that plan and in 2021 the city entered into a
1:05:09
purchase and sale agreement with mr messenger so under the terms of the purchase and
1:05:16
sales agreement the buyer will mr messenger will pay 860 thousand
1:05:22
dollars to the city for the building as is in its current condition the buyer will redesign the property to
1:05:30
convert it to a restaurant use as mentioned and that that use will
1:05:35
support the development goals of the city’s downtown specific plan as a condition to complete the sale the
1:05:41
buyer is required to secure a downtown design approval and a consistency determination with the historic
1:05:47
requirements both of these approvals are being processed at staff level
1:05:53
included in the staff report and displayed here is a are rendered images of the proposed
1:05:59
design mr messenger has proposed significant upgrades to the building including the addition of a raised patio
1:06:06
deck along livermore avenue and 2nd street new windows and doors the installation
1:06:13
of elevator access to all floors a rooftop patio for dining
1:06:18
and landscaping and lighting improvements staff is currently working with him to finalize the design
1:06:25
the purchase and sales agreement also requires the buyer to submit building plans for all structural and tenant
1:06:32
improvements and sets the date for transfer to occur no later than december 31st of this year
1:06:41
so the design processors as you can see there’s another angle a view of the proposed design
1:06:47
the design process is nearly complete and now the purchase and sales agreement needs to be amended with the schedule of
1:06:54
development adjusted to reflect the updated development timeline according to the amended timeline
1:07:00
conditions would remain in place to ensure the buyer makes progress on his proposed plans as
1:07:06
follows so the buyer as i mentioned will secure all design approvals and clearances uh
1:07:12
estimated at the end of this month or early part of august the buyer will submit a building permit
1:07:17
application for all structural and tenant improvements to the city’s building division by november 1st
1:07:24
and will secure a determination of completeness with that application from the city’s
1:07:29
building official by december 1st and under the agreement the city manager would be authorized to further adjust
1:07:37
deadlines with the exception of the deadline to close escrow which is necessary
1:07:43
to maintain in order to comply with an exemption from rules
1:07:49
current property disposition rules imposed by the state so
1:07:54
now staff recommends city council um hear any comments and protests on the
1:08:01
following actions related to the disposition of the 23 24 2nd street uh property and adopt a resolution
1:08:08
authorizing the following um take final action to approve the sale of the property as set forth by government code
1:08:15
sections 37 422 dash though through 37 423
1:08:21
and and authorized the city manager to sign on behalf of the city of livermore the first amendment to the purchase and sale
1:08:28
agreement with mr michael messenger and all related documents necessary to effectuate the sale of the property
1:08:34
subject to city uh attorney’s form approval and this concludes staff’s presentation i am able to answer any
1:08:41
questions that you may have okay thank you uh open the public
1:08:46
hearing on this item do we have anybody who wishes to address us miss mayor there is one request to speak
1:08:54
alan vernon please then meet yourself
1:09:01
uh yeah this is alan burnham um and people earlier were talking about how long they’ve lived here i’ve lived here
1:09:06
for 45 years just in case that makes any difference which it probably should not anyway um
1:09:12
i was not planning to speak on this i didn’t even know about the the architectural design but what what we
1:09:18
heard earlier this evening was a lot of people complaining about something after the decision is made it was too late
1:09:23
well i would like to register my objection now to the architectural style i think it fails by a long margin
1:09:30
of having an architectural style compatible with
1:09:35
the downtown now i realize you’re dealing with a sales uh agreement here and the final the design is not
1:09:42
finalized but what i’m concerned about is that oh is that uh you know if if
1:09:48
now’s not the time to object about the the architectural when will it be and will be too late so i think that there
1:09:55
needs to be a clause in here that the the architectural style has to change significantly to make it more compatible
1:10:01
with the downtown um and i give an example of of the the
1:10:07
spark theater where they actually tried to uh come up with a design which
1:10:12
balanced historical architecture with with kind of a modern feel and and when i looked at this particular design i was
1:10:19
reminded of the book the fountainhead some of you may have read that i read it 50 some years ago
1:10:25
where um howard roark designed a building and then somebody uh well he with a less derogatory uh
1:10:31
uh term than people changed the designs we went and blew it up well that was kind of my impression of what this
1:10:38
architectural style has done to this particular building i realize it needs to have substantial uh renovation but it
1:10:45
just it looks like um two architectural styles which are completely incompatible and and that’s
1:10:52
so so basically i want to make sure that if you approve this tonight that that um
1:10:58
there’s not a decision ever coming forth that this particular design gets passed thank you very much
1:11:08
mayor at this time there are no more requests to speak i would like a possible staff to respond to mr
1:11:16
burnham’s question about the design approval process
1:11:22
mr mayor this is paul spence your community development director this scale of design is approvable at
1:11:29
staff level if the council has concerns about design
1:11:34
you can let us know this evening and or direct us to bring it back to you for final
1:11:40
approval okay thank you uh
1:11:46
so at this point i’ll bring it back to uh council for uh deliberation
1:11:51
i um i’ll just say i uh some of mr burnham’s comments uh resonate with
1:11:58
me and uh i would like to see some uh input from
1:12:04
the community and the council on the design uh any other comments from anyone on the
1:12:10
council council member carly
1:12:16
yeah i agree with the mayor right um i guess they’re wondering
1:12:23
in one slide shows just to be clear the the rendering looking at it
1:12:30
from the corner of second and livermore um
1:12:35
i see tiled roof in the back that’s the original building if i’m not mistaken and then
1:12:43
the part that he’s talking about renovating and turning into a restaurant was built in 67 is that correct
1:12:51
correct so the the historic part of the building is the portion that you see with the
1:12:56
uh with the tile roof and our historic guidelines do require
1:13:01
that you not have a faux historicism so we shouldn’t mimic that style but um
1:13:09
that’s um that’s about as far as those guidelines go so you need to be distinct and different
1:13:14
i guess the other thing that i would say is if the council would like us to take this through a public hearing process
1:13:20
we might also ask for the discretion for the city manager to allow the sale to move forward by the
1:13:27
end of the year we don’t want the sale date to be held up by a public hearing process here
1:13:32
yeah yeah i agree with moving the sail forward i guess i would appreciate the
1:13:39
opportunity to look at the at the plans at some point after the sale and after
1:13:46
after mr messenger works with city staff on the design so thank you
1:13:54
councilmember monroe i i would concur with that
1:13:59
i’m looking at the designs right now and i walk by that pretty frequently
1:14:08
it doesn’t do much for me on the other hand i also want to be mindful of being deep
1:14:15
in the weeds there’s some balance here there’s also some balance between
1:14:20
being true to the historic nature of this building which has been around a long time and seen a lot
1:14:26
and with it was moving forward so um but yes let’s let’s let the sale go
1:14:32
forward so that we can um begin the work that we we need to do to
1:14:37
complete the downtown council councilmember kick
1:14:42
uh i actually like it so i think it doesn’t really matter though because i don’t think that’s our job i
1:14:49
think we should let planning to commission look into that and um you know
1:14:54
i i don’t i don’t want us to get too mentally uh in in figuring out what what a design should look like we’re trying
1:15:00
to get a sale done um also just in general
1:15:06
i i think that it’s okay to have things that are new and different sometimes than having the
1:15:13
entire downtown look exactly the same so um i just wouldn’t stress on it is what i’m saying
1:15:18
uh i would like to move that we take staff recommendation and um
1:15:25
approve the sale of this building um that i think will be a very cool restaurant
1:15:31
with the caveat that the design will come back through the planning commission
1:15:38
through the planning commission i’m pretty sure they have to have the design go through the planning commission whether we ask for it or not am i that’s
1:15:44
nothing that’s not what i heard it is a staff level approval but again
1:15:50
the council could ask us to go to the planning commission so if you’re so my request is that your
1:15:56
motion be to make approved staff recommendations with the proviso that the design comes through the planning
1:16:02
commission and the public process
1:16:09
i don’t know that we need all of that i think it’s really unnecessary so my my
1:16:14
motion is to have us take stock recommendation no one agrees to second then that’s on them
1:16:20
all second okay moved in the seconded
1:16:32
i i believe we should look at the uh you know the design
1:16:38
needs to another look so you’ve uh moved and seconded so let’s have a roll call
1:16:43
that’s one more carly can i ask for clarification i mean that approving the sale
1:16:50
and the following the the dates provided in the presentation
1:16:57
don’t obviate the request to bring the design back to us for
1:17:04
review at some later date does it well let’s let’s just be clear
1:17:09
that wasn’t if you we have let’s ask staff but if we were approved staff
1:17:15
recommendations as is it’s not coming back
1:17:20
that’s correct if you approve the recommendation uh staff would work with the applicant on the final design and it
1:17:27
would move forward with the identified schedule right so that’s why i’m a little confused councilmember carlin because you
1:17:33
said you wanted to see the design and now you’re moving it without reviewing the design so i don’t know which way we’re going here
1:17:40
good question i was confused as well so i okay so the way the staff
1:17:45
recommendation we wouldn’t see it again is that right that’s right
1:17:55
well i don’t know what we do at this point well you can withdraw your second
1:18:00
or we can vote and you can vote no i got kicked out so i missed what
1:18:06
happened we need to
1:18:14
well i was confused about uh what we were considering
1:18:20
um i thought that approving the sale by the end of the year to me that was the important thing
1:18:26
um if if i may um yes please pardon me sorry um thank you councilmember um i think as
1:18:34
paul mentioned uh the key date is to be able to complete the sale um
1:18:39
by the end of the year as you mentioned the agreement the amendment authorizes
1:18:44
the city manager to modify the other dates um so the deadlines for
1:18:52
the applicant to submit to get a design approval and to submit
1:18:58
um building plans that reflect that design approval
1:19:04
so i think under the current agreement it would give flexibility to the applicant too so if if there was
1:19:10
additional design review that the council wanted then we would still under the
1:19:17
proposed agreement be able to be flexible i think with those particular dates um and potentially
1:19:25
depending on the level of review move them past the sale date but the sale date is is
1:19:30
the critical path here so um being able to move forward as is with
1:19:36
the sale date um of december 31st approved would be
1:19:41
um i think critical for the applicant for the buyer right so here’s
1:19:46
my recommendation is that we do that we approve moving forward with the sale
1:19:51
date and we make it crystal clear we’re talking about this coming back for
1:19:57
design review and if we just go with stack recommendations
1:20:03
it’s not required so council member carly you’ve got i believe you have the choice you can withdraw your second or we can proceed
1:20:10
with the vote and you can vote no or you can vote yes depending on what you want to do can he second with an amendment or
1:20:16
do a friendly amendment just so we can make this go faster well that’s what i was asking for in the
1:20:22
first place so let’s just do you both want to withdraw your
1:20:28
first and second then we’ll start okay yes
1:20:34
i will withdraw my first and re-first that move that we go with stack
1:20:39
recommendation i don’t think it needs to come back to us i don’t need i think it needs to have a big public comment
1:20:44
period i think we should let planning commission do that if necessary and people can
1:20:50
explain commission if they need to um i just don’t want to get in the habit of us continuing to delay projects
1:20:56
because we’re getting really picky about stuff so that makes sense right okay so you’re moving
1:21:04
staff recommendations with the caveat the design pass through the planning commission
1:21:10
yes but that doesn’t need to come back to us that’s fine
1:21:16
so is there a second yeah a second
1:21:22
okay council member monroe i just wasn’t sure how fast
1:21:28
councilmember carling was going to second but he did so okay can we have a uh roll call please
1:21:35
thanks member carly all right councilmember kick hi councilmember monroe
1:21:46
unanimously okay um we’re on to um
1:21:52
i think one of the main events 6.3 hearing to consider a request for a site
1:21:59
plan design review investing tentative track map to develop the northeast corner of portola avenue and collier
1:22:06
canyon road which would implement the isabel neighborhood specific plan we have staff presentation please
1:22:12
yes good evening once again honorable mayor warner members of the city council this is mariana maruscheva your city
1:22:19
manager item 6.3 will be presented by jake potter associate planner
1:22:25
mr potter yes thank you let me just share my screen here
1:22:31
one moment please all right so as described you know good evening mayor and members of city
1:22:36
council we’ll be discussing the shea portola project that does implement the isabel neighborhood specific plan
1:22:45
so by way of background the outreach for the israel neighborhood specific plan began back in 2014
1:22:52
and carried on through public hearings through 2018 and ultimately into 2020
1:22:57
when the city council adopted the final plan and in 2020 the city council made the
1:23:04
decision for land use and density for the entire plant area and the goal here was for a walkable
1:23:10
bikeable transit oriented development you can see here i’m showing the land use plan
1:23:15
for the specific plan and it’s located within the northwest part of the city and it’s about 1100 acres in size
1:23:22
the plan contemplates about 4 000 residential units and tonight’s project is located
1:23:28
here this is known as site 2b within the plant area
1:23:34
so zooming into the specific project site it’s about 13 acres in size located at
1:23:40
the corner of collier canyon road and portola avenue there is the existing montage residential community to the north
1:23:47
and the overall project proposes 299 total units that consists of 89 condominium units
1:23:54
for sale on the western side of the site and 210 for rent luxury apartments on the
1:24:00
eastern side of the site the condominium units consist of individual floor plans from
1:24:06
about 1 600 feet in size to 2 400 feet in size while the luxury apartments consist of
1:24:12
units from about 700 to 1300. feet in square feet in size
1:24:19
now the project is similar in height to the montage sort of community to the north both exhibiting three-story
1:24:25
development and it is of a similar density near 25 billion units an acre
1:24:31
you can see primary access for this proposed site plan occurs off of portola avenue here at a new signalized
1:24:37
intersection with secondary access at the northeast corner along dovecote lane
1:24:43
and emergency vehicle access as well on dovecote lane other features of the site include
1:24:48
parklets scattered throughout the project and a central pool deck area for the apartment side of the project
1:24:56
now as stated in the previous slide it’s important to note that city council is operating in its quasi-judicial role this evening again the density and the
1:25:04
land use decision was made back in 2020 and so the council is reviewing this project against the established
1:25:09
standards to make sure that it is in conformance with the specific plan now the design review elements you know
1:25:15
the architecture landscape site design are discretionary in nature that if the city council makes the required findings
1:25:23
then they they may approve however the density bonus portion of the project that we’ll discuss
1:25:29
in a later slide is ministerial and it is a requirement of state law in that if the project meets certain
1:25:36
thresholds then the city council is obligated to approve that portion of the project
1:25:42
now here we’re showing the architecture and the landscape on the left hand side of the screen you’ll see
1:25:48
at the top left the condominium project side and at the bottom left you’ll see
1:25:53
the apartment projects side now both of these individual types are of a contemporary
1:26:00
design as called for by the specific plan and you’ll see a number of plane changes both vertically and horizontally
1:26:06
you’ll see deep window and recesses at the first floor a mix of materials um and pedestrian scaled elements like
1:26:12
porches and balconies now the project also um includes over
1:26:18
400 new trees on site of larger species like oaks and sycamores
1:26:24
double rows of trees along the project frontages and also public art at the corners of the project site
1:26:32
now with respect to housing and affordability when when staff is reviewing uh these residential projects
1:26:38
there are three main categories of affordability requirements the first is there’s a required
1:26:44
percentage of affordable units for each new development and here in the specific plan area it’s
1:26:50
20 so 20 of new units have to be affordable um this project does meet that standard providing 60 total
1:26:57
affordable units the second category is affordability levels in that it has to provide these
1:27:03
units to individuals and families of certain income ranges the project also meets those standards providing to
1:27:09
individuals and families with very low low median and moderate incomes
1:27:14
now the third category is a set of performance measures that make sure that the affordable units are designed in the
1:27:21
same way as the for sale units and the project meets all of those performance measures except for one so
1:27:29
you know it meets the standards with respect to bathroom two-bedroom ratios with respect to
1:27:34
the average number of bedrooms except it does not meet the comparability standard
1:27:41
and that standard and that’s particularly for the condo side of the project and that standard does require that all
1:27:47
floor plans have affordable units in this case there are six floor plans
1:27:53
but the applicant has opted to concentrate all of the affordable units for the condominiums into floor plan one
1:28:00
and normally that does not conform to city standards however the applicant has submitted for
1:28:07
a density bonus provision here to use an incentive or concession to strike
1:28:13
the comparability requirement of the city’s development code so the city did seek concurrence with
1:28:20
the california department of housing and community development and state hcd did find that the
1:28:25
applicant is using uh state density bonus law in a valid way
1:28:31
so in your in your staff report packet you’ll find the required uh state
1:28:36
findings for density bonus and staff has been able to make those findings and again
1:28:42
for that reason you know the approval of this particular density bonus incentive concession is
1:28:48
ministerial in nature
1:28:53
now the project does also include a number of sustainability measures in its operations and construction
1:28:59
in fact all irrigated surfaces and landscaped areas will be will utilize recycled water so the
1:29:05
purple pipe the project is located nearby a bus stop on the 30r line
1:29:11
providing alternative modes of transit the project does provide solar panels
1:29:16
on rooftop areas and on canopies and also provides electric vehicle chargers
1:29:24
and with respect to um public engagement staff did hold a neighborhood meeting um
1:29:30
prior to the planning commission meeting and approximately 45 members of the public um from the montage community attended
1:29:37
and expressed concerns with the development about the same number of residents attended the planning commission meeting
1:29:42
as well and expressed the same concerns and as you can see on the screen the primary concerns were
1:29:47
inadequate parking the apartments and affordability levels on site build quality and the city’s public
1:29:54
engagement process now the planning commission heard the concerns and at the planning commission
1:29:59
meeting unanimously recommended that the city council approve the project
1:30:05
the planning commission did include four new conditions of approval with respect to design related to trees pedestrian
1:30:11
connections and wall softening now subsequent to the neighborhood meeting and the planning commission
1:30:17
meeting and in response to neighborhood concerns staff is recommending an additional
1:30:22
condition of approval that would add street parking to the project frontages
1:30:27
now the street parking would be provided in addition to the bike lane the separated bike lane the cars would
1:30:33
function as the delineator between traffic um and the bikes and there would
1:30:38
also be included uh tree wells as well and you know this would only be in locations that the city engineer determines to be
1:30:46
to be safe so you’ll find that additional condition in your meeting packet this evening
1:30:53
now ultimately the project does provide about 300 new units to the city with a range of configurations and sizes
1:31:01
different ownership options rental options in addition to 60 affordable units as we discussed there’ll be over 400 new
1:31:07
trees a new bike lane along the frontage there’ll be parklets throughout
1:31:13
there’ll be again the solar and electric vehicle chargers and the plan is consistent or the
1:31:19
project is consistent with the general plan these will neighborhood specific plan the climate action plan the active
1:31:25
transportation plan and the airport land use compatibility plan and it’s for those reasons that the planning
1:31:31
commission and staff recommend the city council find the projects exempt under seqa and approve
1:31:36
the project so that concludes my presentation but first i believe the applicant would like to share a few words
1:31:48
uh thank you jake i appreciate the um very well put together staff report uh
1:31:53
just as a audio check can can you all hear me
1:32:02
okay great thank you um so uh mr mayor and city council my name is david best i’m with shea
1:32:08
homes we’re the applicant for this project and i appreciate your time tonight to go through and look and look at our
1:32:14
project i don’t know if it’s possible to share my screen
1:32:19
or not
1:32:24
if that’s not possible then we can do without it certainly um but uh just just as a a quick reminder
1:32:32
of the history of shea and this section of the city um back in the early 90s or late 90s rather
1:32:40
shea owned property uh in what is now the isabelle specific plan quite a bit of that property and
1:32:46
and we’ve been developing it over the years several community benefits have been come from
1:32:52
that we’ve dedicated 29 acres of hillside open space um kind of on the north east corner of the
1:32:59
isabelle plan we could we built cayetano park which is a 10 acre public park
1:33:04
we dedicated around 20 acres of land for the isabel avenue interchange project land on the
1:33:12
north side of the freeway that was necessary to construct that that interchange and get traffic off of
1:33:18
highway 84 off of the downtown so we can have our beautiful downtown the way it is today
1:33:24
we also dedicated uh quite a bit of land down the cayetano creek which runs
1:33:30
through the isabelle specific plan and that was land previously owned by shea and we’ve dedicated permanently
1:33:35
conservative amusement in in 2015 we built a secondary access road to
1:33:42
las pozita’s college so that they could continue with their expansion
1:33:48
in the early part of the century in the 2000s and and on today i think they’re
1:33:54
still moving through with expanding that expanding the college so we’ve been here for quite a while um
1:34:00
we built the sage project and the montage project um and uh
1:34:06
um we are uh now coming through with the second to last piece of residential
1:34:11
property that we own here and um uh like
1:34:17
jake um alluded to and his staff report were this is a great project it’s got a
1:34:22
lot of sustainable pieces to it that we’re going to go all electric voluntarily so the we won’t be
1:34:29
plumbing natural gas into this community all the appliances will be electric we’re going to have solar on every roof
1:34:35
we’re going to be in compliance with the 2022 california energy code which is a very
1:34:41
uh requires buildings to be very energy efficient we’re also providing quite a bit of
1:34:47
affordable housing um as as jake showed in his staff report and we’re going to be constructing an
1:34:54
apartment complex here which we think is somewhat desperately needed in the city um the last time an
1:35:00
apartment complex was built other than a couple that i think are in the in the hopper right now
1:35:05
was easily 15 or 20 years ago so we think it’s a great project and we’re really excited to move forward and
1:35:12
uh we’re here to answer any questions if you haven’t thanks for your time
1:35:17
okay thank you at this point i’ll open the public hearing is there anyone who wishes to address us on this item
1:35:28
yes mayor there are three requests to speak the first is from yolanda meter followed
1:35:34
by jeff caskey and matt ontario bill on the meter please don’t meet yourself
1:35:44
uh this is yolanda miter a resident of the montage community since 2012.
1:35:50
i have concerns regarding the proposed shade development on portola avenue one the entrance exit onto dubcot
1:35:58
will cause major traffic congestion at the intersections of dovecot and montage drive
1:36:04
drivers going from dovecot to helicon wanting to get to collier canyon there is an entrance access only
1:36:12
we see drivers not turning around and use the entrance as an exit
1:36:18
this is going to add to already a hazardous situation is it possible to have portola avenue as
1:36:25
their only entrance exit or have an entrance exit on the upper
1:36:31
portion of the new development onto collier canyon i have discussed these concerns both
1:36:38
with jake parder and stephen riley the principal planner number two
1:36:43
install a tubular fence for separation of properties tubular fencing is attractive and prevents people
1:36:50
from the new development to park in the guest parking and also easy access
1:36:55
through the landscaping into the montage community parking in montage is a huge
1:37:02
problem number three at a total we do know what residents
1:37:07
from the new development and that would be the apartments and condos utilizing
1:37:12
montage community tot lot the usage of the residents of the new development
1:37:18
will put the burden on the montage homeowner association for the repair cost and maintenance and again adding to
1:37:25
our parking problems thank you
1:37:30
the next speaker is jeff caskey followed by ontario jeff caskey please don’t meet
1:37:35
yourself good evening uh council and staff
1:37:42
um this actually this looks like a a great plan from shea and i we appreciate the work that shea puts into
1:37:49
these these developments i having gone through the packet quickly i i did not see
1:37:55
any um hillside views we frequently talk about the dublinization
1:38:00
and you know don’t want to speak too poorly of our neighbors to the west but i would it would be good if we could see how the
1:38:07
development affects views both from montage and from the freeway
1:38:13
was that in the packet did i miss it or can we get a look at what these um uh kind of three or three and a half story
1:38:19
buildings will do to our view views thank you
1:38:27
mayor this time there are no requests to speak okay thank you i’ll close the public hearing does staff wish to address any
1:38:34
of the comments we heard in the public hearing
1:38:46
mr mayor it doesn’t seem that staff has any additional comment at this time thank you
1:38:52
okay thank you now i i see someone has their hand
1:38:59
raised but they had it earlier than it dropped out and i was just and just in case was there a technical
1:39:04
problem there or like i’m i’m willing um
1:39:11
well let’s uh okay now i have an opportunity to unmute
1:39:17
sorry i didn’t have the uh opportunity to unmute myself and ask a question earlier
1:39:23
or make a public comment that’s on the 6.3 right
1:39:30
yes yes um uh i would like to uh second um the sentiment that this is a great
1:39:36
development um i’ve been resident of levermore since 2015. it’s uh gotten more and more
1:39:43
expensive to live here um and uh i’m i’m a millennial and like
1:39:49
many of our millennial friends were seeing ourselves being basically priced out out of having families and living in
1:39:55
livermore and i want the city council to cons to keep that in mind whenever they’re
1:40:01
considering new development which is always welcome because it puts down pressure
1:40:07
on prices specific to development i would like to
1:40:12
see the protected bike lanes eventually extended down portola and over the highway
1:40:21
uh that would definitely improve uh safety for cyclists and finally i will
1:40:27
end with um i would like the city council to also think about what is the use
1:40:33
and um really the democratic nature of the so-called neighborhood impact inputs i
1:40:39
i’ve been i’ve been um to several of these sessions myself and i’ve seen the
1:40:45
results of them and they always seem to come back the same which is there’s a handful of usually wealthy and
1:40:52
older residents that show up and demand more parking uh this is not at all representative of the needs of the
1:40:59
livermore city as a whole um and it’s i just call into question
1:41:05
the whole nature of seeking quote-unquote neighborhood input when it always comes back the same which is
1:41:11
we want more free parking um that’s that’s all i got to say thank you very much
1:41:18
okay thank you the okay the public hearing is now closed uh and i’ll bring it back to the council
1:41:23
for a deliberation council member kick a couple questions for staff about one
1:41:32
of the added british provisions adding some extra parking on collier and
1:41:38
portola um i understand just as the previous commenter mentioned that
1:41:46
oftentimes people in my generation don’t do a great job showing up at those
1:41:51
public comments and we generally don’t ask for more parking we generally ask um for cheaper housing
1:41:57
so uh i am just want to make sure that we never compromise our um bike plan in
1:42:05
order to add more parking um are we able to ensure
1:42:11
that no matter what parking we add our bike plan will stay the same and that if
1:42:16
for some reason a bike lane does not fit as if um it was guesstimated that it will right
1:42:22
now once we do like a full design review that it will be up to the discretion of the city engineer to change where that
1:42:30
parking is the number of units um parking spaces et cetera
1:42:36
this is paul spencer community director and yes we will ensure that the bike
1:42:42
lane uh is an incorporated part of the project and parking will only be added where it can be safely incorporated and
1:42:49
where it doesn’t impact the bike lane or other amenities so we’re not making any specific promises um about exactly what or where
1:42:57
it’s that we are looking into it as staff and that the city engineer will make that determination at the staff
1:43:02
level that’s correct our preliminary analysis uh is is that we’ll be able to include it
1:43:09
in certain areas but you’re exactly correct okay thank you appreciate that
1:43:15
councilmember monroe i wanted to appreciate the presentation a great deal i thought it was very clear
1:43:22
i thought it addressed the issues uh raised by
1:43:28
constituents as well as the need for this project i’ve been watching this i’ve had the
1:43:35
privilege of participating in approving the isabelle project as as a
1:43:41
whole is a very exciting way to move forward in creating whole communities as
1:43:47
part of wholes you know as one piece of a whole city in ways that are
1:43:53
that are responsive to a variety of residents and potential residents
1:44:00
so this is really exciting to see this first development come forward
1:44:05
i would uh agree with uh council member kik in terms of ensuring that
1:44:11
um we are paying attention to multiple modes of transportation as we go forward i’m going to say that a little bit more
1:44:17
broadly than you did council member kick but you know it’s that’s what we’re looking for is that all
1:44:24
everybody can can um get from one place to another
1:44:30
um and um i did want to uh pursue the one question of uh
1:44:37
entry exits and the nature of traffic uh this is a frequent comment
1:44:42
when developments come forward but it is um it’s it’s a natural concern if you could
1:44:48
speak to that i would i would appreciate it yeah absolutely um so the project is
1:44:55
relying on the environmental impact report that was prepared uh with the isabel neighborhood specific plan
1:45:01
and that particular environment environmental impact report found that there’d be no significant
1:45:06
traffic impacts in this area and in addition the proposed development is at a lower
1:45:13
intensity than contemplated by that eir and so um you know traffic impacts would
1:45:19
be even lower than um than disclosed and discussed in the eir that sounds great if you could be you
1:45:26
know so could you be a little more specific in terms of no i mean that’s not what it feels like to residents i i believe you
1:45:33
i do um but if you could be a little bit more specific about why that those there won’t be those impacts that people
1:45:40
believe there will be yeah absolutely and so um you know in
1:45:46
general terms uh during a traffic analysis you know you’ll sort of the discussion will be based around the
1:45:52
number of trips generated by you know the certain number of residential units um and so you know there’s calculations
1:45:59
done as to how many trips would go in and out of this particular development
1:46:04
and the eir has stated that you know there wouldn’t be any significant impacts or
1:46:11
set it another way sort of delays to traffic um in this area so i don’t know
1:46:16
if our city engineer has anything to add to that conversation
1:46:22
hi this is bob vigner city engineer and just to go in a little bit deeper in the
1:46:29
detail the eir forecasts traffic volumes at the
1:46:36
intersections around the isabel neighborhood plan including the portolan montage drive
1:46:41
intersection and it looked at traffic from the existing uses and the
1:46:49
proposed future uses and uh it showed that the traffic using
1:46:55
montage drive is is well below um the amount of cars that a
1:47:03
local street like that can handle it’s showing you know peak hour volumes in the
1:47:08
neighborhood of 100 vehicles per hour and that’s very low so
1:47:14
um if you look at the site plan and how the roads connect up there may be
1:47:19
some people that do come out through the montage street to get to
1:47:25
montage drive but it’s probably a lot quicker for a majority of the residents in this new development to head south
1:47:32
straight to portola and and get on that way so i don’t expect
1:47:39
um a lot of traffic from this new development to enter montage at all
1:47:44
thank you i really appreciate the clarification
1:47:50
councilmember carling yes thank you i find this to be an exciting project i look forward to
1:47:57
its uh development and completion i just wanted to point out to the folks that have had some concerns
1:48:04
uh principally from montage i know we’ve gotten some emails from folks and i know that they’re expressed some
1:48:11
concern about the planning commission meeting i watched
1:48:17
nearly all of the planning commission meeting where this was discussed and
1:48:23
heard and saw that the planning commissioners did acknowledge the concerns that the
1:48:30
montage residents had and i think they addressed it appropriately
1:48:36
i appreciate the the slide jake that you had on
1:48:42
reminding us what some of the concerns were and some of the resolutions i do
1:48:47
also applaud the planning commission on terms of increasing the number of street trees as
1:48:54
well as the size of some of them i i don’t remember the exact number but they’re taking down a dozen or a couple
1:49:01
dozen and actually going to plant over 400 trees so i think that is commendable
1:49:07
i also appreciate the developer and with all the all electric uh appliances
1:49:15
uh no gas appliances that certainly speaks to what we’re uh going to focus on here on our climate
1:49:22
action plan appreciate the solar on rooftops and so on um
1:49:29
i also read the street parking i was interested in that i’m glad that the staff took it upon themselves to figure
1:49:34
out uh after hearing the concerns from the montage people about street parking
1:49:39
came up with i think a workable solution not only providing you know
1:49:45
bike safety uh but also additional street parking i appreciate uh council member kick’s concern as to
1:49:52
not to compromise bike safety and i don’t think they have based on at least what i’ve read and i
1:49:58
assume that the staff will continue to monitor that i i find it’s exciting project
1:50:06
all the affordable units i think are just terrific and i think it’s going to be a very nice addition
1:50:12
and another another sort of addition to the
1:50:18
isabel plan so i appreciate all the work on this and look forward to approving it
1:50:23
tonight thank you well thank you uh following uh all my fellow council
1:50:30
members i don’t have too much more to add i thought what councilmember carling said was really very thorough
1:50:36
and i second all of my council members comments in on balance i think this is a well
1:50:42
thought out project it’s uh i appreciate the developer uh working with staff
1:50:48
and listening to the community and the comments from the planning commission and coming up with a
1:50:54
project that pretty well meets all of the things we’re trying to do and i just say in
1:51:00
general isabel neighborhood specific plan is very important and i’m glad to see this project is getting us off to a good
1:51:07
start uh with anybody any further comments or emotion
1:51:14
councilmember carlin i’ll move staff recommendations
1:51:19
councilmember monroe and i’ll second it okay moved in second in any further uh
1:51:24
conversation if not can we have a roll call please let’s remember carly hi councilmember
1:51:31
kate hi councilmember monroe hi vice mayor bonanno is absent for the
1:51:37
record and mayor warner hi passes uh unanimously
1:51:42
so i i think we’ll uh we’re now on to item uh 7.1
1:51:48
and i think this will be the last item we take before we with a break and
1:51:54
this is a resolution authorizing the city manager to purchase renewable 100
1:51:59
which contains 100 renewable electricity from solar and wind sources in california
1:52:04
as the default electricity product for livermore’s municipal east bay community
1:52:10
energy accounts now i’d just like to point out i’m going in the light of potential financial
1:52:16
conflict of interest i’m going to recuse myself from participating on this item and i’m going to do so by turning off my
1:52:22
camera and microphone i will rejoin the meeting when this item has concluded and
1:52:28
to take us to a break so we go on to staff presentation now and i’ll be absent
1:52:37
honorable uh mayor um now absent and members of the city council this is your
1:52:42
city manager mariana marshawn item 7.1 will be presented by trisha ponto senior
1:52:49
planner miss pinto thank you mariana good evening mayor and
1:52:55
formerly mayor and city council members the item before you tonight is a decision to enroll municipal east bay
1:53:02
community energy accounts into the renewable 100 service option the city currently receives electricity from east
1:53:09
bay community energy and we are enrolled in the bright choice service option um but first i want to introduce you to
1:53:16
our climate action plan intern sarah ansel she’s been working with us this summer to move forward a number of our
1:53:22
climate action efforts including this project she’s going to walk you through the
1:53:27
presentation for this item and then we will all be available for questions
1:53:33
good evening mayor and members of the city council east bay community oh next slide please first
1:53:41
good evening mayor members of the city council east bay community energy known as ebce
1:53:47
is a joint powers authority that serves to provide more renewable energy than pg e at competitive rates for customers in
1:53:53
alameda county and the city of tracy and this includes the city of livermore ebce
1:53:58
purchases electricity while pg e delivers power maintains the grid and bills consumers
1:54:05
next slide when ebce started it offered three
1:54:10
energy options for customers to choose from right choice which offered a higher renewable energy content compared to pg
1:54:17
e at a lower rate brilliant brilliant 100 which offered 100 carbon free energy at the same rate
1:54:24
as pg e and renewable 100 which offered 100 renewable energy at a slight premium
1:54:30
over pg e rates renewable energy is carbon free but also naturally replenishable including sources such as
1:54:37
solar and wind next slide the city was a founding member of ebce
1:54:44
in 2016 and started receiving energy in 2018. municipal and count municipal
1:54:50
accounts which include all electricity accounts that are paid for by the city were originally enrolled in bright
1:54:56
choice in 2019 the city council voted to enroll municipal accounts into brilliant one
1:55:03
in 2021 the ebce board voted to phase out nuclear power as a carbon-free energy
1:55:09
source and could no longer offer brilliant 100 at price parity to pg e
1:55:14
as a result brilliant 100 was discontinued at the end of 2021 any accounts on brilliant 100
1:55:21
automatically reverted back to bright choice unless a request was made to enroll them in renewable 100.
1:55:27
because the city did not request to enroll in renewable 100 municipal accounts reverted back to bright choice
1:55:33
on january 1st of this year next slide
1:55:38
today we are currently using the bright choice option bright choice provides approximately 60
1:55:44
carbon free energy and a three percent discount to pg e rates this is less carbon free energy than it
1:55:50
was offered previously due to the recent loss in nuclear power as a carbon-free energy source
1:55:56
based on the city’s 2020-1 2021 electricity usage the 3 discount will
1:56:02
result in approximately 26 000 dollars of savings per year over pg e
1:56:08
in comparison pg e reported 92 carbon free energy in 2021 alternatively
1:56:15
renewable 100 continues to be 100 renewable electricity from solar and wind in california
1:56:21
it is offered at a three-fourths of a cent premium over per kilowatt hour over pg e’s rates this will result in
1:56:28
approximately seven seventy thousand dollars in increased spending over pg e annually
1:56:35
staff is recommending that the city of livermore opt up municipal accounts to renewable 100
1:56:41
next slide there are several benefits of enrolling municipal account accounts in renewable
1:56:48

100. it will completely decarbonize municipal electricity which is a major component
     1:56:53
     of the climate action plan update and will result in gh greenhouse gas emissions and progress towards in sorry
     1:57:00
     would result in greenhouse gas reductions and progress toward the state and cap goal of carbon neutrality by
     1:57:06
101. it is also an opportunity for the city to lead by example and take tangible
     1:57:12
     actions locally to address climate change additionally ebce invests its revenues
     1:57:18
     back into local programs to expand clean energy and energy resilience the city has already benefited from
     1:57:25
     these local programs including the new electric vehicle charging hub that ebce
     1:57:30
     is installing downtown the city is also pursuing upcoming ebce
     1:57:36
     programs to elect your fire municipal fleet and install solar energy with battery backup at critical municipal
     1:57:42
     facilities next slide stack staff recommends the city council
     1:57:49
     adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to purchase renewable 100 as the
     1:57:54
     default electricity product for livermore’s municipal east bay community energy accounts
     1:58:00
     this concludes staff presentation and we are available for questions ebc east staff are also participating in
     1:58:06
     the meeting and are also available for questions thank you
     1:58:23
     i’m going to jump in because our council members this is your city attorney you do not have a mayor to preside over
     1:58:30
     this portion of the meeting nor do you have a vice mayor i would call upon one of you remaining
     1:58:35
     to take on that role for the rest of this item can you do that please trish
     1:58:41
     um given that i am the representative on council 2 ebce and this is something
     1:58:47
     that i’ve been waiting for with great anticipation um i would be happy to do that
     1:58:54
     so uh that suits everyone else um i will go for it yes
     1:59:00
     councilmember carling you’re okay with that sure okay all right then um i will call for
     1:59:07
     public comment uh city clerk do we have public comment at this time
     1:59:14
     yes councilmember monroe there are two requests to speak the first is from alan marling followed by matt ontario
     1:59:21
     helen marling please don’t meet yourself hello
     1:59:27
     council members i’m in favor of this project and i’d like to see more like it further i believe that nuclear energy
     1:59:33
     should be part of the green energy portfolio thank you
     1:59:40
     the next speaker is matt ontario please unmute yourself
     1:59:47
     um yeah hello i uh i actually think that we shouldn’t go to the 100
     1:59:54
     renewable plan uh precisely because evce um dropped nuclear from its mix you
     2:00:01
     cannot call yourself um you know a serious environmental
     2:00:08
     uh organization by taking out nuclear uh from the mix so if the city has a choice
     2:00:15
     on which plan to go with it should probably revert back to pg e um
     2:00:20
     and that’s it next speaker is carl wendy followed by
     2:00:26
     ben barientos carl wintee please then meet yourself
     2:00:34
     good evening everybody carl wendy i just want to take another opportunity to say thank you all for what you do what a
     2:00:40
     great worthy discussion and uh not myself i am not educated enough to have
     2:00:47
     a point of view other than to know and my generation our generation we the
     2:00:53
     people know how important this discussion is in terms of how we look towards the future as a community so for
     2:01:00
     those that know those that care those that educate themselves on this to continue to come forward for good
     2:01:06
     rational pragmatic decisions for our community our species going forward
     2:01:12
     those that lean in on it i salute you that’s all
     2:01:19
     next speaker is ben varientos
     2:01:27
     hi um thank you i think it’s a good idea i think it’s forward-thinking i think we should also
     2:01:34
     encourage the company to go look at nuclear because it’s they’re coming up with new inventions and new
     2:01:40
     ways of a smaller system that’s uh safer and uh
     2:01:46
     you know if you compare nuclear and accidents that happen with it’s very very minimal compared to coal
     2:01:54
     and the oil petroleum industry the thousands die and maybe millions
     2:02:02
     with the pollution that occurred with carbon and all that so i think it’s a good idea i think it’s forward thinking
     2:02:08
     i uh applaud the city council and we i hope we encourage that company to
     2:02:16
     start looking at nuclear too
     2:02:23
     i’m done council member monroe there normal request this week okay um
     2:02:29
     so i would like to address the uh nuclear issue before we move on
     2:02:34
     and i’m wondering uh i’m not quite sure the best way to do that this is something that i’ve
     2:02:40
     observed as part of the ebce board but i also know that we have alex
     2:02:46
     giorgio here from edce uh i’m not sure whether uh
     2:02:51
     could somebody please direct me as to who would be the best person to address those questions
     2:02:57
     the manager city attorney help ms bentel or mr spence
     2:03:04
     who would be the best person to answer this question stop for representative
     2:03:13
     this is paul spence your community director i would suggest that we ask the evce representative to
     2:03:20
     provide us with some feedback on the removal of nuclear thank you all right then i would ask
     2:03:26
     that to be the case uh we could admit uh mr jordan you did
     2:03:31
     georgio i i’m really sorry i’m i must be mangling your name
     2:03:36
     that’s quite all right can can anyone hear me
     2:03:42
     great thanks good evening council members again director monroe members of the public yes on the
     2:03:48
     question of nuclear power uh ebce was offered
     2:03:54
     an allocation of the existing nuclear power that’s currently generated at
     2:03:59
     diablo canyon and dispatched to the grid the the background on this was that
     2:04:07
     all current electricity customers in pg e service area whether they’re with pg e
     2:04:13
     or they’re with a community choice energy program like ours they all
     2:04:18
     have to pay for the nuclear power that’s being generated by diablo canyon it’s
     2:04:23
     it’s a legacy contract and so our customers are already paying for
     2:04:28
     that it’s actually a line item it’s part of a line item that’s on our bill called the power charge indifference adjustment
     2:04:36
     pci a is the acronym for it and if you look at your bill you’ll you’ll see that there
     2:04:41
     and so the the reasoning of the of of this nuclear allocation was that
     2:04:46
     our our policy team actually led led the effort
     2:04:52
     to make the case before the p the puc that because our customers are currently
     2:04:58
     paying that pcia charge our agency should be entitled to some of
     2:05:03
     the the energy since it’s counted as carbon free nuclear power under california state law does not qualify as
     2:05:09
     renewable power but it but it is uh it is considered carbon free uh
     2:05:14
     and so evce and all of our sister agencies the others the other community choice energy
     2:05:20
     agencies like those in marin and sonoma and and you know san mateo etc
     2:05:27
     we all have the opportunity to accept or reject our share of what diabolo canyon
     2:05:33
     produces and it was a very contentious item before our board and it was it was
     2:05:41
     a very difficult decision for them ultimately
     2:05:46
     the decision by our board was to decline to accept the that nuclear allocation so
     2:05:52
     i just want to be very clear that this this wasn’t about um you know developing any new nuclear resources or even
     2:05:59
     extending the the life of of diablo canyon it is the last operating nuclear
     2:06:05
     power plant in the state of california and it’s scheduled currently to close in 2024 and 2025 although now there is some
     2:06:12
     talk at the state level of in the federal level of of perhaps reconsidering that um
     2:06:18
     but but at the time that our board was considering it um it was just on whether
     2:06:23
     or not to accept that allocation and we declined to accept that allocation each year we can reconsider that decision um
     2:06:30
     but that’s that’s the background there so we we did not accept the the nuclear allocation um and
     2:06:37
     one of the the drawbacks from that is that that’s one of the reasons why pg e now
     2:06:43
     can count such a high carbon free energy content in their portfolio is because
     2:06:49
     some of the agencies like ebz decided to decline our share of the of the nuclear allocation so
     2:06:55
     currently pg e has has the vast majority of it and it helps pg e make the claim that
     2:07:01
     they’re more carbon free when on that portfolio um but on the other hand we do
     2:07:06
     offer our renewable 100 option which is as you know 100 california based wind and solar and and
     2:07:12
     it’s not only carbon free but it’s also 100 renewable so i hope that answers the question i’m happy to follow up if there
     2:07:18
     are other questions uh it answers my questions but then again
     2:07:23
     i’m kind of familiar with this um you’re an expert at this point
     2:07:29
     uh no but there we go um at this point if you would if you could stay on in case there are more questions
     2:07:36
     um and uh council member uh carling uh you’re up
     2:07:41
     yeah i guess i agree with uh a couple of the speakers i’m disappointed that nuclear is not included
     2:07:48
     um but um i do support uh moving to renewable 100 so thank you
     2:07:55
     okay uh council member kick um if i can i would move approval that
     2:08:01
     we go a staff recommendation to move to renewable 100 and i would direct the public commenters to please go make
     2:08:08
     public comment to ebc about this because they get a lot of public comments about why we shouldn’t have nuclear um i used
     2:08:15
     to be the ebc representative but we don’t often hear um from you so feel free to um bring your comments there and
     2:08:22
     then if they change their mind livermore will also have nuclear power in our portfolio as if we vote for this
     2:08:30
     so anyways i made a motion to accept staff recommendation okay i’m i’m going to second that
     2:08:37
     and and i’m going to say that i was going to make that motion because i’m the director but there we go
     2:08:45
     too too much love here um i so i actually um i really appreciate the uh
     2:08:51
     the presentation i thought it was extremely clear i do i am familiar with this so i was watching it with that eye
     2:08:57
     with was this was something that would communicate to people who aren’t as familiar i hope and believe it did
     2:09:03
     i did want to say a word from my own standpoint on the nuclear and just echo what council member kik said
     2:09:09
     which is that i sat through more comments on people explaining to me
     2:09:15
     why nuclear was the worst thing ever then i cared to relate as i said at the
     2:09:22
     last dbce meeting i am still suffering the scars from those meetings
     2:09:28
     and there was a fair bit of misinformation unfortunately the people who spoke here
     2:09:33
     tonight in favor of nuclear were not at those meetings and it’s a real shame because livermore’s response to an
     2:09:40
     understanding of the place of nuclear in the renewable
     2:09:46
     and in the carbon free universe um is very different than um oh just to pick
     2:09:51
     on somebody berkeley’s um so um
     2:09:57
     you know with with that i believe we have a motion on the on the table uh
     2:10:04
     city click could you please call the roll that’s member carly all right councilmember kick
     2:10:10
     hi sponsor monroe hi absent from the record and mayor warner
     2:10:15
     has recused himself due to a conflict of interest
     2:10:23
     okay um we’re now on to our traditional uh break it’s 9 11. let’s come back
     2:10:30
     9 21.
     2:20:23
     here the time is now 9 21. give me 30. do you need to count them in
     2:20:30
     this is mike with tv30 you guys ready yes can you hear me
     2:20:36
     yes and then five
     2:20:42
     four three two one
     2:20:47
     q okay thank you welcome back we’re coming back from our um
     2:20:53
     break we’re now on to uh we just finished 7.1 we’re now on to
     2:20:59
     7.2 a resolution approximate appropriating 25k from the water enterprise fund for
     2:21:06
     participation in the pure water tri-valley portable reuse demonstration project phase two public education and
     2:21:13
     outreach efforts can we have a staff presentation please yes good evening honorable mayor werner
     2:21:19
     and members of the city council this is your city manager mariana marsh
     2:21:24
     item 7.2 will be presented by anthony smith the city’s water resources
     2:21:30
     division manager mr smith thank you mariana good evening mayor and
     2:21:35
     council members this is anthony smith your water resources division manager so tonight
     2:21:43
     sorry sorry about that
     2:21:52
     okay mayor and city council i apologize for
     2:21:59
     technical difficulties that we’re having this evening okay and i and i likewise apologize um so i
     2:22:08
     wanted to give a quick uh history on the the the unofficially titled pure water tri valley project um so potable reuse
     2:22:14
     is the use of highly treated wastewater to supplement pot potable supplies and this can be done either directly or
     2:22:21
     indirectly in 2018 tri-valley water agencies together completed a joint
     2:22:26
     tri-valley potable reuse feasibility study this looked at the feasibility of using
     2:22:32
     this highly treated wastewater to augment supplies in the future in 2021 the pleasanton city council
     2:22:40
     voted to suspend future participation in some of the follow-up studies having to do with groundwater monitoring
     2:22:48
     currently the dublin sand ramone services district has initiated the initial phases of a demonstration project
     2:22:54
     the unofficial title again is the pure water tri-valley project the goal is to understand public perception and
     2:23:00
     determine the feasibility of constructing a future demonstration project the current phase of this
     2:23:05
     project is focusing on public education and outreach right now several different agencies
     2:23:11
     have expressed their intent to partner together for this current phase including dsrsd
     2:23:17
     the union sanitary district the alameda county water district the livermore amador valley water management agency
     2:23:25
     zone 7 water agency and tonight we’re obviously discussing it here
     2:23:31
     the request from dsrsd um is for a the potential partners to contribute up to
     2:23:37
     25 000 to help with the cost of public outreach and education in addition to staff time
     2:23:43
     dsrsd staff currently have no expectation of future participation or future funding
     2:23:48
     and if approved by the council 25 000 would be appropriated from the livermore municipal water enterprise fund
     2:23:57
     that concludes my presentation and we staff are available for questions
     2:24:05
     okay at this point i’ll open a public comment has anybody wish to address this
     2:24:15
     yes mayor there is one request to speak carl winty please don’t meet yourself i i also see uh
     2:24:22
     dan mcintyre as well but okay
     2:24:28
     mr mayor city council and all that care about these critical discussions as well
     2:24:34
     our electrical grids previously and water and how it flows and clean water
     2:24:39
     and rain and the delta and the bypass and the canals and uh aquifer storage and how we manage
     2:24:47
     runoff the central valley project the state water project how it goes and
     2:24:53
     flows um sorry and sorry don’t come up and uh for those that uh lean in and spend time
     2:25:00
     here in this critical space for the good of our society thank you thank you thank
     2:25:06
     you cheers
     2:25:12
     next request is from dan mcintyre please don’t meet yourself hi this is dan mcintyre i’m the general
     2:25:19
     manager at dublin san ramon services district i just wanted to uh augment a little bit of what uh staff made in
     2:25:25
     their presentation so although it’s described as a tri-valley project the uh
     2:25:31
     the partnership here is actually broader than that with some interest by alameda county water district and union sanitary
     2:25:36
     district so it’s really a chance to look at some alternatives and some options uh in a broader framework it’s a small step
     2:25:44
     dsrsd is asking livermore to to become another partner in phase two not only
     2:25:50
     the public outreach but it’s also an opportunity in terms of public outreach and public engagement to solicit input
     2:25:56
     on the kind of information and research and understanding of uh advanced purification of the
     2:26:02
     community both here in the tri-valley and down in the alameda county water district you know what the community
     2:26:08
     might want to know more and better understand you know that process would would take a
     2:26:13
     year or so we’d also look at funding opportunities there’s a lot of federal and state grant opportunities that are
     2:26:19
     available at the current time to fund a phase three project uh the
     2:26:25
     scoping for a phase three project would be developed after input from the public over the next year plus and we come back
     2:26:32
     to the agencies and say would you be interested in this demonstration pilot project
     2:26:37
     actually setting something up uh in 2024 and 2025.
     2:26:44
     um this is building on past work uh here in the tri-valley uh one thing that i would
     2:26:49
     note is uh recycling is important for our water supply i think the tri-valley has done a great job up to now with our
     2:26:56
     recycled water efforts i think we should all pat ourselves in the back in livermore pleasant and dsrsd
     2:27:03
     we’re recycling a third of our wastewater collectively every year and that’s a major contributor to our water
     2:27:09
     supply in the tri-valley the flip side of that though is we’ve developed only a third of our
     2:27:16
     water supply from recycling there’s another two thirds of our supply that’s available as an asset that we can
     2:27:22
     develop and what’s the scale of that think about the amount of water we’re
     2:27:27
     trying to conserve this year in the drought the amount of water that we’re not using that we could recycle in
     2:27:33
     whatever form expanding our purple pipe systems potable reuse other ideas
     2:27:38
     the amount of water that we’re flushing to the bay in a year collectively in the tri-valley is twice what we’re trying to
     2:27:44
     conserve this year so recycling we’ve done a great job in the tri-valley you know with livermore taking the lead in
     2:27:51
     the 80s um and and we should be proud of what we’ve done but there’s more opportunities this
     2:27:56
     is a chance to develop concepts talk some more educate the community get
     2:28:01
     input from the community and dsrsd support staff recommendations and we hope that you’ll participate thank you
     2:28:11
     next speaker is ben barientos please don’t meet yourself
     2:28:17
     hi um i was going to recommend a book by erica
     2:28:24
     god dies it’s called water always winds i think it’s it’d be a good source of
     2:28:29
     people to look at and read and they talk about paleo valleys and
     2:28:36
     natural uh water sorts that we’ve cut ignored yeah and i think we should
     2:28:43
     people should look at it it’s just an eye-opener i’ve been reading it for a couple days now it’s called water always
     2:28:49
     wins that i applaud a little more in what you’re doing to conserve water
     2:29:00
     mayor at this time there are no more requests to speak okay i’ll close the
     2:29:06
     public comment and bring it back to the council for deliberation council member carly
     2:29:12
     yes thanks it wasn’t abundantly clear to me um what you hope to learn
     2:29:19
     with the guess the contributions from these various agencies toward this study
     2:29:26
     is it i i gathered part of it is whether or not you put it back into the aurora
     2:29:31
     creek rather than sending it to the bay is that and the
     2:29:37
     efficacy of that in terms of helping refill the aquifer is that right
     2:29:44
     or am i completely missing the point so this this current phase of the
     2:29:49
     project would um essentially allow us to get out to the
     2:29:55
     public and try to see how people understand the implications of of potable reuse see
     2:30:02
     what kind of information they would need in the future how we can kind of focus and
     2:30:07
     create a an outreach strategy for the future the demonstration project that’s kind of
     2:30:13
     being looked at right now if if it constructed so this phase is not the construction of that demo
     2:30:19
     project but if it gets constructed um that demo project would put water into um
     2:30:27
     into the creek it would go down to the alamico county water district and they would use it for groundwater recharge
     2:30:33
     but that’s that’s kind of the next phase in this this current phase is really focused on public education and outreach
     2:30:40
     and trying to understand how people perceive um and what they would need in order to
     2:30:45
     kind of be convinced in the future convinced of what
     2:30:50
     that this might be a viable option for our future water supply
     2:30:56
     okay thank you councilmember monroe
     2:31:02
     well this um this might be a little tricky but um i think i understand what potable
     2:31:08
     water reuse is um and i think i understand why uh we’re
     2:31:15
     trying to get people’s understand how people can be convinced
     2:31:22
     but um could you explain a little bit in more detail what exactly we’re talking about
     2:31:32
     um so the concept of potable reuse um at its at its most basic you know i
     2:31:38
     look is taking um advanced treated highly treated wastewater
     2:31:44
     and making it available for augmentation of drinking water supplies so the indirect route is perhaps
     2:31:52
     injection into the groundwater basin and then it would get further treated as it gets pulled out of the groundwater
     2:31:58
     basin um direct potable reuse would essentially go straight to a water treatment plant
     2:32:04
     okay so um we know that all the water we drink is actually reused since it’s kind of a
     2:32:12
     cycle there in fact it is a cycle so this is simply making the cycle more
     2:32:19
     um more direct as it were um and yeah um
     2:32:26
     so moving forward on this would enable us to understand people’s understanding of
     2:32:32
     that water cycle and how um what they
     2:32:40
     to use tom lehrer’s phrase the water that uh you flush into the bay
     2:32:45
     they drink for lunch in san jose um a little bit like that
     2:32:53
     uh i would say that that’s accurate yes tom lehrer did have a way with words um
     2:33:00
     um okay thank you very much um i this sounds like a very worthwhile project to
     2:33:05
     help educate and understand where people are coming from
     2:33:11
     okay any further council member kick i
     2:33:17
     would like to make a motion possible to go staff’s recommendation and continue
     2:33:22
     public education and outreach council member monroe
     2:33:27
     uh if it’s all right and you have nothing uh to add i would send that
     2:33:32
     okay motion made and seconded or something we have any absolutely further
     2:33:38
     comment like we have a roll call please that’s remember carlink hi councilmember kik
     2:33:44
     hi councilmember monroe hi this is mayor bonanno is absent for the record and mayor warner
     2:33:51
     hi the passes unanimously you’re on the 7.3 resolution calling for and giving notice
     2:33:57
     of the holding of a general municipal election for the submittal of an initiative entitled south liberal war
     2:34:03
     sewer extension project to the voters in the city of livermore and consolidating that election with the
     2:34:08
     general municipal election to be held tuesday november 8th 2022. we have the
     2:34:13
     staff presentation please yes honorable mayor warner and members of the city
     2:34:19
     council this is mariana marshall your city manager item 7.3 will be presented
     2:34:25
     by our city clerk marie webber miss weber good evening mayor and council members
     2:34:31
     this is your city clerk marie weber the item before you tonight was previously presented to you as the south livermore
     2:34:37
     sewer extension project and the measure entitled south livermore urban growth boundary tonight the item is coming back
     2:34:43
     at your request the amendment directed by the city council has been made and staff is now requesting approval to
     2:34:49
     place the measure on the ballot and ask that the city council determine whether they would like to appoint a subcommittee to prepare the ballot
     2:34:55
     argument and rebuttal or defer the argument in favor of the measure to tri valley conservancy as a bona fide
     2:35:01
     proponent for the measure you can see staff recommendation before
     2:35:06
     you and with that i am available for questions okay before we go there i’ll open the public
     2:35:13
     comment do we have anybody who wishes to address us yes mayor there are three requests to
     2:35:19
     speak at this time the first request is from carl wendy followed by lori souza and asa stroup
     2:35:28
     carl went please and meet yourself
     2:35:36
     with apologies my hand was up from a previous item i never took it down
     2:35:44
     the next speaker is lori souza followed by asa stroud and nancy mulligan lori souza please don’t meet yourself
     2:35:55
     good evening mayor warner and city council and city staff i’m lori souza i’m chair of the board for the tri
     2:36:00
     valley conservancy and i just wanted to reassure you that we are prepared to do our part to prepare the ballot argument
     2:36:07
     and rebuttal argument or defer argument in favor of the measure thank you
     2:36:17
     the next speaker is asus drought followed by nancy mulligan aces draw please and meet yourself
     2:36:26
     i thank you mayor council staff for letting us comment on this item before
     2:36:32
     any legislative actions are taken you know this is a good opportunity for anyone
     2:36:39
     within the city to have their say on how we as a city make decisions before we
     2:36:45
     begin executing on those decisions so i wanted to say thanks for bringing this forward to the public so that you know we can get a
     2:36:52
     head start on this sort of discussion sooner rather than later thank you
     2:37:03
     mayor at this time there an only request to speak okay i’ll close the public comment bring it back to the council for deliberation
     2:37:13
     any uh council member carly
     2:37:20
     yes thank you i support this action uh would move approval of staff recommendation
     2:37:27
     and suggest that tri-valley conservancy prepare the
     2:37:33
     argument in favor of the measure and the re and the rebuttal
     2:37:38
     okay i’ll second that uh so it’s moved and seconded are any uh
     2:37:44
     further comment on the item if not we have a roll call please
     2:37:51
     counsel member carly hi councilmember kid aye councilmember monroe aye ms mayor
     2:37:58
     bonanno unanimously
     2:38:04
     okay so at this point we’re now going to uh return to uh citizens forum
     2:38:10
     and uh pretty for the city council rules of procedure we will now continue the citizens forum portion
     2:38:16
     of the agenda before we continue with the public comments i believe the city attorney
     2:38:22
     would like to provide some information mr city attorney thank you mr mayor this is jason alcala
     2:38:28
     and i’m your city attorney i just wanted to briefly provide some information about the petition
     2:38:33
     and about referendum law in response to some of the speaker comments made this evening
     2:38:38
     referendum law is clear if they petition challenges a legislative act
     2:38:43
     then it can be processed as a referendum however if a petition challenges a
     2:38:48
     non-legislative act then the petition has no right to be able to proceed
     2:38:54
     the reason for this distinction is clear if non-legislative acts were subject to referendum
     2:39:00
     then every decision and action by the city council could become mired in politics designed to distract the city
     2:39:05
     council from focusing on its business or to interfere with or delay the city’s implementation of the council’s prior
     2:39:12
     legislative acts this is so because unlike an initiative that proposes new legislation a
     2:39:19
     referendum is intended to repeal legislation here the petition challenged resolution
     2:39:26
     2022-085 which approved an amendment to an agreement to sell property
     2:39:32
     the original agreement between the parties was approved in 2018 and that agreement implements prior
     2:39:37
     legislative acts that occurred well before that for the development of the property as affordable housing
     2:39:43
     that resolution does not contain any new legislation courts have determined that a city clerk
     2:39:50
     as the elections official is not required to process a petition as a referendum when it challenges a
     2:39:56
     non-legislative act specifically courts have held that the clerk cannot be compelled to process the
     2:40:02
     petitions and the courts have also held that the city council’s approval of an agreement to sell property is not subject to
     2:40:09
     referendum now while performing her duties as a city’s elections official the city clerk
     2:40:15
     is a constitutional officer in that capacity she acts independent from the city council
     2:40:22
     her duty is to the voters her duty is to ensure their rights are upheld and respected
     2:40:28
     it is also her duty to ensure the voters are not manipulated or misled
     2:40:33
     here the city clerk declined to process the petition as a referendum so that her office is not used to further mislead
     2:40:39
     the voters about the nature of the resolution she must stay above the fray and avoid politics
     2:40:45
     as such the city council does not have a role in her decision i hope the remaining speakers find this
     2:40:50
     information helpful that concludes my comments
     2:40:58
     thank you see clerk could we now proceed with the remainder of those
     2:41:03
     who wish to address us on citizens forum
     2:41:08
     yes mayor at this time there are eight requests to speak the first request is from doug mann
     2:41:14
     followed by yolanda vince checkmo and jeff caskey doug mann please don’t
     2:41:20
     meet yourself regarding your city clerk’s refusal to
     2:41:26
     submit the move eden housing petitions to the county this was her mike pence
     2:41:32
     moment and she blew it as we know uh the vice president during
     2:41:38
     the during that election counted the votes and ignored fake electors
     2:41:44
     our city clerk received the posit the petitions but refused to do her duty and accepted the fake objection prepared by
     2:41:52
     her discredited city attorney i was one of the people who presented
     2:41:57
     the signatures to her on that friday and she told me directly that they would be delivered to the county the following
     2:42:03
     tuesday or wednesday failing to advance the move eden housing petitions is illegal
     2:42:09
     making quasi-judicial evaluations as your city attorney seems to want her
     2:42:16
     to do is prohibited by law and look the thing is the relevant case law comes
     2:42:21
     from right next door in pleasanton in a published appellate court case from when jennifer lynn sued caiala this stuff’s
     2:42:28
     not hard to find remember our pretty our previous city clerk sarah bunting
     2:42:34
     she did something similar she was pressured into filing a frivolous lawsuit against the
     2:42:39
     residents having to do with another downtown ballot action the council didn’t like
     2:42:44
     after probably realizing that she’d never be able to redeem herself or rebuild trust she followed up with the
     2:42:50
     only ethical action a person with integrity could have taken she resigned
     2:42:57
     this is also the first major test of your new city manager and i’ll be watching what she does
     2:43:02
     but here’s the thing you still have six more chances to get your mike pence dilemma right
     2:43:09
     five of them are you the council the sixth is your new city manager and
     2:43:15
     she can reverse this without asking you but she’s at a disadvantage because i
     2:43:20
     doubt you let her know during her interview process that she would have to contend with a city attorney who
     2:43:26
     chronically gives very poor legal advice and that she would need to double check every opinion he gave her and look he
     2:43:33
     just lost at the supreme court two weeks ago election integrity is paramount and we
     2:43:39
     know modern-day voter suppression goes on in places like the slave states but
     2:43:45
     we haven’t had any reason to distrust our election officials here in california especially not in livermore
     2:43:52
     the current cleric unfortunately should resign and anyone else associated with this
     2:43:57
     scandal should also resign you council need to set the earliest
     2:44:03
     possible meeting date and express to your city manager that these ballots need to go to the county immediately
     2:44:11
     i get it it might have been satisfying to see a referendum that you don’t like take a hit but this is voter
     2:44:18
     suppression and you can’t let that happen last year our country came close to slipping into desperate despotism let’s
     2:44:26
     not flirt with that here
     2:44:32
     next request to speak is from yolanda vinceco jeff caskey and matt montario
     2:44:39
     yolanda vinceco please don’t meet yourself
     2:44:46
     thank you very much thank you to the mayor to the council members and yes to our city clerk
     2:44:52
     and thank you very much for the explanation from our city attorney my name is yolanda finchenko
     2:44:59
     but i’m here tonight to show my support for our city clerk in the face of
     2:45:04
     the bullies from the affordable housing opposition group move eden housing trying to intimidate
     2:45:11
     her for doing her job and trying to intimidate through her the voters who have already voted
     2:45:18
     by voting on the existing council and asking them to
     2:45:25
     basically vote on the downtown plan for us i actually participated in some of the
     2:45:32
     planning meetings and certainly and some of the discussions with the city council and
     2:45:38
     was satisfied that this was a job that was already done
     2:45:44
     i was shocked like many of you to see an opinion piece on the front page of the independent used as a tool
     2:45:51
     to bully our city clerk and also the voters and directly as well as our council like
     2:45:58
     everyone here i love this city i hope that unites us what also unites us is what we do and
     2:46:06
     how we act livermore us our community we recognize each other by what we do
     2:46:13
     so we stand up to bullies people like us do things like this
     2:46:20
     a city is complicated we’re bound to disagree it’s inevitable we’ll try to
     2:46:25
     use all the tools legally available to us in order to lawfully make our voices and
     2:46:31
     our needs and our opinions heard people like us do things like this
     2:46:38
     here’s what we don’t do we don’t subvert the will of the voters because we didn’t like the way they voted we don’t hide
     2:46:45
     behind a news outlet to intimidate a city employee for doing her job because it thwarts our goals and
     2:46:52
     i really hope we don’t tell people who need affordable housing that instead we’re going to give them
     2:46:58
     a place for car shows people like us don’t do things like this thank you
     2:47:08
     the next request to speak is from jeff caskey followed by matt and ontario and rick nordike
     2:47:14
     jeff caskey please unmute yourself good evening mayor and council
     2:47:21
     and staff um it is unfortunate that city council won’t even be considering the concerns
     2:47:27
     of over 8 000 livermore residents who signed the eden referendum that’s 8 000 people behind besides the
     2:47:34
     ones who said i’m not sure let me read more this is 8 000 residents who said heck yes
     2:47:40
     and took the time to put their name address and signature on a formal position petition
     2:47:47
     some who derisively refer to the group of many names or who say that these people are a small special interest
     2:47:54
     now have to consider that that group contains at least 8 000 voters willing to sign their names to a
     2:48:01
     petition and say that they want their voice heard let’s see how council responds
     2:48:07
     thank you the next speaker is matt montario
     2:48:13
     followed by rick nordike and jim hutchins man in ontario please don’t meet yourself
     2:48:21
     um yeah i would like to second the second speaker and my support for the council
     2:48:27
     and standing up to these bullies and um quite frankly the petition signing that
     2:48:32
     took uh place last month was a complete farce the people pushing it were absolutely
     2:48:38
     annoying uninformed and uh i wouldn’t that my life on the number of signatures
     2:48:44
     that they’ve collected to be actually valid uh never mind the actual legality
     2:48:50
     um that’s the first point the second point i want to make a small one about the pdfs uh that you guys sent out with
     2:48:57
     the agenda of the meetings it’s very actually difficult to figure out what what are the um
     2:49:04
     you know you have to skim the entire document to figure out what is going to be talked about in the meeting it would be good to have a summary like a bullet
     2:49:10
     point summary at the top to say what is you know gonna be covered on the uh
     2:49:16
     on the agenda um and the last thing that i wanted to say
     2:49:21
     uh is regarding street uh uh i think the brick bike brick program and specifically the situation under the
     2:49:28
     bridge on p street between uh railroad and chestnut uh by the
     2:49:35
     mcdonald’s um so this is uh my understanding is that the city has a
     2:49:41
     contract with by brick to periodically clean these sites i think this has been a complete waste of money and a failure
     2:49:47
     to my estimate i live north of town north of the railroad um the
     2:49:53
     area under the bridge becomes immediately trashed after it’s cleaned and this is very unfortunate because the
     2:49:59
     people who go to it are residents uh of uh north part of the town that are
     2:50:05
     north of the railroad that are usually working class they’re a bit poorer and
     2:50:10
     they walk down they try to live up to the motto of having a walkable livable city they walk to the shops
     2:50:17
     and you know they have to either navigate trash or navigate homeless people sleeping
     2:50:22
     i have nothing against the homeless people sleeping there i don’t think it’s uh a good place for them to be there it’s
     2:50:28
     not safe uh and i will leave with this uh i’ve had enough of this i’ve emailed the city
     2:50:34
     i’ve got no response i’ve seen the city do nothing about this in the past three years i’ve started to clean the area
     2:50:40
     myself today i’ve taken out four garbage bags full of trash and about three
     2:50:47
     uh carts i’m going to continue to do this on a weekly basis to keep my neighborhood
     2:50:52
     clean and safe for those family members that go up and from between south side
     2:50:57
     and north side of town and i challenge the city council to actually do something about it
     2:51:02
     um i think uh a volunteer organization quite frankly
     2:51:08
     would do a better job than a very lucrative contract to clean the place uh semi-regularly so
     2:51:14
     thank you very much next speaker is rick nordike followed by
     2:51:22
     jim hutchins and nancy mulligan rick nordic please don’t meet yourself
     2:51:29
     yes good morning mayor and count good evening mayor and council on this morning obviously this issue with eden has been
     2:51:35
     around a while and i for one would like just one of you to admit that yes the park with no housing would be beautiful
     2:51:43
     but we’ve exhausted all the avenues i repeat all the avenues with the powers that be and there’s no way it will work
     2:51:49
     anywhere else or words to that effect but so far nothing else to that has been heard from you the council it
     2:51:56
     would give you some much needed credibility and transparency low-cost housing is needed the all-but
     2:52:03
     abandoned aim of villa shopping center site on pacific across from the new council chambers would be a great
     2:52:09
     location maybe it’s available oh and i’m in favor of putting out to a vote thank you
     2:52:19
     next speaker is jim hutchins followed by nancy mulligan and carol jim hutchins please don’t meet yourself
     2:52:28
     thank you mayor and city council i am speaking in objection to the city’s actions to refuse to verify
     2:52:34
     the collected signatures for the referendum the question is not whether there needs to be housing there there is a need the
     2:52:41
     question is where it should be built such decisions need to balance all needs including the needs for the public for
     2:52:47
     open space the livermore city council has has been and is preventing the public’s input
     2:52:53
     first by ignoring the place works results that they paid for that said the citizens believe high-density housing
     2:52:59
     and large buildings are not appropriate in the middle of downtown then by ignoring the constant calls by the
     2:53:04
     public to look at alternatives for the even housing location the council by claiming there are no
     2:53:10
     alternatives even though they haven’t looked and then by trying to move up the property’s transfer date so that the new
     2:53:16
     so that a new council cannot change this council’s decision and now by claiming the referendum is illegitimate
     2:53:22
     the citizens have never voted on this housing project that is a misrepresentation that has been pushed
     2:53:28
     by certain former elected officials that is intended to mislead the public
     2:53:35
     i’m also amazed that when people say they believe the actions of the city clerk are wrong that their actions are
     2:53:40
     then called bullying and intimidation so you can’t disagree apparently these people believe that
     2:53:46
     when the city attorney says something then it cannot be disputed well tell that to the appeals judges in the
     2:53:51
     garivanti hills case that said he is wrong and the state supreme court and when he’s wrong and he is wrong here too
     2:53:58
     there is legal precedent against the city’s position and the city’s actions are instead forcing this decision to be
     2:54:03
     made by the courts the clerk’s function is to accept the referendum and to verify the signatures
     2:54:09
     then to pass it on to the county or for the actual verification it’s the council who would need to say and object to it
     2:54:16
     being a referendum a valid referendum the council has a history of working
     2:54:22
     behind the public’s back including recently losing that major court case against the very uh the garavantee hills
     2:54:29
     lawsuit and then they even sought to have it depublished the council was elected to work for the people and that means doing
     2:54:36
     what the public wants the public has spoken through the referendum their signature collection
     2:54:42
     and they want the citizens to vote on whether they approve of this council’s actions instead the council is seeking to ignore
     2:54:48
     the public or at least to delay the argument until the property is conveniently transferred rendering the
     2:54:54
     issue moot the citizens must be allowed a voice and allowed to vote on the referendum thank
     2:55:00
     you next speaker is nancy mulligan followed
     2:55:06
     by carol and asa stroud nancy mulligan please don’t meet yourself
     2:55:18
     okay can you hear me now yes we can hear you oh good okay um
     2:55:25
     this was something that i sent to the independent but i know that a lot of you don’t read it so i’m going to read this
     2:55:31
     to you last month i spent a few days collecting signatures on a petition for a
     2:55:37
     referendum on the eden housing location i live in district 1 by the airport and
     2:55:42
     took the petition to the people on my street and the streets nearby i probably went to about 50 houses
     2:55:49
     it turned out that not a single person was in favor of the eden housing project
     2:55:54
     at every house with the registered voter they either signed the petition or had already signed downtown
     2:56:00
     there were a couple houses where none of the occupants were registered voters but they expressed their support of the
     2:56:06
     petition in other words 100 percent of the citizens in my area in district 1 are
     2:56:13
     not in favor of the eden housing proposal not a surprise because all along i have
     2:56:18
     found that everyone i’ve talked to over the past years has been disturbed by our city council that they have ignored the
     2:56:24
     express will of the citizens there are plenty of spaces nearby for affordable housing
     2:56:31
     but only one central area where we can have a park and community gathering space for all livermore citizens
     2:56:37
     less housing on the property would also mean more parking spaces so we would be able to have
     2:56:43
     parking spaces that were not so small that it would be impossible to get a child out of a car seat
     2:56:49
     and after 8 000 livermore residents signed to have a referendum so voters could make their voices heard it’s
     2:56:55
     unconscionable that the city refuses to put the subject up to a vote remember the 500 000 that was spent on
     2:57:02
     community input our top priorities were enough parking and open space for all citizens to enjoy
     2:57:09
     evidently we all still want that thank you
     2:57:16
     the next speaker is carol followed by aces trout and monina carol please end me to yourself
     2:57:55
     hi sorry about that my name is carol and i want to thank you all for being here um
     2:58:02
     i am not a livermore elite in fact i do come from the north side of
     2:58:08
     the tracks um i would actually like to get together with the speaker about cleaning up under
     2:58:14
     p street because i agree with him it’s it’s um
     2:58:19
     pretty messed up one of the issues regarding um the eden housing is it will
     2:58:27
     take the only non-non the only street pathway to downtown is l
     2:58:35
     street which is the one in fact that we were talking about with eden housing
     2:58:40
     other than that our only access is under the train tracks i spent some time going out and meeting
     2:58:46
     people and discussing ideas and concerns in our neighborhood and i also offered a chance to sign the downtown referendum
     2:58:54
     in regards to eden housing the downtown plan stood out no one thought it was a good plan
     2:59:01
     no one um so i can’t understand why we’re going so forward and even pushing
     2:59:08
     the agenda on the citizens why why are we not taking into consideration
     2:59:15
     the signatures and the voters what’s the hurry who’s going to gain i’m the future of downtown it’s the
     2:59:22
     heart of downtown and um we just need to think about future
     2:59:27
     generations thank you
     2:59:35
     next speaker is aces stroup followed by moni knop and greg scott he’s the strap please don’t meet
     2:59:40
     yourself all right thanks for uh having the meeting go so uh late tonight um i just
     2:59:47
     wanted to um more or less reflect on my sarcastic comment from earlier um mentioning that
     2:59:54
     if every item that was on the agenda was up for referendum there would there is
     2:59:59
     an opportunity for extreme abuse of our democratic process to the
     3:00:05
     point where our system specifically the city of livermore
     3:00:10
     would not be able to function whatsoever some other recent examples aside those
     3:00:16
     that were on the agenda as we recently hired a new city manager the council made decisions on
     3:00:24
     that is not something that would go up for a referendum to the council
     3:00:30
     we manage salary increases pay increases those are not items that are going to be
     3:00:35
     referendable to the city and we’re not going to be voting on every individual item we live
     3:00:43
     in a democratic republic where some items are voted through a direct democracy
     3:00:49
     while others we elect representatives to do the job to represent us
     3:00:55
     and the people you vote for are people who reflect your opinions
     3:01:01
     um and in this case the the almost the entire council at this point um has been
     3:01:06
     voted on based on their support of the downtown over uh the last six years or three elections
     3:01:14
     i think the the fir the one six years ago um maybe had somebody that wasn’t i mean it’s so long ago can i remember
     3:01:20
     these days um but my point being is you know when people say that we haven’t
     3:01:25
     voted on this is it’s it’s simply not true we voted on it three times by electing representatives
     3:01:31
     who support the views of the people who have then supported this project and i say this
     3:01:38
     very clearly when these individuals ran they ran on supporting the downtown
     3:01:45
     project so it’s not that they you ran on a different platform and
     3:01:51
     are sneaking this in it was extremely clear from day one what their campaign priorities are and
     3:01:58
     that is the representative democracy that we live in where we have representatives representing us today
     3:02:05
     and i just wanted to reiterate that because you know there is um an article in the independent um that
     3:02:12
     is owned by joan sepula there was no author to the article because i can only assume that possibly she wrote it
     3:02:18
     herself um author may not be the right term it’s not bilined i think that might be the
     3:02:24
     proper term that she might have wrote herself that was um basically a back and forth they said they said story that you
     3:02:32
     know made both um the paper and the lawyer representing the movie to housing group very they
     3:02:39
     looked unprofessional um and frankly some of the comments made by the lawyer were inflammatory and i
     3:02:45
     can only assume that um the individual who’s paying for that person gene king and joan supply
     3:02:51
     once we see the paperwork we’ll probably find out that’s where it is paying that person your time is up thank
     3:02:57
     you next speaker is money not followed by greg scott money not please don’t meet
     3:03:04
     yourself good evening mayor city council members
     3:03:10
     and staff we have heard a lot of voices tonight and i appreciate everyone speaking up so passionately first and
     3:03:16
     foremost as a former police officer i just simply don’t see any anyone being bullied intimidated or threatened particularly
     3:03:23
     against our city clerk on a personal note ipad had many contacts with our city clerk on many
     3:03:29
     occasions i found her to be amazing always professional and taking the time to respond to any of my inquiries
     3:03:36
     she’s doing a great job and i appreciate her hard work very much however and however in this case it’s not about
     3:03:42
     bullying or any threats to anyone the fact is the personal attack against me and my qualification to be a mayor
     3:03:49
     earlier was more about bullying than anything against our city clerk i have the comments tonight i believe
     3:03:55
     that comes tonight we’re more about a challenge to the city clerk’s decision not to move forward with the validation
     3:04:00
     of the signatures gathered for their records if our city clerk’s safety was threatened i would be the first to
     3:04:07
     defend her and anyone who would threaten or harm her for doing her job tonight i too would like to take this
     3:04:13
     opportunity to ask all of you to validate the recently acquired 8 000 plus signatures for the referendum to be
     3:04:19
     validated and then placed onto the ballot in november i along many other residents in our
     3:04:24
     community have worked very hard to gather those signatures i can personally say had walked out the door and spoke to
     3:04:31
     many residents and have signed that have signed a referendum during my walk
     3:04:37
     door-to-door to gather the signatures i found most of the residents over 85 of them that i have contacted would like to
     3:04:44
     see a change of location for eden housing in our downtown their were simply to have the
     3:04:51
     opportunity to vote on it just like measure p of which i supported and gathered those reference referendum
     3:04:57
     signatures i believe our residents should have the same right and due process
     3:05:02
     to decide on what changes they would like to see all we’re asking from you is to do the right thing for our residents and listen
     3:05:09
     to the myriad of voices from our residents despite our differences and let us vote on it
     3:05:14
     please allow the signatures to be validated and provide the same due process that all of you had extended to
     3:05:19
     measure p over a year ago a lot of people here spoke of the process of the due process tonight
     3:05:26
     but i have to ask have we really respected the due process i believe by validating the signatures
     3:05:33
     and put it to vote is the real due process i hope all of you as representatives for all of us respect
     3:05:40
     the due process too and place it onto the ballot this november thank you
     3:05:49
     next speaker is craig scott please and meet yourself
     3:05:59
     thank you mr mayor city council and city of council staff the city of livermore staff um
     3:06:06
     city of livermore doesn’t have the last word obviously that came about with the deep publishing
     3:06:13
     effort of the city of livermore on the garaventa hill decision which the california u.s supreme court
     3:06:20
     disagreed with why would the city of livermore do that that was a hard-fought battle by
     3:06:27
     livermore citizens it’s indicative of how you do
     3:06:32
     not want citizens to exercise their voice it’s 8 000 people that sign this referendum why not let them speak as ms
     3:06:40
     thompson pointed out that land was purchased 17 years ago you can’t wait 107 days to vote on this issue
     3:06:47
     it doesn’t make sense to to call a vote uh bullying is like out of orwell or while writing
     3:06:55
     ignorance is strength it doesn’t make any sense and then on the speaker who calls the opposition to eden housing
     3:07:01
     project plutocrats wait a second here the executive director of eden housing
     3:07:07
     makes 415 000 a year sixteen or seventeen of the top brass of eden
     3:07:13
     housing project claim forty percent of the payroll and one of the main partners in this is jpmorgan chase the
     3:07:21
     largest bank by assets in the united states the bank we bailed out with 12 billion dollars in the toxic asset
     3:07:27
     relief program during the great financial crisis how housing is a problem of inequality this
     3:07:35
     is accentuating inequality it’s saying this is going to solve the housing crisis in livermore is like saying that
     3:07:42
     the vineyard 2.0 spending 20 million dollars to house 23 homeless is going to solve the homeless problem no it’s not
     3:07:50
     you pull so many shenanigans here it’s amazing why not let the people have their say
     3:07:56
     it’s basic democracy it just makes the whole situation
     3:08:04
     seem contrived thank you
     3:08:10
     next speaker is veronica stewart long please unmute yourself
     3:08:17
     thank you mr mayor and members of the council thank you for everything you do for our city i support our affordable
     3:08:23
     housing i am proud that livermore is a leader in the tri-valley for supporting people in need in the case of the eden
     3:08:30
     apartment complex i wish it were inclusionary and not segregated housing but i do support it in a different
     3:08:36
     location i’m speaking tonight because i’m disappointed with the downtown plan frustrated by being continually ignored
     3:08:43
     and frankly tired of being bullied even though i am trying to help my city to be the best it can be i’m continually
     3:08:50
     told that i am an opponent of the city in spite of the fact that i support affordable housing i am told that i am a
     3:08:56
     rich person who is fighting to keep affordable housing out in fact just this week a city council
     3:09:02
     candidate told me that i am fighting the city and its people i am attacking neighbors and making people feel
     3:09:08
     unwelcome what have i done that makes me such a terrible adversary to my town
     3:09:15
     i’ve written about what i see as an amazing opportunity to develop a space that can be strategically designed to
     3:09:21
     achieve goals and objectives like strengthening the social fabric of our community
     3:09:27
     i write about how a well-designed public space could be a source of pride for residents and something special and
     3:09:33
     unique to livermore i see all that opportunity going to waste so i support efforts to look into alternative
     3:09:39
     locations for the apartment complex that way we can have affordable housing and
     3:09:45
     do something amazing and productive with all that downtown project space i’m so disappointed that the city is saying
     3:09:52
     the best that we can do is put in a four-story white stucco apartment complex
     3:09:57
     there’s a fill in the bank blanks feeling here we have leftover housing from a plan created in 2004 and then a
     3:10:04
     hotel planned by the lennar planners who we got rid of back in 2016 and when it was clear that no one wanted
     3:10:10
     housing in the project area council came up with the land swap to get rid of some of it and we got stockman’s park put
     3:10:17
     into the mix overall it’s piecemeal and lacking a big picture vision a vision of how that piece of land could benefit our
     3:10:24
     entire community i’m so disappointed so i speak up but i’m not even seen or acknowledged
     3:10:30
     and in fact i am attacked online anyone who does not fully support city’s plan
     3:10:35
     is said to be in that pesky group called friends of livermore or one of its committees dear council members please
     3:10:42
     acknowledge us please know that there are thousands of citizens who are independent people and not part of any
     3:10:48
     group we have been trying to communicate with you for years now and have been ignored and statements made that
     3:10:54
     indicate we are all part of that group of spoiled rich people who are mad because we didn’t get our way
     3:11:00
     with all due respect dear council members that is insulting it is dehumanizing please see us and better
     3:11:07
     yet listen to us please reflect on the fact that in less than 30 days 8053
     3:11:13
     citizens signed a petition please take in that message please hear that citizens are trying to
     3:11:19
     reach you and then let us vote
     3:11:27
     next speaker is carl winty please don’t meet yourself
     3:11:34
     wow lots of uh opinions points of view uh wow
     3:11:41
     um may we allow the stacked constitutions to govern us here in terms of the rule of
     3:11:48
     law in terms of the due process by the
     3:11:53
     said constitutions the u.s constitution the california state constitution and then into the general plans of the
     3:12:00
     county and municipalities uh you know set up on that first one of
     3:12:06
     us legislative executive and judicial
     3:12:11
     and the the staff the executive the administrative they have to make
     3:12:18
     decisions they make decisions they have legal counsel and then
     3:12:24
     it can get adjudicated but there’s a carriage in front of the horse thing in terms of the timing made of
     3:12:30
     quasi-judicial ruling no i think the case law very much supports the decision
     3:12:35
     that’s been made that said i’m not a lawyer i haven’t read enough but let let the due process happen by all
     3:12:42
     means right in full disclosure all the way through but wow
     3:12:47
     when the facts are on your side pound the facts and when the facts are not on your side pound the table
     3:12:54
     relitigate history so this stuff is documented as we go back
     3:13:00
     like i’ve born witness to this over the course of many a year
     3:13:06
     the voice is not withheld there has been ample time like we’ve we’ve been at this for a
     3:13:12
     while and uh to say this is uh just basic democracy to say that you can
     3:13:18
     come in and overlay an administrative act to sort of cause the government not to function
     3:13:24
     it just doesn’t make sense due process and also understand the history of how
     3:13:29
     we got here right bullying there’s no good in bullying and i don’t know that anybody’s
     3:13:34
     been bullied here and uh marie sorry if you feel bullied uh mr money
     3:13:40
     knop sorry if you feel bullied i don’t know that it’s bullied it’s talking about what is qualified for mayor of our
     3:13:47
     town like what if like what strange bedfellows are made when you look at it
     3:13:52
     let’s just look at the facts and how we got here because i know one thing is true i can speak on behalf of my three
     3:13:59
     cousins that live in the city i can speak on behalf of their husbands their five kids collectively a bunch of band
     3:14:05
     mates and a bunch of folks that have sought me pat me on the back and be like keep at it like you’re you’re talking
     3:14:10
     for people we can’t show up because we’re in different phases of life so for people to come on and be like
     3:14:16
     zero people say this absolutely nobody it is a small well-funded group we’ll
     3:14:21
     say that out loud joan cepala funds this moves money very well and can spend a lot of money per
     3:14:27
     election cycle to will her way into what that is so uh money money it feels a little
     3:14:33
     phony uh do the research let’s talk i’ve reached out let’s sit down thank you all for what you do
     3:14:40
     namaste here’s the good government out
     3:14:47
     here at this time there no more requests to speak okay
     3:14:52
     so citizens forum is officially over at this point
     3:14:59
     we’re on now to item 8.0 council committee reports and matters initiated by the city manager city attorneys staff
     3:15:06
     and council members and i’ll start with uh council member kick
     3:15:11
     thanks um on july 13th i had valley link and tbtc
     3:15:17
     on july 18th pretty small agendas summer is fairly light for a lot of
     3:15:23
     those commissions um i don’t have any matters initiated but i did want to point out because it’s
     3:15:28
     our last meeting um for a bit and there are some really cool things
     3:15:34
     that are going on in our community that i’ve been lucky to take part in recently a lot of live theater i have been um
     3:15:42
     a guest at spark took my family to see life as a cabernet
     3:15:48
     and took my daughter to see 39 steps and i will happily be going to um
     3:15:54
     las positas to go uh to go see their production
     3:16:00
     it’s just been a really nice way to get back into arts in our community and i encourage people to take a minute um
     3:16:06
     there are tickets at many price ranges and i hope that people can take the opportunity to have some outdoor summer
     3:16:12
     theater fun um and i’ve just we i want to appreciate our community
     3:16:18
     partner larpd for putting on some amazing summer camps that my kids have enjoyed um
     3:16:23
     and we don’t do them it’s it’s not us but i know that it wouldn’t couldn’t be done without the support of our city
     3:16:30
     staff constantly working together to make these things um happen and i’ve heard nothing but um
     3:16:37
     good things from fellow parents who are sending their kids back to camp um after after a while after a while off so just
     3:16:44
     wanted to end things um on an appreciative note of some of the great stuff that is going on
     3:16:50
     in our community uh and i will leave it at that
     3:16:56
     thank you councilmember carlin i don’t have anything to add tonight i’ve spent um
     3:17:03
     a good bit of the time between the last meeting in this meeting in northern arizona rafting in the colorado
     3:17:09
     river with a granddaughter so that was a great time thank you
     3:17:15
     okay councilmember monroe um i uh put put my my my comments are mostly
     3:17:23
     part of the supplemental report i just want to comment on
     3:17:28
     one experience i had earlier this week i attended the
     3:17:34
     town hall that congress meant eric squalwell held at the brand new
     3:17:41
     gymnasium at lar at the uh sorry wrong governmental agency uh
     3:17:47
     the school district’s uh new gym at livermore high turned out it was the very first time that has been used
     3:17:55
     and i was quite disappointed that
     3:18:00
     some of the people present use the opportunity to shout out from
     3:18:07
     the audience use the opportunity to grandstand doesn’t matter what the
     3:18:12
     subject was whether i agree with it or disagree with it but i think that thinking about what
     3:18:19
     civil discourse is for community matters matters at the national level as we are
     3:18:25
     experiencing profound dysfunction
     3:18:32
     and it also matters at the local level where we’ve heard in public comment
     3:18:40
     some inter some interesting comments i would just encourage everyone
     3:18:45
     to stay with the topic stay with the facts be sure you know what the facts
     3:18:50
     are and think about who benefits and why
     3:18:59
     one of i wanted to comment make one more comment specifically about the petition because
     3:19:05
     um i had an interaction i i i i saw a number of people but i had one
     3:19:11
     interaction with somebody who was trying to you know was collecting signatures from out of town was trying
     3:19:18
     really hard to understand what was going on and why and so i explained to this person i sort
     3:19:26
     of walked through the history of this and
     3:19:31
     as he’s listening he’s getting more and more upset because he did not understand
     3:19:36
     that this would delay public housing uh not public housing would delay affordable housing it would delay
     3:19:43
     housing 130 people and i mean assuming that this petition went forward which is
     3:19:49
     you know what what his assumption was at the time um and
     3:19:55
     it was clear that he felt that although he was collecting signatures
     3:20:01
     this was something that was being done to him and to people like him i think that’s
     3:20:06
     fairly important for us to reflect on as we go forward into the future
     3:20:14
     okay uh the only thing i’ll report out on is had
     3:20:20
     gave the state of the city address that was quite a uh a deal a quick
     3:20:26
     bottom line for everybody is we’re doing really well so i’m happy with that and
     3:20:31
     i actually i got a fair amount of feedback from people who said they felt really happy to be part of livermore
     3:20:37
     based on what we was able to report out there so that made me uh
     3:20:42
     feel good with respect to matters initiated uh
     3:20:49
     could staff maybe speak to the request from matt
     3:20:55
     ontario about the p street underpass that did sound and we had two people
     3:21:00
     that uh talked about that uh could could you uh just let us know what let
     3:21:06
     me know what the situation is there mr mayor um i’m going to ask mr spence
     3:21:13
     to comment but i am not sure if we have uh sufficient information at this time to respond fully
     3:21:20
     mr spence that’s correct we will uh do some additional investigation and
     3:21:26
     provide some information to you later sure that that would be my request is
     3:21:31
     that uh reasonable for you to let us know what
     3:21:36
     what’s the situation there yes we will follow okay
     3:21:43
     so could i get some uh how many head nods to follow up on that okay we got it well thank you
     3:21:50
     i appreciate the uh willingness to the follow-up there uh well now we’re on to an adjournment
     3:21:56
     and uh tonight’s meeting is going to be adjourned in memory of barbara savoy who was an active uh resident of
     3:22:03
     livermore and served as a member of the historic preservation committee for 20 years
     3:22:08
     so um adjourn in her honor to a regular city council meeting on
     3:22:14
     september 12 2022 at 7 pm held virtually using zoom thank you good night have a

The longtime goal of Livermore residents to protect Garaventa Hill in North Livermore has achieved a monumental victory.  On March 30th, a three-judge panel on the California Court of Appeal First District ruled against the City of Livermore and in favor of the residents who brought the case.  The Livermore City Council erred in allowing a housing development to proceed on the environmentally sensitive property. 

The proposed “Garaventa Hills” housing tract was to be located in Northeast Livermore between Laughlin Road and Vasco Road, just north of Altamont Creek School.  It was approved at an infamous City Council meeting on April 22, 2019.

For nearly a decade, developers attempted to push their plans through the City’s processes, only to be repeatedly thwarted by a myriad of unmitigable environmental consequences that would result from development.

The Hill is home to a number of threatened and endangered species, including the endangered Vernal Pool Fairy Shrimp, California Tiger Salamander, Burrowing Owls, the Livermore Tarplant and other species on and around the site.  The U.S. Dept of Fish & Wildlife Service has designated it as critical habitat for the Vernal Pool Fairy Shrimp.

The panel of judges agreed with the Save the Hill, who argued that the City Council failed to adequately consider whether Garaventa Hill could be purchased and preserved in perpetuity for conservation as a part of a “No-Action” EIR alternative. 

Conservation funds were available to buy it, and the California Environmental Quality Act requires that appropriate attention be applied to such an option as part of the EIR certification process.  Failing to divulge this information, especially after being asked to provide it, violated the law.

Bianca Covarelli has been spearheading the protection efforts for over a decade.  “The City failed to apply due consideration to the Hill’s preservation as open space”, said Ms. Covarelli. “We are happy the legal issues are in the rearview mirror. As we have said from the beginning, our goal is to buy the property and preserve it forever.  We will be ready to talk to the landowners about consummating a purchase agreement whenever they are ready.”

The panel also noted similarities to another property a few hundred feet away which also failed after 15 years of development attempts.  Known as “ The Farber Property”, it was eventually bought by East Bay Regional Parks and added to the Brushy Peak trail system North of Livermore.