Okay. All right. We're going to open the town council meeting of September 10th. And Melissa, can you please call a store order? Council member Brown here. Council member Dom Kowski. Council member Fluet here. Council member Gold. Council member Shah's absent Mayor Wall here. Council member Dom Kowski would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance, you to flag, United States of America, you to republic, which is sans one nation under God, municipal with liberty, justice for all. Thank you. All right, we're going to move on to public comment. Pursuant to government code section 5495 4.3A, persons wishing to address the council on non-agentized items that are within the jurisdiction of the town are invited to do so. Please note, however, that the council is not able to undertake extended discussion or to act on non-agentized items. Such items can be referred to staff for appropriate action, which may include placement on a future agenda. This communication period is limited to five persons, three minutes each. Any additional persons wishing to be heard will be scheduled at the end of regular business. Right, there's nobody in the room. Let's see. Is anybody in the zoom room? Don't see any hands raised. Are there things this evening? All right, last call for public comment. All right, I'm in a close public comment and pass it over to Kevin for the town manager update. Thank you, Madam Mayor and Council. A few things just to mention here. First, I know there's a lot of interest in the Kaniyatta corners proposal for additional parking and I just wanted to report that that process begins the hearing process begins, beating process begins actually tomorrow night. The Open Space Committee will have it on the agenda tomorrow night, the trails committee on Thursday. Right now it's scheduled for planning commission on September the 25th. And this all leads up to there are two actions that will require council approval. So that right now that looks like both October 8th and October 22nd. This will be in front of you as well. Oh, I'm sorry. ASRB on the 16th, which is a reschedule. Thank you. Sage. Could you repeat those dates? I can't. You got them all mixed up. I think open space tomorrow. 9-11. Trails on Thursday, which is September 12. Next Monday is ASRB September 16. Lining Commission September 25th, and the town council October 8th and 22nd. Thank you. Second thing I wanted to mention, this actually got a little bit of a news. I saw, I think Channel Two did a story on this. The fire district in conjunction with, they have been working with Stanford, the Palo Alto Fire District and the Santa Clara Fire Safe Council. To install to to get an install what are called N5 sensors and they have we've located them to put one of these at Kaithill. And this is a sensor. This is a, you know, I would call it a new smart device. This is a sensor that is able to pick up smoke. So it's, I think of it as a field, a field smoke detector. And the documentation indicates that it can detect a fire from up the, detect smoke from up to two miles away. And then that information is relayed in real time to firefighters, including Woodside Fire. So another, they already have access, or they already have a camera, that they have that looks at the hills of Woodside, this would be an additional tool that they have for early detection. And so I think that's a really great program that they've got and we were very happy to help them. But when it at Kitehilder and Woodside, as well as the help to community. And internally we had last week our audit was, our auditors were in and worked amazing associates. We're in conducting the audit. Nothing bad really to come out of that. So you can look forward to those of you on honor adjacent to the audit committee can look forward to that coming in the weeks and months. And the last thing I wanted to mention is related to our medications. We have on your agenda tonight something will be continued, but I wanted to just let you know that Instagram is something that we are planning to implement this fall. Once we have a policy in place, I'm told that's a, I'm not a social media expert, but I told it's a relatively straightforward thing to do. So we will have that and we should have that up and running by a year end. That's what I have. All right, thank you, Kevin. All right, we're gonna move on to the consent calendar. All items on the consent calendar are considered to be routine and will be approved by one rule call motion unless a request is made at the beginning of the meeting. That an item be withdrawn or transferred to a regular agenda. I do know that item six has been continued, but we can still manage the rest of them. So one through five and seven through nine. Would anybody like to pull any of those consent calendar items? Okay. Entertain a motion on consent calendar items number one three four five seven eight and nine. Council member Brown. Yeah, I noticed. What we're sorry we're voting on the motion for yes Councilmember Dom Kowski Councilmember fluid yes, it's a member gold. Yes, councilmember Shaw's absent mayor wall. Yes, which impasses Pay accounts a member Brown. Yes, there's a line item or 11,000 something dollars or a noise monitoring system for the mental country club. And I'd like to understand a lot more about where this car I know what the cost is for basically but how can we get ourselves where is this the annual is this a monthly of what is it? Oh no this was this was a one-time I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for reminding us about that. Is that going to come before the council? The country commission. Do you know when? We had anticipated the second meeting in September. If not, it will be the first meeting in October, I believe. Thank you. Any other questions? That's in the field of some kind. Can you narrow it again? What is that? We already heard the. Yeah, we just never. This would just be a follow up with you from staff. About what's happened since we spoke to you last. About the noise monitoring. All right, is there a motion to approve consent calendar item number two? Second. Second. Unless you did you second. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Council member Brown. Yes. Council member Dumbkowski. Council member fluid. Yes. Yes. Yes. Council member Shaw's absent mayor wall. Yes. Motion passes. Five, zero to one. Okay, we have an old business item A that's been continued to the September 24th, 2024 meeting. So we can move on to new business, item B, which is the introduction of an ordinance adopting a new section 94.06 prohibition of gas powered leaf blowers in two resolution approving and agreement with Actera for administration of an electric gardening equipment rebate incentive program and authorizing the town manager to execute a grant agreement with the Peninsula clean energy authority for funding of the rebate incentive program and transition of towns equipment to electric. And I'm going to turn this over I believe to Brandy. Good evening, Mayor Wall and Council members. I'm here this evening to review two items in front of you. You did close to the electric. I'm here this evening to review two items in front of you. You're good, close to your luck. I'm here this evening to review two items in front of you. Sorry, you're going to be right. I just say I'm just as bad. You got to be right on top of that. I'm here this evening to review two items in front of you for consideration. An ordinance to prohibit gas powered leaf lowers and an incentive program for the transition from gas to electric gardening equipment. First, I'm going to quickly review the previous council consideration of leaf-flow ordinance recent developments in state and local legislation and relevant guiding policies of the town. On July 28, 2020, the council held a study session and directed staff to prepare an ordinance that aligned the hours for commercial leaf-blowing with allowed construction hours. Council adopted that ordinance on September 8, 2020. On January 1 of this year, Assembly Bill 1346 went into effect, which banned the sale of small offered engines, which includes gas powered leaf blowers. Since the Council last considered a leaf blower ordinance in 2020, Portola Valley's gas powered leaf blower blend ban went into effect. And Arthur Tin and Hillsboro also both adopted ordinances that went into effect on July 1, 2024, both of those banned the use of gas powered leaf lures. Arthur Tin has a rebate program for residents only that was advertised in conjunction with effective data to the ban. And their first round of funding was fully exhausted and they've started a second round of rebate. In Woodside, the town's general plan specifically targets addressing noise impacts from landscaping equipment. The town's adopted climate action plan also has greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets for transportation, which includes emissions from off-road equipment. Leap blowers are considered part of those emissions from off-road equipment. Now I will quickly review the specifics of the proposed LEAP lower ordinance and the electric gardening rebate and incentive program. The legislative and technical landscape has changed since the Council last considered a leaf lower ordinance in 2020. As of January 1st, the sale of gas powered leaf floors is no longer allowed in California and many of the surrounding municipalities have prohibited the use of gas powered floors. This has required local landscapers that work across municipalities to adapt their equipment and operations. In addition, the California Air Resources Board has projected the volume of smog forming emissions from this type of equipment to be nearly twice those of passenger cars by 2031. In researching incentive programs to replace gas-powered leaf lowers, staff identified a potential partner to implement and manage the incentive program, as well as a grant to fund it. Actera is a local nonprofit with proven experience designing, implementing, and managing incentive programs. Actera will collaborate with the town to ensure the incentive program aligns with the town's sustainability goals, engages local businesses, and provides customer support when processing the rebate. Actera will work with the town to develop marking materials and will handle all management and disbursement of funds. The agreement also requires Actara to reduce any reports that are needed. Here you can see the program budget for the proposed agreement with Actara. The $12,000 to administer the program utilizes Actara's experience and expertise in managing similar programs. And externalizes the staff cost it would take to create the program and website, do outreach, work with businesses to negotiate the voucher system, accept and verify applications and process rebates. Partnering with Actara also reduces the time needed to spool up and launch the program. Staff worked with ATERRA to align the rebate amount with other successful programs and also with the cost of equipment. A typical residential blower costs from $90 and up. The $250 rebate should cover the cost of the blower but potentially an additional battery. And a high-end commercial backup floor can cost between $600 and $1,500. The rebate for residents and professionals extends beyond leaf floors to incentivize the transition to other electric gardening equipment if they have already purchased an electric floor. Staff also identified a grant opportunity through peninsula clean energy, the town's electricity provider that is geared at switching from fossil fuels to clean electricity. Electric gardening incentive program meets the grant eligibility requirements and there are surplus funds. PCE has set aside specifically for the town of Woodside to use for this purpose. In addition to the incentive program, staff will work with the Climate and Sustainability Committee and ECTERRA to develop education and outreach materials as previously directed by the Council. There is a potential list of public outreach on the slide and staff will ensure the relevant materials are in English and Spanish to ensure the broadest reach. Regarding the ordinance, there is no unique enforcement or penalty language included and as with other code violations, enforcement would be complaint driven. The Council adopts the ordinance, staff is recommending an effective date of July 1, 2025 to give residents, local businesses, and gardeners and landscapeers that work in woodside. Plenty of time utilize the rebate to transition their equipment and our operations. If approved the electric gardening incentive program would assist residents and landscapers in responding to the recent state ban on small on the sale of small off-road engines as well as encouraging them to continue transitioning to electric gardening equipment. Thank you. Thank you Brandy. I want to just add one thing, just to underscore, these are two distinct actions, so one is not dependent on the other. Okay, yeah, thank you for that clarification. All right, we'll move on to council questions for staff. I the last time this came up, we actually had a full room, interestingly. And it was sort of the tale of two cities a little bit, right? We had everybody up in the western hills, who have big properties, have fire risk issues, fire safety issues, advocating not to ban. And then we had folks call it closer to the city center, if you will, or on smaller parcels who rightfully say, hey, what we've got noise, we've got fumes, and so forth. Please do put a ban in. So I guess my first question really for staff would be, if we didn't want a blanket solution meaning one size doesn't necessarily fit all woodside has some different terrain and geography issues to deal with and underfoot redwoods and certain areas down and other areas that are you know approaching downtown mental park or something if we wanted in ordinance to go into effect either for a specific neighborhood i.e. the Gleins or to phase in something, you know, Gleins next year but broader woodside for five years down the line or something. Is that something that we can do? Yes. Okay. All right. And that's thank you. That question was so fast answered that I had to like, sorry, go back to my notes. You know, I wanted to point out that Miss Dishler has a really wonderful email that came in late if you haven't seen it, but she makes some very good points. I just want to first off, of course, also compliment the rebate grant program that has been discovered. That is truly wonderful. That of course deals with the initial equipment cost. There is an ongoing cost to any provider of commercial services here in Woodside. The variable costs, you know, and one thing I didn't see in the report, and maybe somebody could help me with, mystically says it's on her landscaper told her we'd take twice as long to use an electric than a gas. But there is a different power differential. I feel it too. I own both. I use them for different things where I am. And do we have a sense for how much longer this would, the impact, how much longer this would, the impact, how much less power electric has versus gas? Because this is a pretty vulnerable population, some ways that are in the landscaping business, and there isn't a lot of pricing power. So they're gonna be working longer hours for the same pay in many cases. And I'm just trying to get an understanding of what's the differential that is going to hit them. So how much longer does it take to use electric than gas on a project? You can't answer that because it's a project by project, but we can answer what is the differential power between devices? I don't know if that's answerable or not. It's an observation, I would say, at the very least. Thank you for the question. I did some research, obviously, there more research would be done. But in looking at 15 of the top commercial lowers, one of the measurements they have is the air speed. And there are several electric blowers on that list and they have airspeeds that are comparable with some of them have airspeeds that are comparable to the gas powered blowers. So I would think if you know with the rebate being $1,500, we know that you can buy one of the most powerful backpack-style, commercial electric leaf blowers. And that can accommodate four batteries or one battery. So you can have, you know, if you want it lighter, you can have it lighter. But if a landscaper were to purchase the most powerful electric leaf blower they could end up with comfortable airspeed to push the debris. And that big the big backpack electric which would be interesting to see. What do you have a you remember what the price point was on that? One of those is is $1,500 and that includes four battery packs. Thank you. No. I need to do your done. Done for now, thank you Mayor. You said that you looked at 15 suppliers of blowers, that's correct. And you said a couple. We're capable of reaching the same power levels as the gas leans, is that right? I wonder how many run-front fund, how many electric suppliers currently are offering product that gets comparable performance to gas. And because I want to know how much choice our suppliers are going to have, is that two, is it one, is it three, is it five? How much choice have got our guard is going to have? It anecdotally, it looks like there's three. I looked at several review reviews of blowowers to see what the airspeed was, but what I found is there's probably, there were three on this review site. So without doing, you know, a large analysis in comparison, I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly how many. I could, I feel confident in telling you that there are commercial, electrically floors on the market that have the same air speed as a gas blower. Okay, the $50,000 what is that for and is it out of about a pocket for the town of Woodside? Is that every year or is that one time in the rebate program? Well, I mean, we're talking about $50,000 cost to the town. I'm wondering if that's rebated to us or whether it's out of pocket. Right. Let me just share my presentation and we can get to that slide. So here is the program budget. So the $15,000 you can see the itemized budget here for the agreement with Actara and that $50,000 would be entirely covered by the grant from Peninsula clean energy would be an ask for an additional 15,000 to help the town transition, start transitioning its own gas-powered equipment to electric. So the total amount of the grant we would request is 65, 50 of which would go to cover the actara electric gardening incentive program. So there would be no out of pockets. No cost to the town. No cost to the town. Other than a replacement equipment, or is that even part of that? Yeah, no cost to the town. Other than the replacing equipment, is that even part of the? Yeah, no cost to the town and then it's $15 in grant funds to over the cost of our own equipment. My observation and my gardener's transition from gas to electric battery powers and my observation there is it's louder actually a much higher more piercing sound than the gasoline power. It seems to be satisfied with it but I don't like to know it's going to crank up. And the other thing is one point out is that one of the objections that we heard back in 2020 was the what all the dirt and dust being kicked up by the blowers and that's not going to change correct. It's still going to be blown the same material up into the air that they were before all we're doing here is talking about maybe cutting back on the amount of fumes that are generated. Is that correct? Correct. There are there are some municipalities who as part of their ordinances have included, have addressed that situation where you're allowed to blow the blower so that you don't blow up additional debris, but in this ordinance it just purely bounds gas-pullard blower. So yes, if the landscaper chooses to blow the top layer of debris off the dirt, then they're going to blow that in the air as well. But this addresses the pollution related to that the blower. If we were to decide we don't want to do this, what's the penalty or is there a penalty? There's no penalty. This is do the right. This is, this is completely at the town's discretion. Make any more questions? Okay. Looking down this way to Paul. I've got questions for both Kevin and Brandy. Nice presentation, Brandy, by the way. Kevin, you said there's two actions to take. One of them is this program that we're seeing on the slide and the other one is the ordinance correct. That's correct. Those are the two separate actions. Yes. Thank you. Brandy. So council member Brown actually asked the question about how this is funded. Could we ask for a larger grant so that we could increase the voucher amount, the total amount for vouchers. I mean, you're requesting 50,000 plus another 15,000 for the town's equipment, which would be 65. Could we ask for 100 and try to put more money into the vouchers for our, I would actually like to see it much more for land scapers than for individuals, but both for sure. I mean, it's fine. Yes, the amount of funds that are currently, that are currently allocated to us with penance-liquely energy is $112,915. So yes, you could choose to increase the amount of voucher. We would obviously need to consult with Actera to ensure they were fine with that. We did just the agreement, but yes, you could. Given if we were purely using the grant funds from Peninsula Clean Energy, there is additional funds there. Okay, I just wanted to ask I'll come in on a deliberations, but I just want to see if it is available and it sounds like it is. Um, the, um, I was mindful of the letters that we got from Miss Dishar and from Kimberly Hansen who brought up some good questions. Um, would this, you didn't go into detail about the voucher program necessarily. I think it, you know, it's, uh, when you'd add some meat to the bones, if you will. But the, uh, um, the question that was asked would do the professional landscapers need to be licensed to qualify for this? Do they need a certification from a property owner that they are doing business in Woodside? I mean, I just, I could, I could sort of see that, you know, the guy who does a mow and blow, you know, may not know quite how to navigate this. And we certainly don't want people coming in who don't do business in the town to sort of take advantage of this. I don't think there'll be much of that if any. But there are some mechanics involved here. And do you have any information you could add to that? Yes, so the idea is that Actara would confirm that the eligibility criteria was met and so for professional gardeners, landskeepers working in Woodside, the criteria that we developed was that they had a current business license with the town. And the reason for that is that a business license is required to do business in the town and it assists the town in notifying businesses, not only of applicable state and local legislation, but also it gives us the opportunity to let them know about these kinds of programs. Currently we have 37 businesses with business licenses that just have the word landscape or garden in them. We just did like a 37 and in talking with one of my counterparts in another jurisdiction yesterday, they sent out a postcard to their residents. That was in English and Spanish. And so the resident, if there was a barrier there, the resident could show the person providing the service, the program, and it would help them to navigate getting the business license. What's the cost of a business license by the way for that? For a landscaper or gardener, it would be $124 a year. Okay. And is there going to be an effective date on this? In other words, suppose, as Councilmember Brown said, some folks are already making the transition. So we would have the opportunity to set the date of purchase, I guess we could set it for today or we could set it for a year from now or it doesn't necessarily have to start in the date of the program, correct? The effect just to clarify the effective date of the ordinance? Well the effective date of the purchase to qualify, the effective date of the purchase to qualify. Oh, which is different than the, not the ordinance of the rebate program. Rebate program. I suppose we could set it for whenever we want. You could set as far as you mean, backdated or go forward. We hadn't considered backdating it. We were mostly considering going forward, but we would have to consult with Dr. Darratt to see if that's something they're equipped to do. I think in that case that we, what we were thinking with the rebate program was for residents and the landscapers, it applies to more than just a leaf blower. So if they had already purchased an electric leaf blower, they could use the rebate to purchase a string trimmer or an electric lawn mower or something that would further the more batteries or batteries exactly so that was idea there. Okay thank you. Any further questions? All right then. Well um I'll see you just answer my question on eligibility for funding. So it's town residents, commercial businesses and and businesses already within woodside who might use a or for their own purposes right. Okay. are using Actara as their provider? The program? Currently the city of Menlo Park. Menlo Park use them in a round of funding that ended in June and then they're now entering another round of funding in August. They're just Menlo Park? Here I have the slide here. So Menlo Park has used them for the gardening voucher incentive program. The city of Mountain View managed their E-bike voucher program and then Aktera manages the East Bay community induction cooktop loan a program. Then, so I saw like a lot of our ordinances is gonna be complained driven. Maybe I just missed it. But what is do we have a penalty for violation? What is the penalty for violation? So there are several ways that you can address violations. The first would be to issue what's the equivalent of a traffic ticket. It's an infraction. A second is if you have a repeat violator who you've gone through an education program with and you've addressed several violations, there could be a lawsuit filed asking for injunctive relief. If you have a gardener out there who services 50 properties and doesn't transition and continues to violate that might be a situation where The council would be asked to determine whether you wish to take further action of that nature But day-to-day if a neighbor complains about a neighbor It's going to be take it with some fine and usually that triggers an initial outreach to that That either that service provider or that neighbor saying, hey, we've received this complaint and just want to let you know. You're remedy it without even a fine. Yes, it's a request to come into compliance. That's all the questions I have. And you know, I did hear about the Western Hills being concerned last time and I encourage I think I saw at least three Western Hill residents on the call. So hopefully they will speak up because I would like to hear what they have to say. Hold on, good. Yeah, Brandy, thank you so much for the presentation. Can you just speak a little bit to the environmental impacts of gas leaf blowers versus electric. So as I mentioned, leaf blowers are considered part of the slice of the mission's pie related to transportation, specifically they're considered off-road equipment. Let's see, let me get the statistic correct here. So the California Air Resources Board who has been assisting in implementing AB 1346 has projected that the volume of smog forming emissions from the type of equipment has not only surpassed emissions from light duty passenger cars, but it's projected to be nearly twice those of passenger cars in 2031. So transitioning from gas power leaf blowers to electric leaf blowers has the dual benefit of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also reducing pollutants in particular matter associated with health impacts. Okay, and then I think you connected that to our town climate action plan, but can you help me understand better the connection between the town climate action plan and the greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact of gas power leaflers. So in the climate action plan, that's what I was saying, the towns offered transportation, they're associated with the towns offered transportation generating emissions. And so reducing the use of gas powered leaf blowers gets at that slice of the emissions pie, which transportation is a very difficult segment of the missions to for a municipality get to get at because transportation is such a You know a regional issue. So this is one of the few ways that an municipality can actually make a difference in that in that sector Okay And then in terms of noise I know I've heard anecdotally that X electric leaf blower was noisy, but what did you learn about the noise impacts of when you were doing the research and putting the packet together? What is your take on the noise impacts of gas versus electric? Generally, it seems that the decibel levels of electric leaf lowers are lower than gas blowers, but some of the other municipalities have also put limits on the decibel use, and it's typically 65 decibels at 50 feet. So you can be further regulated, but in general, electric leaf blowers are quieter than past blowers. Okay, and I just want to make sure I understand the state of the law. So I understand there's a state law that has outlawed the further sale of gas powered leaf blowers. When was that law passed? That law was passed in 2021 and it went into effect January 1st of the year 2024, but it and it doesn't apply just to leaf floors. It's all of the equipment that's considered small off-road equipment sores. So lawn mowers, leaf floors, tremors, some generators. Okay, I think. And I understand that with a bit of an outlier and not having already banned gas powered leaf blowers. What what towns and cities around us have already taken the action to ban gas powered leaf blowers that you I don't know if you have a list. So we have Portola Valley, Menlo Park, Hillsboro. Just one second. Atherton, Los Altoes, Palo Alto. Wait, did I show it? I didn't mean to show it. My research, see my brain there. I heard Menlo Park, Los Altos, Portola Valley, Palo Alto, Atherton, Hillsboro, Hillsboro, and Mount of You have all already banned gas powered leaf blowers. I think I didn't say, I didn't say Mount of You, I can't confirm that, but yes, the rest of the list is correct. Okay, and I think I read recently, I don't know if this is a question for Brandy or maybe for Kevin, that at least I saw coverage in the Almanac that Atherton related to their ban of gas powered leaf floors. I didn't see any indication that there was a big resident backlash or anything like that. Have you heard of any any issues for residents and from any of these towns related to the bands of gas powered leaflers? I have not. You have not. Okay. Front of mind. Just to repeat. I think we will definitely have a chance in the council deliberations. Okay. Thank you. Any further questions for council? I mean, sorry, questions for staff. All right. And I think we will move on to public comment. And I see one hand up in the Zoom room. I'm gonna turn it over to Kristen. Hi, thanks very much. My name is Kristen. I live up in the Western Hills, actually a neighbor of Ned. My comment is this ordinance just feels like it was clearly written by and for people who live down, you know, in the glens in the flat areas who don't live in the western hills. So our family owns about 20 acres up here total. And I am the routine maintenance crew. Me just one person. And I do have chainsaws electric and gas. I have a leaf blower that's gasoline. They all have their uses. The largest and most powerful electric chainsaw I own, which is the largest one available by Husk of Arna, is an 18-inch bar. That is not large enough to tackle the larger Redwood trees and Tanox near property. So when several large Redwoods fell on our property over the winter blocking a road, it was a large forestry chainsaw, a gas chainsaw, that was the one that was used to clear it, because that's what's actually capable of doing the job. When I leaf flow the private road that goes through our land and our neighbor's land, it's almost half a mile long. An electric leaf flare would need a recharge before it reaches the end. This isn't even a requirement, what you guys are all talking about. This is the bobbven beyond the current law that's banned the sale of small gas-powered engines. This really infringes, to be honest, it would infringe upon my ability to maintain my land, to reduce leaf litter, to buck fallen trees, to clear brush, it would reduce my ability to reduce fire hazard on our property. You are diminishing my ability to keep my property and our family and our neighbors safer. So thank you for considering that as you talk more about this. Thank you, Kristen. All right, we're going to go to David Middlement. Good evening, councilmembers. I'm David Middlement. I'm a person persons over half. I'm one of the, and a couple of questions to ask for clarity around the rebate program and a couple of comments. The two questions I had, is it a trade in program? What the gas program need to be traded in if you're using a rebate to replace a gas leafler or is it purely a rebate program and then seconds. Well I'll answer that now. Yes, the answer is it's not a trade-in so no it's just a straight rebate for the purchase of a new electric leafler. Great. The second question was is it only on one time grant of $250 as Kristen said, we have multiple pieces of apartment, you know, chain, sauce, leaf flowers, other things. You know, it was possible to utilize it multiple that? Currently it's set at one time for this funding cycle to give multiple people opportunity to take advantage of it. David, did you hear that? Yes, I did. Okay. And I would ask in the Council on Guld's question about increasing the rebate amount that you consider rebate increasing the amount of times the rebate could be used, especially for residents that might have larger needs. And then my two comments on the rebate program, I would ask that rebate does not. The ordinance kept the size of the van is 25 horsepower. As Kristen said, larger equipment is sometimes needed to clear things. I'm not sure on what's on the market right now. surrounding electric chain saws for the rebate. Not if there is a cap that it not be capped at 25 horsepower on chain saws. So David, just a quick clarification. Chain saws are out of scope for this topic. We're just talking about gas powered leaf blurs. From what I understood from looking at the rebate program, it could be used for other equipment, correct? Randy, do you want to take that? Yes. The rebate program can be used for other equipment, correct? Randy, do you want to take that? Yes. The the rebate program can be used's a cap on the size of the chain saws that you can use the rebate for, in line with the state law, banning the sale of chain saws below 25 horse power, that there is no cap with regards to using the rebate on chain saws. That was what I was trying to ask. And I actually commend the idea of a rebate program and I went off into the town, the idea of another rebate program around backup batteries for town residents. In fearing the storms that we had in the past couple of years, there were a lot of residents in the Western hills that all they have is, you know, a 30 amp portable gas generator that they might have bought and that they're now in fixed income, they don't have it later in place. Those can barely power a lot of things in a house, especially if they're old. And I believe they are also on some in some cases under the sorban. And additionally, I also had neighbors that even had large propane generators. One had a gas, even though they were coming off of their large propane tanks. And because of the nature of those storms, the propane trucks couldn't get up 84 and some days, leaving those neighbors cold and without working refrigerators. Having backup batteries or when And when he's that pain, if those storms are going to happen again. So thank you for your time. Thank you, David. All right. Any other takers broke. All right. We've got someone. Hello, can you hear me? Yep, we can hear you. Great, thank you. So I just want to speak on this briefly. I don't actually own a gas powered leaf flower, but I just want to share my thoughts briefly. And I feel like this is fixing a problem that I'm sure is frustrating, you know, noise. And that feel like this is fixing a problem that I'm sure is frustrating, noise. And that's probably the biggest issue I'm guessing why this is here is the noise. And also for lower emissions, which pertound to smallest hours, I can't imagine globally is going to be a huge impact. But I do think for certain people like Kristin Neu mentioned, I think if you're working on these tools consistently day in and day out, I think it's going to be a huge impact and a huge frustration. If suddenly your hands are tied and you're not allowed to use the most useful tool in your in your tool belt and and essentially you know when I feel like gas powered tools are still a little bit stronger or in some cases significantly stronger than the electric tools and so I would suggest it probably makes more sense to wait on this until electric tools have caught up to gas powered and strength and power and usefulness. I think it's coming. I think we're just not quite there yet. And so that's all I have. Thank you, Hussain. All right. Nobody's in the room for public comment. So any other hands going up in the Zoom room for public comment? Give you another second or two in case you change your mind. All right, with that we're going to close, David, I see your hand up still. All right, thanks for taking it down. All right, we're going to close David, I see your hand up still. All right, thanks for taking it down. All right, we're going to close public comment and go on to council deliberations. I'll look down this way. It's kind of more of a question, but maybe it'll also spur conversation, which is for the staff. I don't have a great idea. Some helping you guys will come up with something brilliant. I'm definitely moved by what we heard from residents on my block. But, and I, you know, what I'm hearing is, and I agree, like when a redwood falls across the tree, a lot of the equipment's not gonna handle it. Or if you have for acres or something like that. I wonder is there any way that we could kind of carve out? I wouldn't say like emergency exceptions because there's times where sometimes you just have to carve up a tree that's fallen in your yard and it's the only thing that's gonna work. Because I see the intent of this is that the day to day Monday through Friday. Leap lowers going off in people's neighborhoods, people working from home not able to work, but I think what we're hearing from these three residences, there's times where we just need heavy equipment for specific needs. And I wonder if there's a way we could have both where we have that quieter Monday through Friday, but people still have the option of having the heavy duty tools to handle heavy duty jobs. I mean, I probably should have raised this before the meeting, but I just wonder if that's something you think is there's a possibility where it could craft something where Again kind of the right tool for the right job still exists for people but day-to-day we're managing the noise and pollution of Monday through Friday And yet I like your question. I mean just to be clear though the Ordinance on the table is just for leaf blower. So I think what you're going is, is there a way to carve out leaf blower use? Right. Yeah. Large, or lack of a better word industrial or these larger rural. Are you thinking a lot of these lots are large, right? So, but yeah, I don't know. I just, yeah, I take your point, which we're not really talking about. So I don't know. I want to solve the solution of just like the day-to-day mullemble, but also allow people to handle taking care of a four mile country road, right? Yeah. So the people, the staff table, please, I'm in, I don't wanna own this entirely. But as I asked earlier, could we set different rules for different parts of town? So if one of the theories is that, and we got public comment to this effect, that properties of a certain size, that's the day to day, you know, maybe once a week, there's the flowing, which is different than I own 10 acres or 5 acres. And I don't know what that cut off is. One example would be you exempt properties above a certain size, which then as an exemption and as an exemption. And the reason I suggest that rather than a neighborhood is that we have different size properties kind of all over. So if you identify a size of property where this does not apply, then that's kind of uniform. But we haven't done any analysis on what that actually not apply, then that's kind of uniform. But we haven't done any analysis on what that actually looks like, but that is something that you could do. Okay. But just to also the original question and the comments around chainsaws dealing with trees, nothing before you tonight would be still available. But it was also mentioned to me and I don't. I do not know if there is such a thing as emergency use leaf blowers, but let's presume that there is you could also include in the ordinance an exemption for emergency. I don't know response or what the world would be, but. I mean, we talked earlier about the, the question was asked about the enforcement, you know, we've suggested that to start, there'd be an education period. I think I can say confidently that after a rainstorm if people are using power tools to clear properties that we're not going to come at you with any sort of enforcement. It's helping your neighbor will not come. And hopefully your neighbor, but caught hopefully your neighbor, but even in that instance, you know, I mean, I think we live in this world. We understand that. Hopefully that addresses the question. It does. Yeah, I didn't want to take away the top. Sorry to Kowski. We usually lead with his aridite response. I wanted to throw that out there really to gauge the council to see if they're willing to maybe be more creative rather than a yes or no we kind of And before you move off I want to say if Brandy has something to offer to I have two things one. I know that the town of Portola Valley has a leaf blower use exception or in case of emergency so that is something that could be done um and then something that could be done. And then regarding the rebate and incentive program as an idea based on what Kevin was saying, we could figure out some size of property and you could allow a resident with a certain size property to take advantage of the larger rebate so that they could buy the commercial sized blower and attempt to meet their needs with that. That's a more question. Yeah, please do. Yeah, can we go back to the statistics on how much pollution is generated? Do you say that that pollution number is based on off road vehicles in general, or is it very, very specific to leaf blowers? Let me just pull it up so I don't misquote. It's categorized as this type of equipment. So those small off-road engines, the category of equipment that the Air Resources Board and the State Legislature is regulating with AB 1346. So it's off, basically anything used off-road? I thought it was two stroke engines. So it's paint saws under 45 CCs, edgers, head tremors, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, log splitters, portable generators, pressure washers, riding mowers, and string tremors. Those are all considered small off-road engine. And those are what AB 1346 is no longer allowing to be gas powered. And the statistic that I was saying encompassed those, and there's an equivalent with here with a one hour of leaf floor use is like driving 1100 miles from LA to Denver. So it gives you, it quantifies the emissions related to a gas leaf lure comparing it to the use of a car. All's point is that the motor size that is using all this equipment, or is it? Well, she mentioned the motor size, but it's also it's specifically two stroke engines, which is not your car. I mean, you're these are engines where you add the oil to the gas. I can an outboard motor. That's one thing. By the way, that's all I know about engine. I couldn't change my oil. I'm sure it did. The other thing that I was going to make about Atherton is maybe relative to this idea of how far to with this end up going is that they were apparently they're talking about are already implementing a plan where other friend of mine has like a gas powered writing more, more for her lawn, because she's got a large lawn and she's 75 years old. She doesn't want to use the gardener for that. That's going to be subject to the banning or find $100 every time she uses it. I mean, it sounds to me that's getting pretty draconian. The panel is going to be subject to the banning. We're fine $100 every time she uses it. I mean, it sounds to me that's getting pretty frikoning and I just worry about how far down the road we go here if we start the ball here and how far do we want to go before we say that's enough. Anyway, I'll say that must be before we start our deliveries. Nope, the deliberations have started. So, okay, keep going if you want. I will let me start since I'm talking. I kind of feel like big brother here, where we're being asked to or we're taking a role of telling our residents what's best for them. And I don't like being in that position. I'm not sure I have enough data to say that there's specific data about gasoline powered leaf blowers to say you cannot use that anymore. I sure don't feel comfortable saying that. And the idea of going beyond that to other equipment, just as more and more, we're taking it away from you. And we got the state already telling us they can take away our cars, or choice in a car vehicle, how far do we go here? And I don't feel comfortable doing that. We threw out a thought, or us here, and that's maybe we make it a voluntary. And we use the incentive plan instead of money to incentivize people to transition if they wish to or if they see an economic benefit to themselves from doing that i.e. their customers say I'll go to you because you're using electric and he's using gas and I believe very much in the pollution effect there. Somebody else says, I'll stay with you because you're less expensive, whatever. Maybe you could maybe make it voluntary. And I also wonder, what are we going to do as our enforcement mechanism? If somebody says, is not transitioning, are we going to have least going around every house saying, what are you using? What is your gardener using? Or is it waiting for a neighbor to complain that the noise is too loud? And then then what is it? Electric or is it gas? I'm not sure we'll know the difference very easily. Where are you asking a question? Because I think we did talk about enforcement a bit earlier. No, we did, but that's what I'm talking about. That's going to be a real problem for us to really enforce anything here. Enough for now. Thanks, Dick. Brian, you want to go? I just, I wanted to reiterate an earlier compliment. I thought the report was excellent and I just want to compliment you. You had an answer to everything you've really researched this deep. So I thank you. So there are two things in front of us and I can certainly support the rebate program. I think that's really great that we found grant funds, and however that gets structured, that's interesting. And it does get to your point about, you know, basically a volunteering, a volunteer, an incentive plan for those that would like to do it on a voluntary basis. And within that, I of course support the $15,000 that the town could have to lead and to transition their equipment as long as provided we don't get rid of the real gas-powered stuff because we're going to need it. But from the day to day maintenance point of view, if we can transition great, but I definitely would not be getting rid of the stuff that can really do the heavy lifting. Climate is a really important issue. Of course, I understand where people are coming from on that, but fire and safety and mitigation. We're certainly working on that a lot on the other side. And look, the two public comments we got were from my district, the public comments tonight were from Councilmember, the fluids district. It doesn't surprise me. The Western Hills, this would be an enormous penalty. There's also the financial considerations, I think, to commercial leap blowers. There's no doubt to me that there's very little pricing power for these folks and the time to complete these projects. There's no doubt to me that there's very little pricing power for these folks and the time to complete these projects. I get it that there, you know, maybe there's big ones and all sorts of stuff for $1,500, but that's, it's just not the experience that I've had. So I mean, I agree with the other comment that we know we're going to get here. It's just a function of maybe waiting for the tech to catch up to a place where we're getting closer to equivalency. So I don't think one size fits all. I don't like a blanket proposal. I am a no as written, but I could also be open to some deliberation around timing or, you know, if the ban was coming, we voted to put the ban in five years from now versus a few months from now or next year, that could be interesting just to, so this doesn't come up another four times between now and then. I feel like this is the third time actually. It also came up in 2018 under Mary Oost. And so I feel like it just keeps coming back. And it's good, it's coming back. I don't, you know, it's so funny. We all use these arguments, you know, what Atherton's doing, what Porto LaValle is doing, what Hillsborough's doing. We just voted to spend 15 grand on an election, even though Atherton voted differently, and Hillsborough voted differently, and you know, to not have elections and situations like that. So I mean, we're unique. The Western Hills is unique. We have very high fire risk. We have a lot of properties that are adjacent to it. A lot of us live under 100-foot tall redwood trees. There's no way to keep up with what falls in the autumn. There's no way using electric. I mean, that's my Saturday and Sunday, probably for the entire season. So I had some thoughts about different neighborhoods. I understand pushback on that. I mean, I'm open to other considerations. I'm not a, I'm not black and white on this. I understand what we're trying to get accomplished. But very supportive of this wonderful grant program that you've uncovered, I think that's fantastic and very unsupportive as written on this proposal. I think it's an overreach on the ordinance. All would you like to go? Sure. I would just remind Brian that democracy dies in darkness. That's why we have elections. On the night of our presidential debate. I know. I'm contested elections. That's all good. That's a different topic. It's not for tonight. It's just I can't let it go. It's all good. So a few comments. I'm pretty much with where council member Dom Kowski was on this with the ordinance needs work the incentive program again kudos because I think it's a good way to go. So I have done a little bit of research on this as well. So we have a landscape group that comes by our house every Thursday morning at 9am, actually 8am. And big with leaf blowers, as you might imagine, and a couple of weeks ago, I didn't hear anything. And the leap A had switched to electric leaf blowers. I mean, I didn't hear a thing. And I was like, really impressed. I went to my wife and said, it's completely quiet. I mean, we didn't hear a thing. And usually, I mean, it's enough to like raise the dead. And I'm not as sensitive to it for our neighbors for a couple of reasons. They all have their own guys going that same morning. So it's I just sort of fear for the wildlife in the area and who might be scared off by it. But so I asked Felipe about it and and I said and he said they're not as good but it's like gravity. The you know society's changing and he said I have to be ahead of this thing and he's a good man and a good person and runs a nice business. So he did it. The only downfall he felt was the battery life because even with four batteries, you got to recharge. So he says, I need a lot of batteries to get through a day because it's not like gasoline where you can run at the gas station during lunch and refuel your mowers and blowers. He says, if I run out of juice on these, I'm done. So he says I have lots of that. I think he's got a truck full of batteries, which they replace with every house that they go to. So batteries are a pretty big deal. The state law is like, uses word gravity here and eventually, we're going to be out of the gas powered business, no matter what we do here, because you just can't buy them anymore from Home Depot. They'll, you know, as long as they're not in stock, we're not going to get them. They're like incandescent light bulbs, try to buy them. They're tough to get. I think there's a certain amount of conflation that's going on between chain saws and blowers. And we're trying to talk about leaf blowers here exclusively. So I just want to make that clear. I actually found the comments from especially Kristen knew, very compelling. And even though we live in the more menlo park areas of Woodside, we are in fact sympathetic to those who live in in redwood trees, even though it's not always reciprocated. But I think that we do rather than carving out neighborhoods, which I think is impractical and probably unfair. And I have a strong libertarian streak in me, and so I've always been taught that permit is a verb, not necessarily just a noun. So I hate to take away a right from somebody and then make them get a permit to get it back. But we could create exceptions and say, ministerially will give you an exception to, you know, it could be 20 bucks or something like that. We'll give you a permit. You can use what you want on your property. just to sort of like limit the number of gas powered and the high powered stuff that could apply to anything, that could even apply to chain sauce, with an exception for emergencies. I think that that's, and maybe even like used by Cal Fire or something we couldn't limit them anyway. But I mean, in case of an emergency that's there because Miss New mentioned that she has to clear her private road and that's, yeah, and you know, cut down down trees or big limbs that's something that you know I hate to take away a ride and then make somebody buy it back but you know just to make a very small hurdle to say you can still use it on your property so rather than carving out neighborhoods or districts just say you know go apply to the town and we'll give you a permit you could do it I wouldn't expect very many because of the gravity that I mentioned earlier and people won't be able to buy it. I also think that we're going to have to develop some outreach on this rebate program, which I'm strongly in favor of at the higher levels, to make sure that it's maybe in the wood side or in people know about it. And there's some sort of a coupon or something that maybe homeowners could give to their landscapers to go get it, encourage them to get a business license. Maybe we can help with that. Maybe homeowners could help with that as well. But I'd like to see that because I think that that will strongly help. So in short, certainly in sync with the rebate program at the higher level, I think we need to work on the date of purchase because people are like my landscape are already doing it. And I hate to see them miss out. They are expensive. They're about 1500 bucks a pack for these commercial units. And anything we can do to help, I think, would be nice to do. We're helping homeowners with their tree clearing and giving people $3,000 checks just for the asking. I think helping a landscaper who's kind of getting by and income limited, I think, and restricted here, I think is the right thing to do. So again, I'm with my esteemed colleague on this particular issue. Thanks, Paul. Sure. Ned. So I'm strongly favor the rebate program at its little possible as much as we can fund, I think. I can only assume that rational gardeners and landscapers, if there's a thousand dollars in the offering to get new equipment, they will probably jump on that opportunity. And as a woodside resin myself, I would probably use that to get one for myself. So I do think there's going to be people who take advantage of this program and come to my goals point. We're going to see the force of gravity just using these electric leafflowers over the next year or two anyway. As to part one, the introduction of the ordinance, I see all the pros less exhaust, their quieter conforms to their climate action plan. I mean, I've been discussed the fact that our open space committee advisory body on this topic is in favor of it most of the public wants it. But I guess my proposal for number one would be maybe ask the staff to go back and see if there's kind of a gold point, maybe the point I made earlier, something else we could do rather than just a blanket band. Like, take a look at the idea of permitting or take a look at, I also don't like, you know, I guess I'm more interested maybe the acreage idea rather than say community based ideas, but rather than having a blanket band is there's something more creative we can come up with so that we kind of solve the overall sound problem we have Monday to Friday, but we are still letting people use the tools specifically what'sAD residents that they need to use. So I'd be in favor of two at the highest level possible, but ask the staff to come back with something different for part one on the ordinance that maybe gives a little more freedom to our WITSAD residents and their landscapers and gardeners to do what they need to do to take care of the property safely. That's it. All right, I think much like Woodside is a bit of an outlier on this topic. I think I'm the outlier on the council. So I'm glad to hear that there's support for the rebate program. So I'm also very much supportive of the rebate program. So I broke this down and down to think what is about nine or 10 different issues. I'm gonna try to move quickly through all of them. I think the biggest one for me is the environment. And I get it, you know, definitely sympathetic to the frustration that residents might feel if they're no longer able to use their gas powered leaf lowers. But, you know, here on the town council, like we're here to make tough trade-offs. And for me, like the frustration that I think a smaller subset of the community might feel and not being able to use that equipment is, for me, outweighed by the fact that these are really, really harmful to the environment. So it's just undeniable that the negative impacts of gas-powered leafblowers, terrible impacts on air quality and public health. We heard from Brandy and the staff report that the California Air Resources Board has come out and said that they're essentially twice as harmful as passenger cars. They admit super high levels of particulate matter carbon monoxide nitrogen oxide. Just really terrible contributors to air pollution, smog, formation, respiratory diseases. And for me, I think that's just, to me, that's the, what this issue turns on for me. Gas-powered leafflowers undeniably are super harmful for the environment. I mean, that's why the state of California has banned the further sale of them. So for me, the trade off decision falls on the fact that these are just very harmful for the environment. In addition to that, I think we've heard that, they cause a lot of noise. And I read somewhere that the noise generated by gas power leaf lowers can exceed a 100 decibels, which is far above the safe levels. And I think we've heard from lots of residents complaining about the noise pollution caused by these gas powered leaf lowers. We didn't talk a lot about it, but I did want to point out because it was brought up by a number of residents in their emails in support of the ban is just the the fumes and the impact on on on health. So and I'm just going to pull some language out of a letter that we got from I think it was the Horticultural professional that wrote into the council. He said the damaging outputs of fumes, exhaust, and chemicals can cause pain and suffering for at-risk groups like children and the elderly. He indicated in his work that he suffered asthma attacks, so not only did they damage the environment, they caused noise pollution, but they're also damaging to resident health. In terms of cost, in my mind, the cost of electric equipment is very manageable. $1,500 is the very high end for a commercial grade electric leaf blower with multiple batteries. So if there's a concern that your electric leaf blower is going to run out of battery, I think it's very reasonable to have multiple batteries on hand and you can just continue on with the work. And there's a lot of choice, right? As of 2020, 44% of the law and equipment being sold was electric. So there's ready-all alternatives on hand. I don't have any enforcement concerns here. I like the approach that the town proposed. It's in line with the approach that we typically take on enforcement, which is complaint driven. My understanding of we were to pass a span that over the next 10 months, the town would be focused on outreach and education about the ordinance. The rebate programs, we'd make those materials available in English and Spanish. We would treat this first as a nuisance and an infraction. We make those materials available in English and Spanish. You know, we would treat this first as a nuisance and infraction. We talked to people, so this is not a situation where I think, you know, we saw one, I think it was Kim Hansen's letter, worried that people would be writing each other out. That's just simply not the case. We take a very light approach to the enforcement. This is really meant to change people's behavior and line with what everybody around us is doing. And you know, based on the emails that we got from residents and the research that that Brandi did, there's been a real improvement in electric equipment. The air speeds are comparable and I just, you know, everything that I have read and researched that the difference now between the efficacy of gas powered is essentially the same. The electrics, the state of the technology has improved a lot in the last few years. And so, electric equipment is just as effective as the gas. You know, what I witnessed over the last few days was strong support from the community. So we got a very persuasive letter from our environmental committees. And by my count, we had two resident emails that were not in support and many, many, many that were in support. And I think to me, that's very persuasive. I think we're in my mind, we're seeing a world demand from the community to bring woodside out of the wood, so to speak, and in line with what our peer communities are doing. Another thing that we didn't talk yet about is just about the rural atmosphere. You know, we talk a lot about how woodside is duplolic, quiet, peaceful. And in my mind, there's nothing less rural feeling than a noisy polluting gas-powered leaf blower. And then I'll just, you know, I brought it up before, but what are the other communities around us doing? I mean, woodside is most certainly an outlier in this topic, Menlo Park, Los Alatos, Portola Valley, Palo Alto, Atherton Hillsboro, and I think and mountain view as well, have already banned gas powered leafflowers. I understand that you know we you know there are we do have bigger lots but Sedu Hillsboro, so Portola Valley and they seem to be managing just fine. There's no cost to the town. And I would be very open to exploring whether or not we could potentially have an exception in the case of an emergency. I'm not super clear in my mind when what an emergency use of a gas-plowed leafler would be, but I'm happy to explore that. And I also like the idea of a from the granting the commercial level rebate to the bigger parcels. So yeah, anybody have any further things they wanted to liberate on? Let me just say I agree with everything you said. I do still I mean mean, I really do want to, for part one, rather the staff to go back and figure out if there's some way we can kind of carve out exception for these people who are the only house on a private remile road, right? That we just give them that kind of relief to use the industrial equipment that they need to for their properties. I think that's a, and I think that's a, and I think and I trust our creative staff to come back with something that I think is actually going to work for everybody here. Paul, I agree. I would just clarify that I think it should be on an as requested basis because I don't think you're going to get very many. But if you pick a 10 acre parcel, there's going to be somebody on a nine acre parcel who's got a lot of trees. And it's no matter where you draw the line, no matter where it might be permit. But that's just, but they left them to be they, I think that they know that it's sort of like to find an emergency. You know, if you need to know when they see it. And I would rather it be voluntary than prescriptive. I think it's very tough to define a lot of these things like parcel size, how many redwood trees they've got, what's an emergency? Just I think people, they believe they need this equipment. They need they have you need it. Anyway, that's mine. I think that would be in line with the goal of this ordinance, right, which is to drive different behavior. Yeah. And again, I put it in the same categories in Kandas and light bulbs. You just eventually, you won't be able to buy a gas powered anything here in the state. Okay. We need direction here. I don't know. I think we need to move on number two if we're going to move on number two. The incentive program. Well, I think we've given staff. I mean, maybe we need to align on the direction given to staff, which is to explore the possibility of different exceptions. Yeah, I think we can do that. So I heard the three that were kind of mentioned, not exceptions, but different ways of approaching this. One is the emergency exception. The other is, we talked about if there's a lot size that makes sense and then the third is, you make it a permit system or someone makes it a normal. Victor makes your case. People have to come for it and say, I need this. Oh, we can, I like, I like staff to stew on it and think about it rather than us just That we would ever shoot that's on the ordinance on the ordinance I number one. Yeah I think we Can take action on the rebate program if there's protect for that. Yeah, I'll go ahead. I move that we proven agreement with Actara for administration of an electric gardening equipment rebate incentive program and authorizing the time manager to execute a grant agreement with the peninsula clean energies authority for funding of the rebate incentive program answering the transition of the towns equipment to electric. I guess the only dish would be to the highest financial level possible. As we heard that they will go up to $1,000,000 is that right? Yeah. And so I mean, I guess we got to know what you're, are you telling us go spend $1,000? $1,000. Okay. And then related to that, I took note on, was that was one of them. One is giving the idea of giving larger properties and again I guess we have to figure out and if you want staff to do that we can but figure out what that would be. So if there's a again I think 10 acres feels like that's an easy example. If you're on a 10-acre property and you apply for this, you have professional, you get $1,000, not the $250, is that the idea? Yes. Yes. Do you get the commercial level rebate? That's following this at all. I've alluded to. That's why I'm asking the question. Right now we have professional gardeners and landscapersers can get up to a thousand dollars in a rebate. Woodside non gardening businesses of like Roberts market can get 254, a blower. Residents can get up to 254, a blower, right? The idea being if you own a large lot in woodside, say, and acres are more, a resident can level up to that $1,000 rebate. Are you talking about her machine that they use? I mean, some per property. We were her property. I think we need to be proper. So what? Yeah. You guys need some more analysis on this. I mean, does it fit into even to the $100,000 level? I mean, you know, I think we need some more work done not. Not giving that level of direction. Right? No, I know I meant more. But I was saying it. Until Kevin, I guess wisely stepped in. I think we kept the categories we have in the report, which is professionals thousand dollars. What's side non gardening businesses? 250 residents, 250. But it sounded like we could ask PC for up to a hundred thousand dollars to administer the program, which would just mean more residents, more businesses will have the opportunity before it goes dry. If I recall the comment that you made, it was we wanted to limit it to one rebate per property, per business, so we could get a more wide spread. We could add funds to it later if we wanted to have duplicate grants to property, but I thought it was to try to get it as wide spread as possible. I may have missed my idea. Yeah. That we would raise the whole program to $100,000 that more businesses and residents in part take of it to get one rebate. Yeah. Not multiple rebates per property. Yeah. I just wasates per property. Yeah. Was that what you said? Yes. Correct. May I ask that we exhaust the funds of the grant that we make it be at $212,915? Like what the amount of funds that we have available with PCE are the same. Yes. Go for the max. OK, thanks. 1, 12, whatever it was. I guess I misspoke. It was still one grant per property. Her property per business using the criteria criteria and rebate amounts listed in the uncounts of report. And we'll expand it if we have a big success we could add more money. We're not changing anything other than how much is actually funded from PC. Yeah. Second. Good. Council member Second. Good. Council Member Brown. Yes. Council Member Dom Kowski. Council Member Fluet. Yes. Council Member Gold. Council Member Shaw is absent in Mara Wall. Yes. Motion passes 501. All right. It's 830. And we are through our business. Moving on to reports. Well, I said you have a volunteer committee update. Yes, thank you, Mayor Wall. As Kevin mentioned earlier, the Environment and Open Space Committee is holding a special meeting tomorrow at 530 PM to discuss the Kiniotic Borders Project. The same project is on the trails committee regular meeting on Thursday at 3 PM. The Environment and Open Space Committee and climate and sustainability committee will be holding a joint movie night here in Independence Hall on Sunday, October 6th at 5.30 p.m. with a special screening of the documentary Fantastic fungi remastered. Postcards were sent out townwide last week, so residents should be receiving those. The doors will open at 5 p.m. And the Recreation Committee is continuing with the She-Gong and Adult Art Classes information on how to register for the classes can be found on the town's website or under the Community tab, or residents can reach out to me for assistance. Who was that? All right, we have, I do need some council member communications. I know council member Brown, I'll turn it over to you. Yes, thank you. Yeah. At the time to start taking care of our over 65 seniors, the representative of 20% of our town population yet we seem to never have town programs specific to their needs. I think it's time we do something for them. I've been developing a number of programs that I think could be of interest to them and help them a lot. The town can easily handle along with working with other community groups. For example, number one would be, I think we should do some town workshops. We've done workshops in the past from the Sheriff's Department comes in and talks about the way to protect your home or protect yourself. That's certainly going to be one that I want us to continue to do on an annual basis. I like to have a separate one that might be how to prevent falling at home. You may not be aware that it's been falling at home. It's probably one of the number one reasons for deaths and injury. This monk seniors. A lot of it happens because they fall. There's nobody there to take care of them or to get them to an emergency. And so that would be a way to teach them, what do you need to do to prevent falls at home? Another might be how to design the inside of your home to be safer, not just removing the obstacles that trip you, but how to do redesign the inside of your house, get rid of those things that make it difficult, a senior crime would be another one. Another one that the fire department, was fired, and I've talked them that all this, by the way, asked to think about would be how to be safe during an emergency. What should they be doing? And that could be a whole separate workshop. And we may get a comp with more as we get participation for more seniors that they think would be helpful to them. I'd like to get a brochure built that describes all of these steps that you can take to make yourself safer at home. Get that distributed. I know the library more than happy to help distribute that as is the fire department. Same thing with the sheriff in there, how to prevent crime. They're actually brochures out that we could be handing out every time, for example, every time the fire department goes into one of our homes with the next three years and says, here's what you need to do, get from fire, give me handing out these other literature pieces of literature. And then the other piece that I like to do, this tiny little butt, that's an emergency butt that you can eat program using your phone to alert your closest relative, perhaps, or your neighbor, and as emergency vehicle, that I need help. Here's where I am. This can be cost, cost less than $15. And I would see us distributing that to every senior that wants one more than we think needs one. Again, the town, through the library, through the fire department. By the way, the library, through the library, through the fire department. By the way, the library is more than happy to teach the residents if they have problem with programming, if they're failing how to do that. Library is already in the process, by the way, of developing programs specific to seniors, largely because I've been pushing them. And they're going to have separate parts of the library that are dedicated to literature for seniors, specific programs to help them with tech, help with other senior issues that come up. In some point in the future, we may want to consider some form of transportation options to enable seniors who don't drive or don't want to drive, for example, at night, to give them transportation options to and from like an Uber that can be subsidized by the county and other nonprofit groups that subsidize exactly that sort of thing. So what I'm looking for tonight is simply a commitment that this sounds like a good idea. Let's pursue it and I'll start work on some specifics, particularly the first workshop that I think we should be doing. And I'm well down the way right now on a brochure outline and I've ready to really kick this into high gear when I hear back from the woodside fire that they think that's a great idea. They've seen it or evaluated. So I'm looking forward to not as either you don't like the idea. Let me know. It's a good one. I'll move forward with it. Yeah. Thanks. financial elder use a big one especially this area. A financial one? Financial elder abuse. Oh, yeah. People think, oh yeah. Elder's finance. Yes. A deputy theft. I know what you mean. That's a good one. That's a really good one. Yeah. I know a lot of people in that, you know, not a user. But a turn to a turn is who take on these cases. Yeah. May I be clear? That should be very much part of what the sheriff talks about. I agree that. Yes. Anything else? Yes. Yes. All right. Any other council member communications? I'd just like to mention, Dick and I met. We talked about this issue. It's obviously a pretty important one and being just a little over 65 myself. I'm sort of sensitive to it. But I think that the The county health officer Kismit Something Santana. I forgot her name. She replaced Scott Morrow. She might be a pretty good resource because I actually think she's got some programs in this very area that she might piggyback off. Final one, the lose are focus here in Woodside, but I think some of the heavy lifting may be done. So they have programs. Yes. One thing that I think they don't do a good job of is the outreach. I completely agree. I really want to focus on that. But maybe we could have the outreach and these are the other areas. But nobody's here's about it. But I would, you know, I can't hurt to make a phone call to Kismet. She's a very nice guy. Sam Trance has a elder her vehicle program, but again, they've actually stopped serving Western Hills year ago and that restarted. Who's that? Sam Trance. Oh, Sam Trance, yes. Yeah, there's a program that the Sam trans. Oh, Sam trans, yes. Yeah, there's a there's a program that the San Mateo is doing and in fact, we have permission to use it that helps like like this throughout the school. For example, there's another fund for subsidizing things just like this that I'm looking into right now to get the San Mateos using something now and they're just getting started with. So I wanna, that's kind of, to me, that's a little bit down the road. Let's get the interest from the seniors that they really want something before we jump into that. But I think it's something we ought to be thinking about down the road, right? Thank you. Ned, Paul. All right, I just have a couple brief things and the continuation of my Woodside History moments starting again tonight. All right, so let's see. Wanted to put on the council members radar that the 20th, woe day of the horse is coming up in October. I don't have the exact dates, but, um, I wanted to. It's that 11 through the 13th. The second second weekend of October. All right. Uh, Right before that on October 10th, we are having our town, uh, staff party, staff and council member party. You all should have received a paperless post invitation so for some reason you didn't get it please let me know but I'm looking forward to that and looking forward to celebrating our amazing staff. So again that's on October 10th and I know I always really appreciate it when council members send articles of interest over to Kevin for sharing with the council. One article recently caught my eye. It's in the Almanac, but it's relevant to our housing element topics from July. You know, Atherton, I think we all know is still working on getting its housing plans approved, but they're now doing so in the wake of an enforcement letter from the state. So I just thought that was relevant for this group. And that's that's my communications. I'm going to end this evening. So I'm cheating a little bit tonight because I had actually put together this little history moment. For July and we just ended so late I didn't get a chance to do it. Our show's not to do it so we could all go home. But you know I had put that together kind of thinking in July, we probably could all have all used to drink frankly after the late nights and they got me thinking you know what what was the first watering hole in Woodside? And probably doesn't come as any surprise that at least according to my research that it was the Pioneer Saloon, which is our local no frills favorite. But I'm wondering if anybody else is aware that did you know that some of the pioneers' success can actually be attributed to Jane Stanford. It can be. So Jane Stanford was born in, I can't read my writing here, 1928. And she co-founded Stanford University. She was the eighth first lady of California. And after the death of her son and her husband, she single-handedly funded and operated Stanford until she died sadly of strict-nine poisoning. And you know there was a first poisoning attempt at her mansion and then a second successful poisoning in Hawaii that led to a very gruesome death. And no one was ever convicted, but the suspects include her personal secretary and the university president at the time, a man named David Jordan. Now, Mrs. Stanford left a well in which she revealed herself as a tea toteller. And in her will she demanded that no alcohol be served within one mile of the Stanford campus. But lawyers in the room will appreciate that her will was filed in Santa Clara County and had absolutely no sway in San Mateo County. So, as such bars like our very own Pioneer saloon were allowed to flourish. And with that, we will close our meeting. This point of clarification, Alice's restaurant has been around since the early 1900s.