Okay, we're ready. Okay, good evening, Commissioner Staff and members of the public. I'm calling to order the March 19, 2025 meeting. Sorry. Oh, yes, April meeting. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to do roll call. Versus vice chair Patel. Present. Commissioner McConee. Present. Commissioner Victoria's absent. Commissioner Ismail. Present. Commissioner Samina. Present. Commissioner Chaudhary. Present. And Commissioner Ramaswami. Present. Okay. And given that Commissioner Victoria's absent today, Commissioner Ramaswami, whose alternate will be full participation. Next we're going to move to item number two, approval of the agenda. I moved approved the agenda. I second that. In all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Yeah, I'll just tear this off. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Next is item number four, public comment. Would any members of the minutes. Okay. Sorry. Next is item number three approval of the minutes for the February 19th and March 19th minutes. Through the chair. So I do move to amend or or make a comment about the March 19th minutes. In the minutes, it shows that Commissioner Patel was part of the discussion and policy or discussion and action. She voted, but I recall that Commissioner Patel did leave early. So if we could amend the minutes to just show that and then I move to approve as noted. Did you? Did you say February 19 or March 19? March 19. Okay. With those changes, can I entertain a motion? Motion to approve as amended. Second. I'm all in favor. I. I. I. I. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. too. Okay. Next is item number five. We will be receiving a presentation on the city of East Palo Alto's trouble reporting services from the engineering division. With that on hand to staff. Good evening. We have Michael Cortez who's a necessary engineer at the city. You will be presenting this item. So Michael, I'll pass it to you. Okay. Okay, so good evening everybody. If we haven't formally met or if you've just only seen my name through email, my name's Michael Cortez, and I'm an engineer in the engineering division. Today, I'm going to be giving a little presentation on the city's trouble reporting services. So just really quickly to go over what's on the menu for tonight. First, it can be to, it can be broken down into three main sections. First, I'm going to be giving just a very high-level overview of the reporting services that we offer. And then I'll be going into kind of each channel that we can report services into. And then I'll be giving a little conclusion and summary to recap what I talked about. So first I'll do a brief overview of the city's reporting services. So residents can report issues to the city through various channels depending on what kind of issue you'd like to submit. And you can report general issues, you can report emergencies, you can and you can request information or records from staff. And just as an FYI, the city web pages managed by the city clerk's office as a city clerk is responsible for transparent public information and making bridging the gap between you and its residents. Also as an FYI, the user experience and the user interface is designed by a third party called Civic Plus. So unfortunately, city staff doesn't have the power to make any kind of like design to the website. You can definitely submit to us and we could make the recommendation towards the city clerk's office. Okay, so I'll go into the different reporting services that we have. First off, I'd like to start off with a disclaimer. For anything that's urgent or life-threatening, please call 911 immediately. And then if it is anything that's not really urgent, but critical things that are taking place, you can reach out to the East Pole also, So police dispatcher at 650321112. Okay, that being said, the first channel that we can, that residents can submit issues to the city is through the online tickets portal. And this one is mainly for reporting non-urgent and non-life threatening issues such as, you know, things that street, or if you'd like to report something. The way that you can access this is through the city website. And as you can see in the screenshot on the side, there's a little icon on there that says submit a request. And then you would submit your request there. And I'll kind of just go over the mechanism for how these tickets get processed. So first, you submit the ticket online and then you'll type something in about what's going on and categorize it. And so once you submit it in from there, the city clerk is going to route it to the correct city department or the division that kind of deals with that. And so the requester will eventually receive responses directly from the person it's assigned to. And then you'll be in contact there. And then once the issue has been resolved, the city clerk will go in and they'll close it request and then they'll notify the requester that it's been resolved. So the second form that you can go on the website is through the Public Records Act requests. This channel is mainly for requesting things like public data or records such as as parcel maps, as built record drawings, or utility location maps. And the mechanism for this is also very similar to the online tickets. So there will be submitted online at the city website. I put a box around the PRA button that you can find right next to the online ticket request. And then similarly, the city clerk is going to sign it and then city staff will respond to it and then once it's resolved, then city clerk will notify and close it out. So the next three channels that we can, that residents can submit requests is through some channels that are managed by the division. And so these consist of engineering requests, you can submit environmental services requests, and then you can do maintenance requests. And I'll, in the next slides, I'll kind of go over which division covers what. So the first one is engineering requests, and you can reach out to the engineering inbox at our cityofepa.org, and then our phone number is there. So when reporting to the, or when submitting issues to the engineering inbox, you can report things like down to malfunctioning street lights, malfunctioning crosswalk lights or traffic signals. You can report roadway issues that aren't pressing, like if you want to voice your concern about a sidewalk or if you notice a pothole or something that doesn't require immediate attention. And then another thing that you can do through this channel is receive updates on public construction projects within the right of way or receive clarification or information on any existing infrastructure within the public right of way that you might have a question about. Like if you see something installed and you're wondering, is this a city project or, you know, did we do this and things like that? So the next channel that we can submit reports to is the Environmental Services. And you can reach them at Clean City at cityofepa.org. And some of the things that you can report are things like illegal dumping, abandoned shopping carts, report of any encampments that you might see, any street swooping issues. If you notice any hazardous materials out in the public right away or any type of bio hazards. And so the third and final one that you can report issues through is through maintenance. And ones you can reach them at maintenance at city of EPA dot org and The things that you can report through this channel are mostly operational issues regarding the city facilities within the public right away and These things are like potholes if you see graffiti and you storm issues, you can request information for where to get sandbags during the rainy season, janitorial surfaces, rodent control, any parks and playgrounds maintenance, median landscaping, tree trimming, or any sidewalk or street maintenance that can be taken care of. And I'd like to differentiate between this and engineering. The maintenance requests that you can submit are things that someone can be dispatched to go address right away. First is engineering. It's things that we can look into and maybe include on a future project or something, yeah, just basically things that we can investigate. But maintenance requests are things that someone would go out and go take care of. And so now on the screen are just some other reporting services like with utilities and these are things related to sanitary sewers. If you just have general inquiries you can reach out to info at epsd.org and there's two phones, phone lines on there. The first one is just for general sewer issues but the second one the 6503210384. These things like sewer emergencies like sewer spills overflows that That a crew would need to be dispatched to go addressed And the other one is for water related issues and If you have questions depending on where you live in the city You can reach reach out to Violea, Palo Alto Park, Mutual Water Company at the contact information provided on the screen. So now that I've gone over where you can report issues, I want to go over some best practices for reporting issues. And so if you're submitting a request, whether it's through the city website, or if you're sending an email into one of the three inboxes, I think it's a very good idea to just provide as much information as possible. And if you're reporting through email, it's good to provide a reference address. And if you have it, you can put pictures for reference so that we know exactly what's going on. I mean, words can only describe so much, but if you provide a picture, it'll capture exactly what your issue is. And if you're reporting over the phone, again, it's a good idea to provide a reference address. And if you're calling in, be a good idea to describe the issue very thoroughly as best as you can. And at the end of your message, it's good to provide a name and a phone number that we can reach just so that we can follow up if we address the issue. And just a general rule of thumb, if you're not sure which of the three or the other two to submit to, you can always send it to us at engineeringacp.cityofepa.org and we'll distribute it to one of the other channels. Here are a couple examples of good things that come into our inbox. Here's a malfunctioning street light. And as you can see, there's a reference address and there's a clear picture of what it is. And this was actually sent in by one of our commissioners, Isabelle. And then here's another one where there's a picture of a down-ballard in one of the temporary traffic signals and this is actually sent in by Commissioner Cowell. So these things help and a good saying that I like to kind of just guide myself by communication isn't about, isn't all communicating. It's, it's about making it impossible to miscommunicate. So if you can provide as much detail, it helps out a lot. All right, so going over some next steps. So actually, a new city web page is in the works, according to the city of, or according to the city clerk's office. Right now we don't know exactly when, but since we're putting in feedback or we're putting in a new city web page, all the feedback that you have is greatly appreciated. And just putting it out there, some standard operating procedures for all the inboxes is constantly being refined and standardized. So, you know, staff is working on developing some SOPs for taking in requests and how to address them and getting back to people. So, staff is working very hard to make sure that everything gets addressed and things don't slip through the cracks. Okay, so to recap, residents can report issues to the city through different channels, depending on what they're requesting, and that's online at the city website. You can submit an online ticket or you can submit a public records request or you can email it to one of the division managed channels. And again, a new city website is in progress, so we appreciate your feedback so that we can incorporate it into the next city website. And again, some best practices, be descriptive, provide as much detail as possible, giving a reference address, some photos of the issue, and so on. And if in doubt, you can always reach out to us and we'll route it to the right division. And just on the screen, I know I threw a bunch of contact information at you during the presentation, but here's a table of, you know, the different contacts you can reach out to for your issues. Okay, that concludes my presentation. Yeah, thanks for your time. Okay, thank you, Michael. Do you need commissioners? Have any questions? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.er, charge. So I attended the city council meeting last night and heard about Cloud Enforcement policies and I would just curious would these issues be handled by Cloud Enforcement officers and if so, how would you be placed into the three tier system? I could jump in here. So these requests that Michael was referring to are pertain to the public works department. And the presentation last night was specific to the code enforcement policies, which is part of another department. So the policies that were laid out yesterday would not pertain to this process. Totally separate. All right. So like if there's like pollution or debris and stuff like how would we forget which jurisdiction it falls under? Yeah. If you forget then you could follow any process you know and eventually we'll make it down to the right division or department. Got it. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a there's a overlap a little bit sometimes that occurs between code enforcement and the environmental team because illegal dumping in the public right of way is not code enforcement that comes down to public works. However, if it's illegal dumping on private property, then it's code enforcement. And so a lot of times, you know, the public does not know. And so they'll call whatever number they have available. But the point is that the departments are communicating. And so if co-enforcement receives a complaint, that needs to go to public works, and they would refer that to the environmental team. Got it. Thank you. OK, I saw the number of hands raised. I'm going to move from my right to left, starting with Commissioner Semino. Yeah, hi, thank you for presentation. I have a good question for you. You said that you're updating the website for people being available to understand how to report. Will you consider to actually send like an email for everyone who's subscribed for newsletters so people will have it in their inbox. Because our email from for the seats very heavy, it's really hard to read. So people and people likely will not go to website to check what is going on. I'm sorry, just to clarify, Are you requesting that the city sends out an email? Mm-hmm. V. website to check what is going on. I'm sorry just to clarify are you requesting that the city sends out an email via the email list that goes out in the newsroom once the new city website is live. No, no, we then all information how to report and what to do. It's in a separate email instead of putting it in our subscribe list, we do have a lot of stuff and it's really hard to read. It's a very long one. Oh. So maybe it would be good idea to say in a separate email. Full subscribers was all this information that we do have right now in the presentation. So how to report, what is a report? I see what you're asking. We can work with the City Clerk's office. I know they usually just use that. Like when people sign up for the news that are they only get the newsletter list, but we can ask him and see if he has any recommendations on getting this information out to the public. Yeah, because I believe it's going to be very beneficial then it will come in to be short and clear. Otherwise, it will not reach any community. Good Commissioner McConee. Thank you Michael for the presentation is a very informational. So when I first was trying to work with the with the reporting system for the city. I looked at it as the one system, but you made a good distinction that this is just for the public works. Hopefully in the future that when we update the, you say you're gonna update the city web pages that just for the public works or in general for the city website. Yeah, for the whole city website. Okay. Okay. So that'll be good. I'm hoping that we would consolidate and find efficiencies with the different departments and whatnot. But with the existing system, does the city manager have visibility into these online requests? Does he get pinged on it too? Or is it just city clerk? So I don't think the city manager gets a ping. Usually what happens is I think the city clerk's office will get a notification and then they assign it to a particular person and then that person will get a notification. But city staff could go in and see the list of all other requests, but you wouldn't get an email notifying you unless the clerk assigns it to you. OK. And then can you speak along those lines, speak to how many staff are dedicated to this process? Is it just James or does James have, you know, support and mean to help with these requests and, you know, yeah, believe he's the lead, but he does have staff who are helping him. I know the main person that's been helping him is out on leave right now, but he usually does have a staff member assisting him with, you know, routing these requests to the, the proper department or person. Okay. And then the average time for response once a ticket is submitted. And then the follow up to that is if the average time for response is not met, what is the recommendation? Do we submit another or do we email? We pick up the phone and call someone. Yes, so we actually talked to the city clerk about this fire to bringing this item. And he said there other than PRAs, there isn't a timeline that the city staff are required to meet. Obviously, because the request are very like sometimes it's a request to install It's all like a crosswalk or sometimes it's a maintenance request that's easily fixable. So we don't really have specific timelines on one city staff will be replying. I the follow up procedure, I mean you're more than welcome to email the department if you know who you're working with. All right, believe on on the city website, you should be able to make a comment. I would need a double check because obviously I'm on the staff side of one we're answering tickets so it might be a little different so we can investigate that a little further. But if you know who you're working with once the items assigned, you can feel free to reach out to that person directly. Okay. Yeah, if some, you know, that information and that guidance if we can include that in, you know, whatever when we send this out to the public, I think that would that would be helpful to have that part of the information. and then with the creation of or the development of the new website, I assume that the public will be, we will solicit the public for feedback, right? There will be some kind of public comment or hearing in the future when we get to that point. But that's all my comments. Thank you. Thank you. Very Commissioner eSmail. Thank you. Very commissioner, East Mill. Thank you, Michael, for that presentation. I wanna build off what Commissioner McConee was saying about sort of how we can streamline some of these requests. So I'm glad to hear that there's gonna be a new website and with that website, a new ticket system if I'm understanding correctly. Is that right? I believe so. I believe they're redoing the whole website. And I didn't even know you could submit through the website until now. I mean, and I'm thinking about yesterday's City Council meeting and they were talking about upgrading software for handling code enforcement. So I'm kind of curious are these conversations like all happening in coordination? I mean, I definitely would love to see something streamlined for public works related requests. And I think it's really important to kind of acknowledge receipt when the public reaches out. And I know everyone on your team probably does like two or three persons' jobs. But you know, it kind of, it's important to sort of build up trust with the public. They want to know that, you know, even if you can't get to something right away that you've received their, um, received their request. And obviously that will be a lot easier to do if there's some sort of automated ticketing system. But yeah, even in the meantime, maybe just having some sort of auto reply, like, you know, thank you for submitting this. We'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks. Thanks, Michael, for the presentation. I like Isabelle's suggestion as well for an auto reply. Do we know it? So I want to check commissioner Ramos want me to have any comments before I asked mine. Yeah, I do. Thanks again, Michael, for the presentation. So my first question is, what kind of engagement are you getting from this website? Like how many requests are you getting per month? Or are people engaged with this in the community? I'm not sure if I could put a number on it, but I would say, it's on a weekly basis that we receive miscellaneous requests that aren't necessarily engineering requests, things that we have to investigate. So yeah, I would say on a fairly regular basis. Okay, cool. Have you guys considered having like a single general request portal instead of having like a bunch of different categories that people have to like sort through? You just have like one and then people can like look at, it's just easy for them to submit a single request. And then the county clerk will just bucket it. Well, that's kind of what's happening now with the online platform, with the submit a ticket. What happens is people can submit a ticket on anything. And then the city clerk's office and his city clerk and his staff will then direct it to the correct department. And then they address it. Okay. Cool. Two more questions. Okay. Percentage-wise, do you think most of your maintenance fixes for the city are coming from requests on this website, or is it from like an inspection program? We don't keep track of that data, but we could potentially ask maintenance, because I know they have a service log, and we can see if they keep track of where those service order requests are coming from, but we don't have that information. Okay. Is that even the goal of this system? Like, is the end goal that the people are reporting almost all the issues? That they're reporting all of the issues and then that we, I mean, we do try to, we do try to address every, every request that comes. So I mean, yes. Okay. Okay. Cool. Thank you. That's all. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Michael, thanks for the presentation. Just for context, this has been a item requested by like previous commissioners. So I know it's been a number of people have wanted information here. I had three main questions. First one is a simple one. When did the city websites submitted to get go live? Has that been around for a long time? It's definitely been around since I started, which is like four and a half years ago. Okay. And the next question is, so like, I also didn't really know about this until I spoke with Michael when he was preparing this presentation about this feature. And I feel like the public gets mixed directions. On the one hand, the first thing you see when you go to the city website is like submitted ticket, select the category such as street maintenance. But then on the other hand, when you go to the city's engineering website, it doesn't tell you anything about the submitted ticket. It's like email engineering. And then on other pages, like email maintenance. So it would be helpful if there's just one place that people go. Otherwise, I feel like, well, the submitted ticket seems tracked. Because I see there's a check ticket status and it does do the auto reply. Like some of the features, other commissioners have. But on the city pages, it's not telling us to submit a ticket. It's like go straight to the email. So I feel like it's confusing for the public in that way. Yeah, hopefully with the new update, maybe it could be set up in a way that's more clear to the public. So we'll make a note of all the comments. Yeah, I think what I would recommend until we get to the new system is, is that potentially, I mean, if we really wanna use a submit a ticket way, then on all the city web pages or engineering just link to the submit a ticket and just be like, go through here. That way everything's tracked, you have all the metrics on things. The other concern I have is that on the submitted ticket website, which is the first thing someone sees on the homepage, I couldn't find a way to upload any photos which seems seems to misalign with best practices, Michael, I'd mentioned. How is the public's resources submit? These are requests if they can't upload a photo. I would say if you do have a photo that you'd like to submit, then maybe you could go to engineering but but again, another best practice to is to describe the issue as best as you can, at least if you're submitting a ticket through that submitted ticket portal. Yeah, I would say if it's something that you're unsure of where it needs to go when you have pictures or what you could do is you could submit a ticket, say, hey, I have pictures, documentation, not I can't upload it here, or I'm not sure where to submit it, get a contact information, and then you would be coordinating with someone or a certain department on that, since there isn't that feature of uploading images and videos on the website, like you could do via email. Yeah, can we just, like, is it possible just ask the city clerk department to have a feature because I feel like Commissioners mentioned staffs really overloaded and the last thing we want is you have to go chase them when down to go get the photos Yeah, we could will summarize some of these points and send it over to him Yeah, we're I we don't have an answer on whether or not they could do it because we don't really have the ability to tweak Any of the other city pages other than the public works ones, but we'll for sure Let him know the comments that are being made Okay, and then the last thing before we go to Commissioner Sumina is I see that on the submitted ticket. There's a good check ticket status thing where I guess they get the auto reply, presumably I can enter the ticket number and see how the status is going. Is that something that public works is utilizing right now or does that not really get changed? So the status once we address an item, like for example, when I address tickets, I update that. So like if it's waiting on a respond like additional information from a resident, I will switch that. So whoever's addressing the request, I did say and I know the city clerk's office has been going in consistently and then following up with staff and then they go in and close out the tickets as well. It's like a check like in case, you know, staff has addressed it, but it hasn't enclosed. They'll go in and close something out. Okay, but staff staff can close the ticket themselves. They don't have to play telephone with. Yeah, yeah, we could do it. Okay. Okay, those are all my questions. Commissioner Simino. Yeah, I have one more question. Right now, I'm very active on a Facebook and I see how the people is actually sometimes thinking that stuff is not doing anything and then employees are not doing anything, anything. Is there is any way while we are still working on a new website to create some kind of the page, then people can see the statistics, how many actually cases did you address, and what did you do? Because otherwise, there is like completely limba, people are thinking that they're not doing anything, and this is totally not true, and this is not fair for everyone who is working. But it's really hard to convince someone without any statistics, and I'm sure we do have it. So the only one thing that we need is just hitting one more page and I believe the website is already budget, but it's probably going to be very small cost for it in just one page. And because you already have the statistics, how many cases did you address and how big there were, it's probably going to be better to show public that we're working as a city and providing the service. I'm going to go to the next slide. Just two things. The first thing I just want to make a suggestion was that maybe we could work with the city to create a camera post or something about how to report and put on the Facebook Instagram. I think that's something I would also like person sure on mine. We can post on other neighborhood groups as well. Um, I feel like that'd be an easy way. Like this PowerPoint was great, but I feel like we post PowerPoint and everyone's going to read it. So if you can condense it to like a camera or something on that nature. And I lost my train of thought on the other one, but I'll come back to me. Okay, I'm gonna limit to like two more questions Max since we have some public hands raised. Commissioner, I'm a swammy. Yeah, I just wanted to quickly second the idea of adding statistics to the webpage. I think it's a phenomenal idea. I have found in the past that people are very, very responsive to statistics. Yeah, and just on that note, one data point we have is, so Pala Autos 311 page actually uses a service provider called Excela, but one thing that in talking to Paul to residents that they like a lot is that they can actually see a map of every single ticket that's been submitted to Paul Aldo, the exact number submitted, the exact status, the exact photos. And it's like all public domain. And I think this builds a lot of trust from the residents and I think yeah it would be great for East Paul to have something like that too. I'm going to open up to public comment and the first hand that I see raised is Council Member Lincoln. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I was just wanted to just make a correction. I think if you. One of the numbers. Fun numbers listed was incorrect for the polls apart. It's 6503226903. I think the email is correct. So I just wanted to say that so you guys don't end up calling the wrong number not getting through. But that's something common I have. Thank you. We'll go and incorrect that. Thank you. We'll go in and correct that. Thank you. Okay, I don't see any other comments from the public. Did any commissioners have any last thoughts on this item? Okay. Next, we're going to move to item number six, staffing commission reports. Typically the format here is we open to commissioners for all reports. We do have one that I'll be giving a presentation on today. I'm thinking after my presentation, we can also do the same format if any commissioners or reports. So yeah, I'll spend about 10 minutes on this. Should I bring up the slides or are there slides handy? If you have it pulled up you could pull it up if not give me a second and I can share a screen for you. I can pull it up. Just give me a sec. I think in the meantime, why don't we see if any commissioners have a quick oral report? I don't have a fiscal report, but we're still looking for a second location to put the little library. So if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. We're trying to be cognizant and sure that we're not placing one. I location that already has one. So if any commissioners have any suggestions, I would really appreciate that. Thank you. Could you explain a little more about the little library? Yeah, for people who were not here at the previous meeting. So sorry. No, you're good. City here is an organization that's been working closely with us in East halter and they actually held an event a few months ago where they created little libraries and they wanted to donate to the city so that we can put in our parks. The little libraries essentially it's kind of like a box kind of I don't how to describe it but like a box on a stake I guess but there's books inside and it allows individuals to take books but also replenish it so that community can have access to reading materials and I think it's a really great program especially because you see how the library is on this side of the community so it makes them more accessible to people who are living on the other side who might be going on walks or something and it allows them to access those materials. So that's kind of the general idea of what they are. So you're taking suggestions for location. That's awesome. What where are they currently or they're still deciding? So the hard part is we have several that have been donated but not all of them have chartered and I believe we're working the process of making that happen. I know that we have one at Cooley Landing, we have one at Jackfrell Park, Joel Davis Park. I know that city year is trying to get one at every school in the district on our side. So that's kind of what we have right now. I think if you go on Google Maps, you can see a few of them. But I remember when I had our meeting with I think with Maurice. I can't remember his title right now. The representative for city or was talking to Maurice about how you can charter them so that when we go on Google Maps and research little libraries, we can see all of them in their locations. What about the Boys and Girls Club maybe? Or is that like a partnership you could have? Or YMCA? YMCA might work better. I'm just thinking because of what the Boys and Girls Club have at the gate around it, so it's not as accessible. I think the reason why see it might work better. I'm just thinking because of what the boys and girls could be held at the gate around it. So it's not as accessible. I think the reason why I see it works. I think why I see it has one. I think it's BELSE 3 Park that doesn't have one. So we were like on the fence about who wanted to put out BELSE 3 Park since they're just, they're already neighbors, you know. other location than we might go with that. With a bell park I'm actually living pretty close. There is not a lot of walking people around. So probably why I'm saying it's a good idea because people will see it. With a bell park, it's just a dead zone. So sometimes people are walking dogs there. But God, I'll definitely come out of that. Thank you. Or what about, is there anything on the bay trail that could be like on those cute little, like you know, on some of the bridges, there's like areas where people can walk by and. So, that's another good idea. I have to look into it because I know that trails get complicated because I know that it's part of us but then there's a jurisdiction. Look, from what I understand, there are parts of the trail that are not part of his fault, the part of Pololto, which is why they're not up kept, which is a whole another issue. But I'll definitely look into that as a possibility, you know, to see what areas are under our jurisdiction, to see where we could place that. So I'll definitely take that into consideration. And And something you need to just to get, have good thing to have in mind for future things. I feel like this. where we could place that. So I'll definitely take that into consideration. And something that's just to have good thing to have in mind for future things. I feel like this might be just a start to a partnership and we might receive more in the future. Yeah, I feel free to let us know if we can help with any of that. I appreciate that. Thank you. Okay, but tour, I'm ready if you can pull up the slides. Okay, but tour, I'm ready if you can pull up the slides. Okay, on second. Yes. Thanks. Okay. So I'm going to be spending about 10 minutes to give an analysis of our Sam's Trans, right plus micro transit statistics. Why do I think this is important for the commission and the community? One is, I think that this is a good proxy to understand how some Eastpaltar residents are traveling within our community, within Eastpaltar within Bell Haven as well. Two, East Palette doesn't have access to light street light data anymore. So we actually can't see like we did before how many trips there. I'm told that Sam trans also lost access like a county thing. That's pretty important for us because without that, it's hard to, harder to make decisions. So this is also a proxy. So yeah, next slide, please. So for some context, RIDEPLUS is a micro-transit system that was introduced in summer of 2023, almost two years ago by SAMTRANS. And while it was a new micro transit system, it was also partially replaced a streamlined route 280 that used to run, that used to pick up more. It would go down university, make a loop around, and you're like, like, along one side of woodland, make a loop along the other side and then come down. And Sam Trins wanted to streamline this route along with some other routes. And so they're after removing some bus stops, they supplemented it with the micro transit. They're the red vans that go around the city. And people can call them using their phone or by calling. It's kind of like an Uber pool for the price of a bus ticket for like a little over $2.00. Next slide, please. So here I have some more context. Blue are existing Sam Trans bus routes that serve East Palo Alto and surrounding communities. In redder areas that I've annotated that are roughly like half a mile or more from the nearest bus stop. And what I wanted to understand is do the micro transit routes generally align with people traveling between these red areas where they can't necessarily walk that close to a bus? Next slide. So yeah, some questions here. One, how many red plus strips across how we want to wine? This is important because we've been putting a lot of investment into that corridor. Should we improve walkability along with Linda Avenue, AKA like are a lot of people like taking trips from near there. How many trips are tuned from schools, how about commerce areas, hospitals, and for some of the most frequent trips that are happening, is there an alternative and why is it not being used? Next slide. So, Sam Trance did interact a lot with our previous commissions where previous to to Ride Plus and shortly after it went live, they made presentations. I had reached out and they don't have the resources right now to present to the city. So I was granted a one off access to data just to present to the commission and to the public of East Palo Alto. It came in the form of an Excel spreadsheet. This spreadsheet showed the top 10 trips for every month on Right Plus. It's not a comprehensive view, but it gives the view of the heaviest users. Next slide. High level in fiscal year 24, there were 26,416 rides. More rides were on weekdays than on weekends from a perspective of how many rides per service are per van. But weekends are not that much farther behind, maybe 30% less ridership on weekends, and people are still using this. Next. This is something I'd graphed out on total ridership per month from inception until the cutoff day of the data got to January 25. You can see that after December of 2023, there was a decrease in ridership that also aligned with the time where RidePlus stopped their introductory free rides and started charging the normal fairs. So I think that's why. But overall, you can kind of see a downward trending. Generally 25 at 30.4. What is this? I forgot what the exact numbers are here, but the number has been skewing down next. And then in terms of the number of active riders per month, this number unfortunately has also been decreasing. It peaked right before the end of the free period and since January 24, it's generally been decreasing. Next. Number of new writers has also been decreasing. Just looking at the last five months, next. And this is a view kind of aggregating the last two slides I just showed. The top one is just a cumulative, like how many total writers were there ever. And of course, a lot of people who take a ride and probably never use it again. The middle darker blue is the number of new writers that I just showed. And then the bottom one is the active writers. So you see active writers have been pretty constant. But it seems like there is a necessarily necessarily an increase in number of active riders. OK, next. So here I'm going to summarize the insights from looking at the top 10 trips per month. And then I will kind of fly past this later on looking at every month where I've grafted out. So first, I've noticed that approximately 30 to 50% of ride plus rides cross highway 101. Remember, these are the top 10 most frequent destination, like origin destination pairs. So it may not be reflective of overall ridership, but I'm using that as a proxy here. This number's also been trending upwards as you look over the months. More people seem to be crossing Highway 101, even for short trips. Bullpoint number two is that there's also a number of rides crossing Willow Road. Bell Haven is also in the service area along with these Palo Tto and technically a very small portion of Mendel Park, like outside of Bell Haven. And what's interesting here is that most of these trips are actually asymmetric. So when there's one trip going one way, you don't see the other one in the top 10. I don't exactly know why yet. Schools make up for about 10 to 20% of the rides, which aligns with some of the interviews I've done with the Ride Plus drivers. Very few rides start or end as Amtrans bus stops, which I guess makes sense since people might just take the bus instead. And then in general, most of the travel seems to be going north to south within the city as opposed to east-west, which you'll see in some of the maps I'll show. Next. So the following graphs are annotated this way, where green dot is the pickup and red is the drop off. And then I've plotted the frequency, like the number of times that trip was made during that month on the line in between. And I've slightly offset some of the markers just so they don't entirely cover each other. Okay, we'll start with July 23. So this was the first month of, it wasn't even a complete month, but but for example, if you look from the bottom left of the screen to the top right, you'll see a trip that goes from the west side, becareen is where it starts and red is where it ends. Both of these stops are actually somewhat far from bus stops, which makes sense. Why someone would take this trip? I don't know the exact route they took, but it's likely they probably took university and went up. And you can see in general, a lot of the lines on this screen are like about a mile trips north south. You see a lot of trips in university village, and I think that's because there aren't many buses that stop north of Bay Road. The only one is, I think, 280, and that only runs every 75 minutes or so. So that makes sense why people farther up north wouldn't necessarily walk to the McDonald's. We can skip for like five slides. So this is just month by month and I'll pull out some interesting ones at AC. Okay we can pause there. So here also looking at these top 10 trips, you'll continue seeing a lot of the north south like the longer halls. They're just like a mile, but they're crossing the highway. And then there are also some east west trips here. For example, in the top left, you see one from Bell Haven crossing to East Pala Alto. You also see some longer hall winds like there's a red dot in Bell Haven to the west of Willow and then that seems to start from the Ravenswood 101 shopping center. The address is like McDonald's and maybe it's an employee but you can see whoever, some of these individuals are really relying on, on this micro transit, since they've done like 26 trips on this, each of my. OK, next slide, please. Here, here we can just scroll down the tool, and I'll mention if there's anything interesting. OK, we can pause at this one. So here one of the interesting insights is that if you look near near the Highway 101 in University intersection you see a trip that goes from the west side across the freeway over to the Ravenswood 101 shopping center and I think that these types of trips will hopefully be served, like hopefully people might be able to walk these trips with our new university over Crossing Bridge that they didn't have, that wasn't as nice of a walk before. But some things we'll have to think about is just, it's like a lot of cross, a lot of intersections at pedestrians have to cross if they make that walk. So in general, one way we could look at success later on of our pedestrian overcrossing is like, do we start seeing less trips going a pretty short distance across the freeway? If yes, then our pedestrian overcrossing being valuable. But if no, then what else we need to do to encourage people to take different routes. Since every vehicle that crosses university does add additional congestion. But Tool, can you please scroll down, pass all the maps, and then I'll wrap up. Okay, so these are my personal recommendations based on what I had seen. So first, Woodland Avenue, south of university, I think needs improved walkability. I know this on staff's radar ready. There are no sidewalks to the between Kool-Ayev and University of on Woodland. And one of the data points that I had noticed in many months, I didn't get a chance to talk about it here, was that there were many cases where residents who lived like pretty close to an existing bus stop. I noticed we're taking micro transit. Like they could have probably walked to the bus stop in three minutes and then the exact same route. And there could be a lot of other reasons, but I think that the lack of sidewalks may be a big barrier to them just using existing bus infrastructure. Second, I've mentioned earlier how north of Bay Road in University Village, there's definitely a lot of trips from there and I think it's because the transit stop is like 0.58 miles from the school and the existing bus, only bus that goes there runs every 75 minutes. So we may want to consider better connectivity there. Third. Third is that on the west side, I also notice a lot of trips coming from NLO Park, kind of between Will and University. And what's interesting here is that a lot of these residents actually could have walked to the 296 bus stop on Willow and instead we're calling micro transit. And I also noticed that there are a lot of streets that are that didn't have sidewalks, which could be an additional barrier. And then lastly, Addison Avenue, I noticed a lot of trips crossing your Addison Avenue from the mid part of East Paluto over to the West Side, like Menel Park West North of University. And potentially if we see more trips we could consider another type of over crossing in the future. Next please. So yeah with that I'll conclude my presentation and these are just some supplemental slides at the end. Thank you. I'm through the chair. Thank you, Chris, for that presentation. That was very informative. I did have just one quick question. Did that data that was sent over an Excel indicate like age groups or age ranges for the writers? Or was it just or what type of data did it show? Yeah, I don't think you have age ranges. Can we go back to the, was it the recommendations slide? Yeah, I'll pull it back up. So Chris, these recommendations, these are for public works because obviously Sam trans is not under our jurisdiction. So is that kind of the intent here? Yeah, yeah, that's intent. And these are my personal thoughts, not the thoughts of the commission. And talking to Sam trans, like even minor things, like by stop improvements, I've noticed they're often looking to the city for improvements on. Of course sidewalks that lead to the bus stops are important since without sidewalks, it's just a barrier for people to take the bus. And we see that on some streets like on that part of woodland, which will actually be talking about later. Amazing presentation. I can attest to the fact that there is less connectivity in university village. Thank you, Chris. Great presentation on a red plus. All right. Thank you. Seeing as there are no other comments, I'll open to any other oral reports. Okay. Moving to item number seven, 7.1 is the parking restriction along Whitland Avenue. the moving to item number seven seven point one is the parking restriction along with the avenue. Staff is looking to recommend to city council the restriction of parking along the west side of woodland avenue between university University of and West Beach where I have. Thank you. Thank you chair. My name is Hamza Javit Public Works Director. Give me just a second while I pull up the presentation. Thank you. All right. Thank you all very much. Today we are going to be talking about the Woodland Avenue parking restriction. So just to start us off a little bit, I'm going to present some facts about why we're here and what we're going to be talking about. So Woodland Avenue, the segment we're going to be talking about tonight is the section between University Avenue and West Bay Shore Road. It is highlighted here on the map by that red line. And as we can see, the section is, the section we're discussing is going to be the south, the south section of Woodland. So it is adjacent to the creek. And so that red line is right on the boundary of the San Francisco Creek. Woodland Avenue is a north and south collector roadway. What that means is that it collects traffic between two major arterials. So in this case, you have university avenue and West Bay Shore Road. So these are two major thoroughfares and Woodland Avenue is a collector. And not only serves residential and commercial, but also connects Palo Alto by a new road. And so this road does tend to get a decent amount of traffic and movement within the city. There's also a high density commercial along the roadway itself. And so we do tend to see a lot of traffic there as well. There's a little bit of a parking issue that we are going to talk about in a minute. Some of the facts that we also see here is insufficient right of way. So Woodland Avenue is restricted in right of way in many sections. It lacks bike lanes and sidewalks. There is a concern with the property lines and the boundary issue. There are some residents along Woodland that have pushed fences or certain parking areas within the public right of way. And then another issue that we have there is that it provides direct access to the San Francisco Creek in many locations, which not only encourages illegal dumping but also in cabinet and homeless activity. There are some future projects along Woodland Avenue that are in the works or in a future plan by the city. The following there's about three of them. So the first one I'm going to talk about is Woodland Avenue Street Improvements Project. And that's a project that we've received some grant funds for. It is in our future capital improvement plan. This project essentially would redesign Woodland Avenue into a multimodal roadway. What that means is that it would we would investigate and survey the boundaries, the property lines, we would add sidewalk, curb and gutter, we would redo the pavement, add center lines, striping, and also bike lanes, or bike routes wherever they're appropriate. The second project that we have on Woodland Avenue within the segment is the Newell Bridge replacement project. This is a project that is being led by the City of Palo Alto. We are partners on that project and that project essentially replaces a over a hundred year old bridgeold bridge, which is a new abridged that bridge currently lacks capacity And so what happens is the when there's a hundred year or a even a seven-year flood within the creek the new abridged currently Serves as a restriction point. So water is essentially pushed back. So the new project to replace new old bridge would essentially add more capacity within the creek itself and it would raise the bridge almost three feet higher. It would also allow bike lanes and additional traffic to cross over the new world. There are some significant impacts within East Palo Alto here, as I mentioned, because the roadway is being raised up to three feet in some areas, that would allow changes and conforms along Newall and Woodland with an East Palo Alto. That would also mean there would be certain parking restrictions and roadway restrictions also at that intersection. There's some positive news there because that project I think has been in design for maybe a decade and we're getting close to bidding that project out. I think City of Palo Alto has mentioned that they received authorization from CalTrans to actually move that project forward. And so we are hoping that later this year that project is going to be under construction. And then the last project here, which is the SFCJPA San Francisco CREC Joint Powers Authority Reach 2 project. That project also is a CREC enhancement project. It affects three agencies, City of Menlo Park, Palo Alto, as well as the City of East Palo Alto. And this project is still under design. The final outcome is not clear yet what we will do there along the creek. But essentially the goal of the project is to also enhance flood capacity within the creek. So all of these three projects will be to some degree within the segment of what we're gonna be talking about today. And that will also generate some impacts including parking restrictions. Here are some of the challenges that we face along this segment of Woodland Avenue. So first, as I mentioned before, it provides direct access to the San Francisco Creek. And there are many points along this segment where you can just walk down into the creek. We've had issues with vehicles backing up to the creek, the top of the creek, and dumping trash in the creek. This has been an ongoing issue which has gone worse in the last, I'd say, 18 months or so. We've had a lot more trash that we need to pull out of the creek. What makes this also challenging is the creek is not, because the creek is not only the responsibility of the city of East Palo Alto, there's shared jurisdictional boundaries within the creek. So the valley, the Santa Clara Valley water district owns certain sections of the creek. There is along the creek certain parcels from the city of Palo Alto that actually own up to the centerline of the creek, surprisingly. And then obviously, the city of Palo Alto and the city of East Palo Alto, we have sections of ownership the creek. And so it's very complex whenever there is trash within the creek. Oh, who's going to respond? Who's responsibility is it? So that that piece has been challenging in the past, but because most of the trash is dumped from the East Paul Alto side because that's where the direct accesses. We do take the lead to get the creek cleaned up. I do want to add though our partners both Menlo Park and Pala Walto have been supportive in the past, but because it is a challenging issue to deal with, especially when there's rain, especially when there's a storm, we as an agency have to take the lead and step up. This picture here on the slide, this is a picture I took. This was, I believe this, this past fall, right before the rainy season, we had a major in Camman cleanup. And I do want to add some of these in Camman clean-ups they can take seven to ten thousand dollars with over you know 50 hours of staff time on maintenance crews police department so it is not a small operation it is a major operation and a it is a major it's a major task for a small city like hours so we have to stop doing everything else we're doing to address these. The other issue, I can mention in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in sometimes they can get very complex because we've seen in in in in the creek that have affected the actual structural integrity of the channel where people actually actually ex ex of eight. And we've seen walls, you know, we've seen, you know, small makeshift homes in their construction material. So, you know, we've seen all kinds of things down in the creek and so it can get very complex when we get in there and start the cleanup operations. So some of these challenges when it comes to access to the creek and cams and legal dumping is a is is a correlation to the fact that there is direct access and parking allowed in some areas where vehicles tend to be stored there for extended periods of time and people living out of the vehicles will actually start accessing the creek. So what are we trying to accomplish? We, by restricting parking along Wollin Avenue, we are trying to, first of all, enhance traffic safety because as I mentioned before, we have some challenges on woodland and some of the challenges are narrow roadway with. The challenges are there's no pedestrian sidewalks. And so vehicles parked along very narrow sections can generate safety issues. And the creek or this segment of Woodland already has multiple sections of restricted areas of parking. It is unclear though how where these parking restricted areas begin and end. So there are signs along the segment. So what we're trying to do is create consistent parking restrictions within this roadway segment. Because we've seen multiple signs there in various areas placed over the years, and I could not find records of how and why they were placed, but they were probably placed because there was a complaint or there was an issue and so a sign was placed. So what we're trying to do is memorialize the parking restrictions via city council resolution by being consistent throughout the corridor. And then also one of the goals is to restrict long-term vehicle parking and storage, which would directly discourage and encampment activity as I mentioned before. So the next steps after the Commission's recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, recommendations, We are We would install signage along the segment and that would lead to subsequent enforcement. And then lastly, we are still continuing to work towards our future capital improvement projects, which include, as I mentioned before, the REACH2 improvements, the new or bridge replacement project, and also the design of our Woodland Improvement Safety Project. That concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Holmes, for the report. Okay, I'll start with, okay, I can make sure you smell. Thank you, Holmes. A couple questions. So when you say the Woodland Safety Improvement Project, is that the barrier that would go up or I'm interested in the fence in the barrier. So I'm trying to understand if that's something that's going to happen in the short term or is tied to a capital improvement project. Yeah, thanks for the question. I'm sorry, I didn't touch on that. The fencing issue is is somewhat separated, but I did add it at the information in the staff report. We as staff have already received direction from the city manager's office to start placing the fencing. And the purpose of the fencing is and the fencing first of all, it's not going to extend in the entire limits of this project. It's only in strategic areas mostly between NUEL and University and I can go back and show you real quick here. So can you guys see the cursor? Yes. So here's University and here's NUEL. So the fencing would essentially be placed within areas along this first section. And the reason for that is there is no wall along this section. And there is there are a lot of areas where, as I mentioned before, we have vehicles that pull right in and just dump trash into the channel. And there's also a lot of access, easy access areas. area. So what we're trying to do with the fence is just temporarily block off access until we have some permanent improvements in place. Got it. I'm definitely very concerned about pollution to the creek. And we're on a tight budget here. So if tens of thousands of dollars are regularly being spent on clean-ups, that's not a good use of resources. So I'm glad that the City Manager's office has directed you to move forward with something temporary. And these cleanups out of curiosity, what are they in tail? So you're removing like where people are sleeping, is there a sewage that is there? Like how does that happen? That's a good question. Yeah, these clean up operations can get very complicated because there's a lot of things that go into play. We as the, you know, enforcement jurisdiction, we can't just go in and clean up an encampage. Like these people also have rights, right? And so the city council, you know, the state law and also our city council has adopted a bag and tag policy. And that essentially means is that when we have an encampment that is concerning, meaning that it's generating trash or you see an immediate threat to public health, then we work with the city attorney's office to post these encampments. So we will post it for a certain period of time. It could be two to three weeks. It could be less if it's an immediate threat to public safety. And once the encampments are posted, we will follow our adopted bag and tag policy to ensure that all the personal belongings are being appropriately collected and stored at a facility. And they're usually stored at our city's corporate yard or maintenance yard. For a period of, I believe it's 60 days, 60 or 90 days. And so all that information is posted at the encampment. It's sometimes you see people there at the sites, sometimes they're not there. But after they're posted and then we'd follow the bag and tag policy, everything is picked up cleared up. You know, if the person is there, he will collect his belongings and a lot of times he'll work with staff in which they'll say, Oh, yeah, this is, I want to keep this or I don't want to keep this. But that becomes a very complicated issue, right? You know, working through that. And that's the reason why I was saying sometimes these can take multiple days. And so once the items are pulled away and stored, the area is cleaned up. If there's bio hazards, then the city has a special contractor to address those things, syringes, or other kinds of issues. And so we do have the capability to address those separately. But more or less, it's a partnership between city staff and any outside contractors we have. Thank you. And just to clarify, when you say post the encampment, you post like a notice in the encampment that there's gonna be a cleanup or... Yes, correct. Yeah, we have this notice and it's put on a board and stapled at the site, you know, giving the giving information about when staff will be there to clean it out and information about the bag and tag policy. Great, and one additional question. The cars that we have that are generally parked on Woodland Avenue, do we have a sense for whether they're cars that people just leave for weeks on end or longer, or if they're kind of moving, like these are cars that people are using to commute on a daily basis? I don't have that data with me, but I can say as me personally, I've seen a number of vehicles there, park for extended periods of time. A lot of them seem at times inoperable. And so, and you know what's challenging also is on within certain segments of woodland, we have these little pullouts. So there are almost like mini parking lots. And so vehicles tend to just sit there for extended periods of time. And so the hope also is that with this restriction, we can get out all of those in an operable vehicles. But yeah, I mean, I'm sure there will be some impact to some of the residents that are there because not all the vehicles parked are inoperable. Thank you. So right now I have Commissioner McCodian, Samina on the queue any commissioners wait Chaudhary on after as well Commissioner McCone Thank you, I'm so amazed in presentation very Information I have a couple of questions for you. So do you have any knowledge? How many multi-family residential there on this section? I can give you a number, but there are quite a few. So based on my knowledge, it's at least four of them with a lot of units and it's with, they're all of them all. So basically the parking there, it's very limited. Do you have any vision? How will you address the situation? Because if we're crossing all this section, basically all people who are living into multilay residential buildings, they will have no place for park their cars. And because this my concern here is because we don't basically enforcing parking during nights, it's become a farmality because people will still, and communities pretty aware when we actually are charging them and going for parking. So it could become a farmality because there is no other parking. So what is a vision of City? How it could be addressed potentially? Because if we're closing the whole section. Yeah, that's a great question. I don't have a direct answer for that. But what I can say is, and I think the commission knows this, that we are in the process of working towards a permit parking program. And there have been some discussions on the city side about potentially looking at those little pullouts that we have along Woodland, and potentially create mini parking lots, and where we could potentially issue permits to residents of the adjacent communities. So that's something that we've discussed about. Again, it's very, very preliminary. We haven't done any other research on this. But that is a potential solution is that we could, once our permit parking program is in place that we could generate that option for the residents who need to park somewhere. Yeah, because I personally drove there in the morning around 6 a.m. and in the midnight and talked with a couple of residents and trying to understand where we can park actually cars and one of my friends living there. And it doesn't look like this small kind of parking lots will actually help people because it's again it's at least four big multi-family houses there so probably we will we should think about how we will not even enforce it but letting people park if we close a whole intersection it should should be at least, I mean, some trans probably going there with providing some transport for parking lots or something. And then now do you aware that Palata returned to the idea of building the big garage and they're trying to actually designate part of the garage to residential areas. So the people will not, and the builders do not need to build more parking lots. So probably we can, I don't know, probably unlikely we can compare it with them, but at least some solutions should be on the side of the city. We just can't say like, okay people,, don't park here. And there is not even walkable area with you can park because we're closing the whole intersection. And one more question that I have, then you were talking about cars that actually parking there. Are you talking about the small cars or RVs? Both. Yeah, we have issues with, especially in those pullout areas. There are some there are some camper vans that do tend to park there as well. You know, with RVs, we do have, it's a little bit easier because the city does have an oversized vehicle ordinance. And so it's a little bit easier to enforce RVs. If they're parked in certain areas where extended periods of time, actually our oversized vehicle ordinance that the city council has adopted prohibits oversized vehicles from parking any within any public street from 2am to 5am. And so that's already in place. And so it's easier for the police department to enforce that. Yeah, I'm aware of this. And it's probably not for public work division, but probably we could consider implement the mountain view, because especially talking about woodland, the street is really small and limited, right? And the mountain view has kind of the role that they're limiting parking of the big vehicles on the small streets and they're providing some information with a map where people can actually park because the street is wide. So considering the woodland is really tied, probably, that could be a solution instead of hitting all residents. and I would recommend considering the option that we will limit parking on just one side of the street and switching them from day to day, like on Monday and Tuesday, you can park on this side and then Wednesday. Instead of eliminating the whole parking area without a providing solution where people can park. Yeah, and just to be clear, the proposal here is not to restrict parking on both sides. It's only to restrict the side of the creek. Oh, I didn't realize it. Yes, so that would be, I guess, considered the west side of Woodland Avenue. If you look at Woodland, it's north and south. Yeah, that's definitely an element. Eliminate a lot of my questions. Yeah, yeah. And so, and again, just to also clarify that that section already, the creek side already has parking restricted on the majority of the roadway segment. There's only sections you'll see little pockets where people tend to park. Okay, thank you. Okay, next in the queue is Commissioner Chaudhary. Before I start with my comments, I did have a question. I want to ask, did we do any outreach to the residents living in the area who would be affected by this policy? We intend on doing all of our outreach before we go to city council. Understood. Because I don't know if the other commission has had much time to speak to some residents. I know that the speaker before we mentioned that they did. I reached out to some people that I know who lived in those areas too. And a concern that they brought up is that we're already seeing a parking issue in is also and they're concerned is that if you were to restrict parking on that street, we're taking away even more spots. It is also important to recognize that there are apartments in that area, and whether you talk about multi-generational families or even a nuclear family, which would have at least two cars. Most apartment structures only give you one parking spot. So this is going to severely limit that, so that's just a concern that I see. I personally just think that since there are ideas or time this into the RPP program, I feel like we should, and this is also to the commission, I personally feel like we should, before making a decision on that, see what the RPP is going to look like, because I feel like the public has also expressed that there's a concern that we're passing recommendations or things without fully fleshing out what it's going to look like. So that's just where my thoughts are right now. Thank you. Okay, I actually skipped Commissioner McConee. Thank you, Chair. Just a couple of questions to understand a little bit more about the issue. So is the faint is the fencing going to be used to restrict parking Greek actors or both both? Okay, and then how close will the fencing be installed to the drivable surface? There's no straight answer to the question. Yeah, there's along the creek side, especially in that segment. The roadway varies. There's there's going to be some grading that is that will need to take place. The asphalt surface, you know, changes from section to section. So that's going to be a constructability issue that the contract will have to work it out. Okay, and then I did hear contractor. So does the city have an agreement with a sub to come out and do the cleaning or is that done by our own, the city's maintenance folks to go into the creek and clean the creek? It's a combination. So if there is, if the cleanup is actually pretty low key and it's not very complicated, not complicated. clean the creek. It's a combination. Yeah, so if there is, if the cleanup is actually, you know, pretty low key and it's not a not very complicated, not complex, there's no bio hazards, then our crews can go in there and just take the lead. They can do the bag and tag, Paul, you know, the posting and all that. But if it's an area where it's a little more complicated and we don't have the correct resources to address the cleanup. That's when we get our contractors involved. I see. And then, um, As far as if we go ahead and approve this today to recommend to City Council to move forward with this when how soon would this happen or timeline. timeline, share, submit. We will probably take this to council in the next month. So actually, it probably the first one of the meetings in June. And get authorization from council in June to go ahead and do the installations and signage will probably take another month or so to get in. So also sometime this summer. Okay, and kind of just to be approved. And then the decision is to be approved. And then the decision is to be approved. And then the decision is to be approved. And then the decision is to be approved. And then the decision is to be approved, right? They're going to move elsewhere in the neighborhood. Or, and so I know when I was looking, while I was looking at the map for EPA, and I believe the, and if you could confirm the responsibility of EPA for the, the of the university does reach to Euclid. And I know that's not included, but when we think about, okay, if we restrict this location, the cars are just going to move elsewhere. And so we might have an issue north of or on the other side of the university towards the Euclid Avenue. So that'd be something to recommend. And also it would be also good to see maybe in what we present to the city council. What I know you mentioned what EPA is responsible in terms of its membership with the San Francisco San Francisco Ski-toe Creek Joint Powers Authority board but that would also be good. I heard that we have we own from the center line of the Creek and whatnot but that'd be good to see I think for the council and kind of what Chargary mentioned, I would like to see a little bit more, and I think when it comes before the council to decide because of the issue that this is going to impact all those residents in the woodland apartments, there will be a lot of feedback and pushback for this specific issue. In general, I do agree we do need to clean up the creek. It is a safety issue because I've driven Woodland and the clearances are not as wide as they would like them to be, but I think we should, when we put it in front of City Council, provide a little bit more information so that they can make a good decision. And then also the city and the residents see that, like we're really trying to, we're really looking at the safety and health issue here, but also the environment. And so we're trying to work solutions here. But thank you. I'm the Health One more question. You said you're planning to present this proposal to Conflora's in June. Does it mean that the project will not start until 2026 because the budgeting I believe going to be happening early. So, if we need any funds for this project, I believe it should be proposed to city councilors early. So, we can secure the funds for it, right? This project will not require additional budget. This would, the fencing is all re included in the city's maintenance budget and then if the parking restrictions are approved, that's all that really requires is placing signage and that's also within the city's existing maintenance budget. Oh God it, thank you. Okay, next I have Commissioner Romaswamy and then after it'll be Vice Tripotel and then back to Commissioner Chaudhary. All right. Thanks for that presentation, Homicide. So because this has already been improved, like Refwater, Vine and Student ROI has already kind of factored in, right? We don't have to think about that because the budget's already been approved. Is that it? Yes, this is again, this is considered more of a maintenance activity. So it's not really a capital project where you would have to budget something. It would be something that we would say we would normally budget for these kind of things in case of emergencies or placing signs or striping it's something all in the within our existing budget. Okay, cool. Some of the other commissioners had concerns about displacement or vehicles. And then you would also mention that there are a lot of pockets of parking along this road so that it's not like fully parked along. Do you know how many cars might be displaced if Fencing were put up along the side of the road? You know, we intend on collecting that information, but we don't have it yet. Yeah, before we go to council, we will be collecting the information of potential vehicles that could be impacted with this restriction. Okay. I think what makes it challenging also is, you know, some of the areas where vehicles are already parked would be considered unsafe. And so we at staff would prohibit parking in those areas anyways. And so when we say that we are displacing vehicles, that term may not be 100% accurate the way it stated because some of these vehicles we would not allow in the first place. So that's something else we will collect data on and present that appropriately. Okay. Yeah, I think that might be really helpful last question Can you place fencing without impacting parking? The fencing that is being proposed within the segment that I mentioned, you know university and Nuel ish like that area there I don't have the data on me, but again, there's not a lot of on-street parking on this side anyways. And then this segment, there's again, just a few areas where vehicles tend to park along the road. But if Fencing were to be placed, then because the roadway is so tight there, there would be no way vehicles would be able to park there. Okay. Okay. I understand. Thank you. That's all. Okay. I'll ask a few questions before circling back to two commasers who have asked questions. Regarding the number of cars, I think we should definitely have the number of prepared for council, the number of, I guess, safe parking spots that would be removed. So, that's one. Second thing is, I mean, in general, I'm supportive of this policy, mainly because factoring in those other concerns. But one of the biggest things that I see from when I walked on Woodland Avenue before, I studied extensively two years ago when I wrote a blog post about the need for sidewalks. And I noticed that particularly in the part between university and Newell, it was very difficult to cross the street. I had to cross by a kind of had to cross because there was a part where there's a blind turn where it wasn't safe to stay on the north side of Woodland. Going east, I had to actually cross south in order to have more visibility without a car like kind of hitting on a blind turn and I remember feeling very unsafe crossing that portion that was one of the spots where I also noticed cars like to park and I do feel like if we continue allowing people to park there especially given some of these are near blind turns and stuff I feel like it's kind of like a liability waiting happening for the city which is why I I think that it's if there are these places that don't make sense for people to park their cars, I think it's for that section, it makes sense to not have people like kind of crossing because the road bends so much in that section. You can't actually see more than a couple hundred feet away. I do also see the concerns about parking, of course, about these are higher dense, denser areas with limited parking and more residents in Palo Alto. Hasn't been the best neighbor in the sense that they've like entirely permitted their side. So like you spoke to resident camp park there. I think that some of the things longer term that will that I do think will help with multimodal transport is stuff like I mentioned like the multimodal like sidewalks and like If the new university Avenue over crossing like yes a lot of people do use cars But at the same time, based on data I've presented earlier, there are some residents, maybe 10, 20%, I don't know what the exact number is, who would like to just make that trip like half a mile across town. And it would actually, with better infrastructure, I think that they may feel that they don't necessarily need to own a car, or maybe they like share a car. So with those contexts that's why I'm generally supportive since there aren't too many parking spots being taken away here. And since I think it will help with the transportation on woodland. Commissioner Chaudhary? I'm sorry if I missed this but I just want to ask what material will the fencing be made out of? So we are still figuring that out. We had a couple options. We had a chain link option and a metal option. And I think we were initially considering the chain link, but after talking to my maintenance crews, they feel metal might be a better option. Obviously, it's more expensive. So we're still figuring that out. God, I do see a concern with like a fence can stop people to an extent, but I feel like if people really want there's a ways to go around it. So I would, I wouldn't feel more comfortable if we had that kind of fleshed out so we can see what we're recommending for you know? Absolutely. No, I think that's a great point. And you know, this whole fence option, it was something we really struggled with because yes, it doesn't solve the problem. But the whole idea is that we discourage as much as possible. Because yeah, it is additional costs. It's it's you know, in some cases, it'll be like, you know, for me, especially talking to my staff, I was like, I don't really know if offense is a good idea here, but we struggled with this idea. I think it's more that we need to do something and this is probably something that is a deterrent and it'll help to some degree and then we'll keep that in place while we figure out the permanent, permanent options. Thank you. I'm actually at some more data points since I heard a commissioner ask about how many dumpings or Something like that earlier. So I was able to obtain the 2020 40s Paul to legal dumpings Data from our great clean city team or environmental services and I'm just looking at my phone I like a map, I applaud it in a Google Doc. And looking at the 24 data points of the, in 2024, I, I staff provide me with 10 data points of illegal trash dumping along woodland and all of the dumping seemed to that were given to me. We're all in this section, not North of University. And I also noticed that there was a very strong cluster of points close to, let me find the address, close to 1835, Woodland Avenue, which in this map over here is kind of like 80% of the way to the right, like closer to the right side where there's that car, bobel, kind of what you talked about Hamza with like a small parking area. Down here, you see my cursor? Yeah, yeah, exactly right there. And at least based on the data that I was presented with, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, of these 10 Dumings, five out of 10 were like right in that area. And I think that generally lines with what you had mentioned about when cars loader more and right next to the creek, we see more dumpings. So I just wanted to provide that data point to the commission. Thank you. I completely forgot, but that reminds me. I know that the city has invested in like cameras that can scan license plates and stuff. How is there a possibility to have those cameras installed in areas where we see the dumping, dumping's happening so that we can scan those license plates and like properly have those people held accountable for the actions. Yeah, you know the security camera discussion gets a little bit more complicated out of my big rate. You know, it becomes, it's one of those issues where it's discussed more at the city manager's office level because there's not a privacy issues. I know our city particularly has approved security cameras at our facilities, parks and also our over crossings. But when it comes to other public areas, I think that's a larger discussion that the city needs to have. I think when, you know, we did actually one of our staff members was talking about adding security cameras there. And that might help, I think, as a deterrent. And we've thought about it, but we haven't really taken steps towards that it might be something we could consider more deeply Okay, do you have a question or no? I was just thinking from the data that you had collected that was like in 2024 you had 10 dumpings. 10 dumpings that were recorded along with along with the end avenue. Okay. The creek. Okay. Dumpings into the creek. Okay. That was it. Okay. Commissioner McConey. I did have a question earlier about working with PD. What has been their feedback? So there's already existing no parking signs along the creek. Have they presented any data or have has their hands been tied because it's not official signs. Like you mentioned, hubs are those signs were put up, but we don't have a resolution of those signs being approved to be put up. Yeah, no, that's true. The police department does struggle with that because we don't have a good system already in place to ensure that the signs are backed up by law. And so essentially in order for the parking restriction to be enforced, it has to be backed up by law. You can't just go ahead and put up a sign and expect, yeah, sure, maybe someone can cite someone, but it can be fought in court. It's not a valid citation. And so in order for it to be valid, you know, our police department knows this, there are certain areas within our city where some of these signs may be invalid. And so one of the, again, one of the exercises tonight that we're trying to accomplish with this particular project is all the signs that are already there to ensure that we can memorialize the restriction entirely through a resolution. And so the police department has the authority to go out and enforce the law if they need to. Okay. And then as far as once the defenses have been up, I know that that maintenance will still have the need to access the creek, are the locations for accessing the creek through the fence been decided or is that still in the future? Yeah, that has already been considered. So when the fences are installed, there will be strategic locations where gates will be installed for maintenance crew. So, I think the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of I move to accept the staff's recommendation to present the parking restriction along with an avenue with the addition that we'd like some more information about the parking spaces, the number of parking spaces that will be affected. I second that. For the staff should I do a roll call? Okay, I'm going sure what you're going to do. I'm not sure what you're going to do. I'm not sure what you're going to do. I'm not sure what you're going to do. I'm not sure what you're going to do. I'm not sure what you're going to do. I'm not sure what you're going to do. I'm not sure what you're going to do. Yes Commissioner Ravnell Shadri. No Commissioner you are voting today right yet Commissioner Neil, Rammus, want me. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Net. Okay. Next is item number eight. 8.1 general capital improvement project updates. We will just be receiving updates. Yeah. One thing that I did want to mention that isn't on here is that the city is having a shred event this weekend on the 19th where people can bring. I believe up to three boxes. These balls residents can bring up three boxes to be shredded, and then I believe it's also an e-waste event. So I just wanted to bring that up. But I can answer any questions about the other CIP projects if there are any. Actually, can I ask a question? Did you guys get flyers or know about the event? I saw that in the newsletter. Yeah, I saw that in the newsletter. Anyone else see the flyers? I saw it on Facebook. Yeah, I saw it on Facebook. Okay, thank you. I think I saw it on Instagram. I saw you and high on Facebook. Oh yeah, that was a good one. Were you in a video? Yeah, I saw that. We're competing. I think you won. Okay, so we're going to use the same format where if commissioners have items on any specific items, please ask. I would like to see a future item on the agenda about making the roundabout on Notre Dame permanent. I know we've... Wait, sorry, I'm going to pause there. think we should save that for the future. That's right. Yeah, we're at eight right now. For yeah, we'll come back to you on. Okay, we get the apologies. I do the chair. I do have one request for update and I believe back in the February meeting, there was a request to look at the traffic studies that were done for Poulgis and Fordham. And so I was just wondering if that's available or if that's something that could be presented in the future or shared in the future. If I reach out via email or... You're referring to the Student Travel Fellowship data, correct? No. It was more of the... When we were discussing... Yeah, is this speed hunt request? Speed hunt? Oh, yeah. We're planning to bring that back to a future meeting. But any update on the data because I don't see the speed radar out there anymore on Ford AM or on Pogas. We don't have any major updates now. We're still trying to collect the data from the speed trailer. Right now we're having some electrical issues. So we're hoping we maintenance has a schedule to be repaired. So we're waiting on the electrician to come get it up and running again. And then we're going to be putting it back out. If we're unable to get it to work within the next couple of weeks, we're going to be working with maintenance on purchasing a new one, which the new ones we're hoping to buy. We're hoping to be similar to the speed radars that we have where they had an online cloud platform where we were able to get real-time data on speeds, pull reports on like the 85th percentile speed and get all that information. So if we can't get it up and running soon, we're planning on purchasing a new one. Okay. And then I did just remember that the poll installations at MLK, recently I walked by there and those polls or the yeah, the polls are no longer there. So was there a change in direction, or is there any information on that? I think that we're gonna, I did receive an update that we're gonna put gates up. And then a few days after that, the polls disappeared. So it seems like there was a change in direction. So we can follow up on that. Okay. We can check with Jay. All right. That's all I have. Thank you. Okay, I have three questions. First is on the. So on running me, I noticed that there's been construction work the past few days for the water extension I assume between weeks sorry between Clark and Paul Gus. I just was requesting some more information on that since I was pleasantly surprised that it was being extended all of a sudden. On, on, on weeks, not on running me. Yeah so yeah though what's happening that's what's going up to Paul gazes is actually an upgraded storm drain line. So there's a few utility projects that we're happening at the same time. There's the city work, which is the University and Weeks Upgrade, the 12-inch Watermain Upgrade, to increase capacity for the project and in the city. And then the 965-weeks project is upgrading the storm drain pipe connecting to Poulgis to increase capacity. So that's what's happening out there right now. Okay and also speaking of things happening right now, I noticed the Anno Street resurfacing. to have kicked off. I saw them the emails from the city. Yeah. I was pleasantly surprised to see bogus like between O'Connor and Guyardier something was like entirely finished today. Yeah, they're kind of breaking it into chunks. Right now they're in that area, in the gardens area. I'm sure you've seen the concrete crew around also working on curb ramps. They've already started pouring concrete, but we're facing it. We're planning to put more additional information on the schedule of exactly where they'll be throughout the city. Sometimes soon. Hopefully sometime next week we're going to try to have additional information on the schedule on the website. Are you're likely to give any updates on what's been completed so far? I asked because I saw a city email a couple of weeks ago saying that it started in March or something. So I'm trying to figure out what's been done so far. I could moving forward, I could provide information about, the percentage of it complete, if that would be that would be helpful in the newsletter. Is that what you're asking for? Yeah, we don't have to in the newsletter. Just curious which streets have been done so far. Yeah, so so far they started in the gardens in university square and so far they've been working there. So I wasn't able to drive around today, but I saw on my way here that they had finished like Tinsley Street and kind of that neighborhood by Joel Davis. Yeah, in Pogas. And I don't know, I don't have a number right now, but they've poured a few ADA car ramps as well. And then lastly, I wanted to, as being of Joel Davis, I want to ask about the status of the new restrooms. I had a chance to talk to the, well, I guess a couple of weekends ago when I was there again, I noticed there were both red again and I got a chance to talk to their maintenance crew like when they were fixing it and they said they're just gonna leave it back to the original state. So I was just wondering if I need to check in on them. I know they had a crew out working on some of the electrical issues, but I need to circle back to see what's outstanding with that. When I was talking to them, I learned that they had an option in case we ever do more of these. They said they had like a connectivity option in case we ever needed like one at stats on like the up time or how much it's been utilized. And I thought that was interesting for future ones. They said we couldn't retroactively do it. Like they had it in so hardware. That's good to know. And Paul Alto is actually considering new restaurants right now in Eleanor Party Park and I thought it'd be great if staff could share some learnings with them based on our installation. Yeah. Yeah. Because 82% of their residents are like want to get a restaurant there. We do have any other comments? Okay. Item number nine, future agenda requests, and start with Commissioner Ismail. Thank you. Yes, I'm interested in having in a future agenda item for making the roundabout at the intersection of Notre Dame and Fordham made permanent. Do we know when the work is going to start on the polgous ones? Like has that money already been. Yeah, so we went to council last month and they awarded the contract to a contractor. Right now we've just been working on getting the contract executed. It's just been taking a minute to clear a few things up with the city attorney's office, but once the contract's executed, they can they're going to be going out there and starting work. Awesome. Yes, so we Chris asked for some of the survey data from what was the organization? Oh, from the engineering, ALTA design? ALTA, right. So yeah, maybe we could, like, overall the responses were pretty positive and in favor of the roundabout. I can definitely say that it has been effective as a traffic calming measure in the neighborhood and I feel more safe when I'm walking around there and I feel safe on behalf of the kids that walk to Castanio Elementary. So yeah, I'd be interested in seeing this as an agenda item for us to discuss and you know, take the same action that we've taken on Pogas. Thanks. I'll phrase another question for the commission based on the items that we have in the current queue. Are there any topics that commissioners who are very strongly about that they'd like to see sooner? I was interested in further discussing status of the mobility study measures. I know that with the RPP going on, a lot of people have been referring back to the mobility studies as well. So I feel like it would be a good refresher to have, especially seeing that the second reading will be happening sometime in May. So and I think and there could be some some good learnings between the two bridges. No, I mean I'm interested in the Purdue lots that could be potentially, I don't know if we even would use a terminology turned into parks, but you know, adding some benches, adding some grass or some native plants actually that require less upkeep. I mean, I'm interested, I know this would be a very lengthy process, but like, I'd be interested to know what are the steps that we would need to go through. Like, do we need to talk to PG&E? Have we talked to them about this in the past? What would that look like? Thanks. I'm going to request another item as well. So, that we're making progress on the Rucker's Gate, I would like to request a feature agenda item for a second gate in University Village in Tulane. I personally even live in University Village, but I've met a number of residents who are like, hey, I would like to see the second gate as well. I believe Tulane is the one that is like on the Northwest corner of University. And right now there's a makeshift hole that residents are going through anyways. And I think we should make it safer for them to access. Okay, Commissioner Chaudhary. This is a good question. What does the tunnel tour refer to? There used to be a tunnel that was used. That goes under, I believe, the 101. I've never been there. I think it was abandoned. But a commissioner has, in the past, had requested taking a tour of it. None of the logistics have been figured out on how to get there or where it is, but it was previously requested. Is there any interest from commissioners on that? Because if not, I think we can remove that one. Yeah, let's take that one off so we can prioritize the other things. Okay, it's a thing that there are no other comments than I'll call adjournment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Be sure.