you you Good evening. This is the regular joint meeting of the Oakley City Council. Oakley City Council acting as a successor agency to the Oakley Redevelopment Agency and special meeting of the Oakley Public Finance Authority. This meeting is called to order at 6.30 p.m. Roll call. Councilmember Fuller. Dr. Fuller is here. Councilmember Meadows. Here. Councillor Meadows. Here. Vice Mayor Henderson. Here. And I am Mayor Shaw present. We are going to move on to item 1.2, which is the pledge of allegiance. Councillor Meadows, will you please lead us? All right item 1.3 is the Contra Costa County Library Commission update. Kevin Harmonio? Okay. Awesome. Hello, good evening. Again, my name is Kevin Harmonio. I want to thank you for appointing me as the Library Commissioner to the Contra Costa Library Commission. It's a great honor to represent Oakley and I want to thank you for giving me some time tonight to speak about some information I think is going to be really interesting for the City Council and for the public about how the Library System is funded in Contra Costa County. So the information that I'm going to be presenting represents the hard work of the commission's advocacy ad hoc group. It was formed in 2024 with the goal to explore funding in the county and alternative additional funding models in Contra Costa. and these are some of the members of the commission that made up that ad hoc group. So overall, based on their findings, we have a great library system. We provide a variety of resources and services to the communities in Contra Costa. But the group's research into funding found that Contra Costa County has the lowest library funding compared to some of the other counties they looked into, which have similar financing and organizational structures. And specifically, they looked at Alameda, Marin, Napa, and Solano. So the metric that we used to compare Contra Costa's funding with these different counties is called local income per capita. It basically takes the library income and divides it by the number of residents that are served in the county. So you'll see in the presentation, Alameda spends roughly $64 per person on library services. Napa spends about $91, Marin, $121, and Solano 63. In Contra Costa County, we spend $36.31 per resident on library services. So you're probably wondering why, I'm sorry, before I get to that, it's even put in more stark relief when you consider the amount of branches we have. In Contra Costa, we have 26 branches, which is more than double any of the other counties that we compare to. So how does is the library system funded in contra cost accounting? So we pay an ad valour and property tax here of 1% and 1.5% of that 1% is allocated for library funds. If we look at the other counties, they either have a higher property tax or some other kind of additional funding mechanism, whether it's parcel tax, sales tax, or a user utility tax. We don't have any additional funding system here in Contra Costa. So why was the ad hoc group really interested in learning more about the level of funding in the county? The ad hoc group recognized that increasing library hours, the amount of hours that are open per week for libraries is one of the most effective ways to increase access, capacity, and utilization of all the wonderful library services here in the county. And the way to do that would be to increase hours, but the problem is funding. So under the current funding scheme, contra cost funds 40 hours of 40 weekly open hours per week across the 22 full service library branches. If we take a look at Oakley's library schedule, for example, we do the 40 base hours and you can kind of see the schedule here. Cities also have the option to fund themselves additional extra hours of 6, 12 or 16, which is great, but as you can imagine, it does lead to imbalances inequities in the system. Here's a summary of the open hour breakdown for the other libraries in the county. So Oakley is open the baseline 40 hours per week, but other cities and communities in our county open for more and it can really depend on the size of the city as well as their financial situation. And another reason the Adhoc group was really interested in diving into county wide funding is because of Sunday hours. Surveys have showed that being open on Sunday is one of the most requested features by residents and currently with one exception, no library in Contra Costa is open on Sunday. However, if you look at some of the peers, we looked at, they provide some kind of Sunday service. Contra costs the library did have Sunday hours prior to COVID, but those were cut to save costs. What's been really interesting is in Concord, they've been doing a pilot program the last few months to have Sunday hours of self service hours, which is really really exciting and we'll be looking forward to having more information on that as the program kind of continues forward. So where does this kind of leave us? So the advocacy group presented their findings to the broader commission last November and the commission voted to approve the ad hoc groups recommendations and endorse the following actions. We wanted to recognize that Contra Costa's library funding is limited. We wanted to endorse a goal of having 56 fully-service hours per week at all of our full-service branches. And within that goal, we also wanted to provide some kind of Sunday service with at least six equitably distributed branches of four hours without with, I'm sorry, with four hours of service on Sunday. And the big thing that we took away from the ad hoc group was to communicate this information to our respective appointing authorities. Which brings me here today. So what I really am hoping for from the City Council today is to keep this information top of mind as future funding options are considered at the county level. Help us to disseminate this information everyone so that we can all see that this is a problem that the library system is great, but it's really underfunded compared to some of our neighboring counties. And of course, the City Council has been very supportive of getting the new library built here in Oakley. So we wanna thank you and continue to ask for your support, not only for our library here in Oakley, but for all the libraries in Contra Costa County. And with that, I'd be happy to try and answer any questions the council might have. All right, thank you so much. Councilor Mermaidos. I don't really have any questions, but thank you for the presentation and all the information. It was good. So, thank you. Councillor Mimba Williams. So on the slide before you talked about advocating for 56 hours for all full service branches, where would those additional 16 hours come from? Are we suggesting the cities each take that on? Or are you trying to get? Yeah, because we understand that that's not going to be feasible for every city. That 56 would be part of whatever additional funding the county is providing. Okay, great. Thank you. I also wanted to say thank you for this. It was a really good presentation and I hope we can get a copy of the slides. Councilmember Meadows. You know measure X funding can be used for libraries. I don't know but I can find out and let you know. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. We are going to move on to item two which is public comment. At this time public comments will be heard for items not on the agenda. I do not have any public speaker cards submitted. To submit a public speaker comment please complete a blue speaker card located in the lobby in some minute to the city clerk. The time limit to speak is three minutes. The time limit is monitored by the timer located in the front of my seat. When one minute remains on the timer, it will be once as a reminder to complete comments before your time expires. Please refrain from any applause, cheering, booing, or other outbursts so that everyone may have an opportunity to be heard. that due to provisions of state law, the council may not engage in dialogue regarding comments. Staff may be directed to respond to persons making public comments. And I don't see anyone jumping up here so we are going to go ahead and close public comment and move on to council comments. Council members will also have three minutes to speak. Anyone have any comments? All right. Moving right along. Item 4, the consent calendar. We do have an update provided for item 4.5. Are there any come items that council would like to pull? Okay. Yes 4.1 and 4.5 if you pull please. All right. Any public comments on this? Seeing none. I will look for a motion. I move approval. The remainder. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed. All right. Passes unanimously. Item 4.1. Councilmember Fuller. Yes, say thank from Ms. Snoggrass for putting out the minutes. She's following the direction of the city office, city manager main office in the dias of the way they presented, but I just think they're too brief as a matter. As an example, I went back and looked today on the second meeting in the first one in December to see what ancillary duties have been assigned to council members and all that says if we assigned councilor, can't ancillary duties. So it really doesn't tell anybody much of anything other than we did something. So I will vote against this. I move approval 4.1. So I can. All right, we have a first and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? No. Asses 4.1. Item 4.5, Council Member Fuller. Yes, I just have one quick question. You don't need to be here. But are we adopting or accepting? I know it says adopt but I want to just make sure We are asking you to adopt the resolution Okay, I will move the approval of the item Second, right we have a motion and a second all All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. And sorry. We are going to move on to item 5.1, public hearing. Oakley Shops at Laurelfield's Master Sign Program and Sign Exception Permit. Request for approval of a Master Sign Program and Sign Exception Permit for the Oakley Shops at Laurel Field Shopping Center, Evan Gorman, Associate Planner. Thank you so much Mayor Vice Mayor and Council and thank you Mayor for reading the long title. Almost all the approvals are done on the Safeway Shopping Center except one of the last things you put on are the signs and so tonight we're looking at the master sign program for Oakley shops at Laurel Fields. My name is Evan Gorman. I'm Associate planneranner for the City of Oakley. First, we're going to start out with where in town are we talking about tonight. Here, we're closer to the center of town at the Northeast corner of O'Hara Avenue and Laurel Road. And the, there on the left-hand side, you had before construction. And then the shopping center proposal on the right-hand side. And the current state is in between those two pictures. Oakley shops at Laurel Fields, as a a reminder is an approximately nine acre shopping center under construction at the corner of a harrow avenue and Laurel Road. It will be anchored by a Safeway grocery store and includes over 25,000 square feet of additional commercial tenant space spread across six buildings. All right, master sign programs are customized signage plans that govern how signs will be designed, placed, and maintained within a specific multi-tenant development such as Oakley shops at Laurel Fields. These programs are typically approved by the local government and serve as a framework that balances branding needs of individual businesses with cohesive design for the overall site. Master sign programs provide for consistent site design throughout a shopping center. They allow flexibility for larger developments since our code was designed to be used by a wide range of developments, typically smaller in size than a shopping center. And the program also creates a clear process for tenants to design their signage and get it approved. A lot of people yawn at this concept, but in reality, the way it works is a property management company can hand this program to a tenant. That tenant is usually already stressed through the tenant improvement process, getting hoods installed in the kitchen or ADA access, getting that all finalized here. They have a clear guide on what signage is permitted, where to submit it for approval. We review it, we get it approved along with the Property Management Company for the shopping center. And then the other thing is there's design guidelines in here to keep the look consistent for the shopping center so that it is a nice shopping experience. So it's easy to find the business you're looking for for our residents. Tonight, the Shopping Center is looking for approval of their program specific to their development. Here we have just an example of what's in the plan. It goes into detail on the Safeway signage, the fuel station signage, the convenience center, for the Safeway fuel station, everything there so that they know how to develop their signage. It goes into the monument signs that will have Anohara Avenue and Lowell Road. And then additionally, they're requesting a sign exception permit. And the reasoning is that this development is larger in scale than what we typically see. And so in order to meet the modern expectation of signage for a shopping center in 2025, they're asking for two small exceptions. The first is that the Safeway signage on the sides of the building, it exceeds our regulations by about 40%. And those regulations were put in place to cover all commercial buildings in town, and so you can imagine they were thinking, typically it's supposed to cover a smaller form factor than this. This is a larger wall than what the code envisioned. There, you'll the two elevations and then the yellow boxes representing where those signs are located. All right. The next one, this is secondary signage for smaller tenants, may equal the size of the primary signage. And so usually in a code, you have your primary sign and then any secondary signage is gonna be much smaller. Here, we want visibility from the roadway, the shopping center as well as our regulations so that folks can get where they need to go. So, signage is gonna be similarly sized on the street side, as well as within the shopping center. So whether you're on the street or in the shopping center, you can find where to go. All right, I've seen planners get lazy sometimes when it comes to master sign programs, but we definitely feel our community needs a thoughtful approach to their new shopping center. So we spent a lot of time on this when went through a lot of revisions. We've worked with the applicant to make sure the placement and proportions of the signs are to be tailored to the scale of the individual tenets spaces, ensuring that both major and minor tenets have signage that is recognizable without being disproportionate to the size of the facades. The program as presented encourages uniform high quality signage, enhancing the overall appearance of the project. A sign exception permits, we also found that that is warranted because it would allow signs appropriately scaled to the size of the development. The master sign program enables that consistent level of visibility throughout the center that's needed in this case. So we found it would be reasonable to approve that, we recommend approval. For environmental review, we found that the project is exempt from the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act. This we're just talking about a plan and then we'll review projects as they come in the individual science. And finally for our staff recommendation tonight, staff recommends the City Council adopt the resolution of proving Oakley shops at Laurelfield's Master's Sign Program, as well as the Sign Exception Permit as conditioned. I appreciate your time and I can answer any questions you have as well. Thank you, Council. Thank you. Do I have any clarifying questions for staff? All right. Seeing none, we are going to go ahead and open the public hearing. And with the applicant like to make any comments, is the applicant here? Yeah. Yeah, I have a representative of Regency Center, Ms. Fox. She does not have a presentation. She's happy to, my understanding is that she's happy to answer questions. And then the signed company, it turns out there's a large, like one of the largest trade conferences for the sign and commercial industry is taking place right now. I don't have those nice folks and so they've tried to set me up for success with context. Yeah, thank you. All right. So any specific questions? All right. We're going to, I don't have any speaker cards for public comments either. So unless anyone's jumping up. No, so we will close the public hearing and bring it back to Councillor for deliberation. Councillor Membromettos. I'm good with what's proposed. I guess I'll make that a motion. I move approval vote what's proposed. Second. Before the motion came out, Council Member Williams did have her button pushed. So you're good. It's fine. All right. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Congratulations. All right. We are going to move on to item 6.1. Our regular calendar, 6.1, receive an update on the Senior Center Project. Jerry DeHeta, Administrative Services Director. Good evening, Mayor Vice Mayor, members of the Council. Tonight, we're just here to give a quick update on where we're at with the Senior Center Project as well as our grant funding that was mentioned at our last meeting. So we'll start with grant funding. The original timeline for the funding was that the grant would be funded in March. his almost come gone, and the timeline has been delayed till at least July with no guarantees that it would actually happen in July. We do have to have a contract in place in order for us to receive any kind of funding in order for us to even spend the funding. So, with several projects reliant on the demolition of the current senior center staff determined it was best to move forward with with kind of our plan B that we presented at the last meeting. So we have identified approximately $168,000 that we still believe we can spend of grant funding. That is eligible for the grant. We know for sure we can spend 140,000 of that. The other 28 could be difficult for us because we have moved forward with the construction. So we're still working with the grant provider to determine if we can find any other eligible expenses that the grant would cover in order to get all 168,000 that's been identified. So we'll have more to come on that as I work through the process. It has been a little bit of a slower process. So I don't foresee that being until end of June, early July before we have any updates there. So with that, we've started the upgrades over at what we are calling Studio 55. We have Studio 1. We have our rec center and we're trying to give it a label so that we have something instead of just those two rooms that we're trying to upgrade. So the upgrades are well underway. We're utilizing the 153,000 that was allocated at the February meeting. And we have tentatively scheduled our ribbon cutting ceremony for April 28th with an anticipated opening date where programs will actually start of May 1st. For our meals, we're going to continue to stay in contact with Cafe Costa as well as meals on wheels. I had a meeting with them today so that we can make sure there's a smooth transition from the senior center where it is now over to Studio 55. So on May 1st, April 30th will be the last day Cafe Costa provides meals at the current senior. And everything after that will be provided only on Wednesdays from now until June 30th at the new site. And that is just due to Cafe Costa's budget. It was only in the budget for one meal a week. And so that continues through June 30th. Meals on wheels currently is in contract with Cafe Costa to actually be the Cafe Manager on site on Wednesdays and they serve those meals on Wednesdays. They will continue to do the same for us on Wednesdays once it moves to the new site. As of July 1st, the Cafe Manager duties fall to the city. We will be hiring a part-time, what we're going to call a senior rec leader. They will start before July 1st. We'd like them to have a few meal services where they can get trained and learn what needs to be done. And then on July 1st, the city takes on the responsibility of the cafe manager. Cafe Costa is all set to start providing meals Monday through Thursday on July 1st. We already have a contract in place. And meals on wheels also, I wanna keep this in the, while it doesn't have to do with the lunches, meals on wheels does provide a service service of seven meals. They it's a delivery service. They deliver seven days worth of meals to those who cannot come and get the meals. And so that will continue. We met with them again today. We'll be moving that on May 2nd. We'll be the first day that it will happen out of the Rec Center parking lot, where the vans come through. They pick up the meals, they take them out and deliver them, and we'll be providing the needs that they need for that to continue. And then lastly, we have some meeting scheduled. Tomorrow, we're meeting with our instructors who have expressed interest in providing programs for us to finalize what we need, get contracts in place so that we can start to finalize the schedule. On April 3rd, we're going to be hosting an informative meeting for all residents, ages 55 plus to attend. We're going to share the vision of the program as well as answer any questions that may be out there. And then after that meeting, we plan to take our first registrations so that people can begin to register for the program so that when we start on May 1st, we're ready to go. So with that, I'm available for any questions you might have. Thank you. Councilman Williams. What day did you say was the community meeting? April 3rd. OK, cool. Thanks. And we'll get some social media posts out as well. With no additional questions I did receive one speaker card but they indicated they did not wish to speak. So thank you for that. And I don't think we need to move on this right just to report. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Good luck. All right. Moving on to report 7.1 city manager. I don't have anything to report tonight. Yes. Appreciate the closed captioning. I did ask earlier and I'm wondering if we have an answer. Is our closed captioning printable? In other words, if we watch the closed captioning here like I am and then request it be saved to our computers and print it Is that available? Is that a service that commonly is? I think we're gonna have to look into that and we'll get back to you. Thank you. All right, 7.2 reports from Council Liaison's commissions, boards and all the other things that we do outside of these meetings. Cheers. Council Member Fuller? Yes, I had the pleasure to meet with Business Manager Edward Edgar Flores from the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, Council, locals 12 District Council 16, who donated, I met with also with the Friends Aocley Library, donated $4,000 to the Friends Aocley Library, which is appreciative of, and I think everybody else is also. And I also attended the Climate Action Plan plan and had an evening with Mr. Struggle and friends and enjoyed it and I had one agenda item when you're ready. Okay I'll get back to you on that. I'll come back to the agenda item. All right, council member Meadows. Since our last meeting I attended a Couture Costs to Transportation Authority meeting where we reviewed the mid-year budget. Last week also attended MCE where we approved the upcoming budget of approximately $830 million. And then two weeks ago, I attended Transplant Equifah and bypass Highway 4 bypass authority, where the Equifah Committee voted to approve $21.7 million for East Cyprus. So I believe probably the biggest amount of money coming into Oakley ever. So that was pretty cool. I want to thanks to AF, especially Kevin and Billy Lee. I believe Billy Lee put in a lot of time and hard work to get this 21.7 million, which will cover 96% of the work being done on the third segment of Cyprus. He'sprus. So good job staff. Thank you. That's it Vice Mayor Henderson Since our last meeting I attended iron house sanitation district board meeting nothing to report out Councilmember Williams Okay, I a lot. Attended the Chamber of Commerce mixer. I went to the restore the Delta meeting. That was held at Big Break. They were just giving us background about how this is the biggest estuary in all of North America. And they were specifically talking about all of the new intakes. So Hood and Cortland connecting all the way through to the Bethany Reservoir. Right now the new sub-administration is mimicking Trump's executive orders, ordering max water diversions and waving critical protections. The tunnel is projected to cost 20 billion, 20 billion, sorry, which doesn't include any of the construction or take into account inflation. And they were just giving us statistics on some of the Delta economy that depends on the Delta. So $5 billion in Ag, $750 million in tourism activity, and over a billion in fishing. There was some conversation at an earlier meeting I had asked our staff to look into what's our recourse if these tunnels happen and we can't use something like the 55 acre park because there's no water to be had. And so they are looking into a community payment but it is a total of 220 million for every Delta community. So not for Oakley, for all the Delta communities to share. So likely we won't have much recourse there. The mayor and I got to do an interview with the press for their podcast slash newspaper articles, talking about our accomplishments as the outgoing and incoming community. I'm also a member of the community. I'm also a member of the community. I'm also a member of the community. I'm also a member of the community. I'm also a member of the community. I'm also a member of the community. I'm also a member of the community. I'm also a member of the community. I'm also a member of the community. I'm also a member of the community. and talking about three city effort. the contract cost of health regarding fast food in communities and talking about a three town, three city effort to address some of that. I met with our Council on Aging Representative and Matthew Hulse, who was the Senior Legal Advisor and we were having some conversations about the new senior center. Went to Delta Protection Commission. We had a closed session where we created an ad hoc committee to find our next executive director. We got some levy project updates. The Delta Protection Commission is lucky because we're exempted from some of the state budget drills, so our budget information is not as intense. We got a presentation regarding the National Heritage Area and we approved the management plan for that. We approved an MOU for the National Heritage Area, which formalizes partnership programs. The first one will be exciting because it includes the Cont Costa County Libraries. It's the passport program. We received an update on socioeconomic indicators for the Sacramento, San Joaquin Delta. Part of that work, they wanted to make sure not to impose too much paperwork for the Ag and small business sectors on the Delta. The Delta population grew by almost 20% with the majority of that being youth. It was a five-year period. Crop patterns, there was an increase in almonds, a decrease in corn, hunting and fishing licenses remained unchanged. Housing overcrowding rate is slightly less than California as a whole, and the rental vacancy rate along the delta is 3.3%, which is comparable to California average. The thing that happened most dramatically is we've had a 21.4 average decrease to our pavement. So they've deteriorated significantly in this study period and schools schools spending for Delta communities are lower by $1200 per pupil than the California State average. We also had a really interesting presentation from a journalist named Rich Turner, who's doing a whole photojournalism essay about the Delta called Quiet Waters. And I think that was all I did this last time. All right, I also attended the Oakley Chabour event on the 12th at Whiskey Tango Fox Trot. Did a virtual CalCities legislative update on the 17th. On the 18th, I got invited to come out to the East Contra Costa Historical Society. We're good, they sacramento, and Cody's caravan was coming to highlight the six cities that the Historical Society represents, so that was pretty exciting. I later that day went to a women's community forum discussing housing and transportation in the Bay Area. It's interesting to hear two very different sides of what people thought we need. The interview with the press that afternoon with Council Member Williams. I had a Cal City's East Bay Board meeting on the 19th and also attended the Climate Action Plan on the 20th. And that is all I have. So we're going to move on to 7.2B which is Request for Future Agenda Items. Council Member Fuller. Yes, I'd like to propose a agenda item to expand the radius for notification of any work session involving any type of development, radius of 750 feet around and 10 days, be it be mailed within 10 days, no later than 10 days before the hearing. What is that for a work session you are asking? Let's say that again. Was that for a work session you are asking? Was that for a work session? Yes, that would be a work session. In other words, we don't do it now, but it seems like the right thing to do after what we've seen. Is there a way that we could just get a cost estimate for that because maybe it doesn't require a work session, I would just like to know like staff time and work costs that would be associated with that? I mean, we could attempt to put together some of that information. It's really difficult to say because when you start expanding the radius, every project is different in terms of location and what's around it. So it really, just for the council's reference, state law requires notification for public hearings not work sessions. The work session that I believe council member Fuller is speaking about that is a general plan amendment, a preliminary general plan amendment, a work session, and we notice that as a courtesy, and years ago, prior City Council many years ago, changed the notification radius from the required 300-foot state requirement and expanded it to 500 feet. So we do go over and above and we notice our work sessions which is not a state requirement. So I, from staff's perspective, I feel like we are going over and above right now and it would be really hard for us to calculate what that cost would be and how much more time that would take. So by doing nothing we would still do the 500 for public hearings and the ones for the work session, general plan amendment. Any notification that gets sent out right now we use the 500 foot radius so we're always using that. And we notice every public hearing as required by state law and we will continue to notice work sessions as I mentioned before. All right. So I think that takes care of that. So work sessions we have none, closed session we have none and with there being further business, this meeting is adjourned at 710. Thank you all so much for coming. We are here the second and fourth Tuesday of most months.