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Home My Public Portal AboutNovember 20, 2023 City Council Emails701-32 DOCUMENTS IN THIS PACKET INCLUDE: LETTERS FROM CITIZENS TO THE MAYOR OR CITY COUNCIL RESPONSES FROM STAFF TO LETTERS FROM CITIZENS ITEMS FROM MAYOR AND COUNCIL MEMBERS ITEMS FROM OTHER COMMITTEES AND AGENCIES ITEMS FROM CITY, COUNTY, STATE, AND REGIONAL AGENCIES Prepared for: 11/20/2023 Document dates: 11/13/2023 – 11/20/2023 Note: Documents for every category may not have been received for packet reproduction in a given week. From:S. Lonsky To:Council, City; City Mgr Subject:Pets in Need Contract Negotiation Date:Monday, November 20, 2023 12:24:58 PM Some people who received this message don't often get email from slonsky@gmail.com. Learn why this isimportant CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Office of the City Manager and City Council,I am seeking a copy of the current version of the contract negotiation (term sheet) between the City and Pets in Need. I am not finding it on the website. Could someone please point me toit? Thank you, Sophie Lonsky2748 Ross Rd, Palo Alto, CA 94303 From:Joanna Chai To:Shikada, Ed; Burt, Patrick; Binder, Andrew; Council, City; Becchetti, Benjamin Cc:Kou, Lydia; Stone, Greer Subject:Re: Cars doing donuts and speeding at high speed down Edgewood almost every evening/night Date:Monday, November 20, 2023 12:11:31 PM Attachments:image002.pngimage003.png Some people who received this message don't often get email from jo_chai@hotmail.com. Learn why this isimportant Hi Councilman Ed, I wasn't aware that I should have addressed the email to the city council email. Thanks for making me aware of it. I have received a reply from Lieutenant Becchetti, and I am appreciative of that. I would like to see renewed ticketing of violators parking overnight without permits, and more patrol on our street during evenings/nights. The cars responsible for doing the donuts and driving down Edgewood at high speeds are still parked on the street daily, and they have also been openly smoking marijuana in their cars while parked on the street. Though I know marijuana is legal in CA, smoking openly in their cars in front of our homes and kids is not something I want to witness or expose my kids to. Like I mentioned before, it started with parked cars overnight without permits, escalating to doing donuts and driving at dangerously high speeds down our street, to smoking marijuana openly. These behaviors have to be discouraged as it is impacting our quality of life on the street, and left unchecked, it would continue to escalate as there are no consequences to the behaviors. I appreciate the city's continued efforts to keep our street safe and keep unsavory behaviors away from our neighborhood. Thanks, Joanna From: Shikada, Ed <Ed.Shikada@CityofPaloAlto.org> Sent: Monday, November 20, 2023 10:01 AM To: Burt, Patrick <Pat.Burt@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Joanna Chai <jo_chai@hotmail.com>; Binder, Andrew <Andrew.Binder@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Council, City <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org> Cc: Kou, Lydia <Lydia.Kou@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Stone, Greer <Greer.Stone@CityofPaloAlto.org> Subject: RE: Cars doing donuts and speeding at high speed down Edgewood almost every evening/night Thank you for forwarding this, Councilmember Burt. As you know, we have a system for following up on constituent emails that go to city.council@cityofpaloalto.org but do not see emails to individual councilmembers. Ms. Chai, I’m sorry you’re needing to address this issue and appreciate your bringing it to our attention. I will ask the department to follow up and respond. Best regards, --Ed Ed Shikada, City Manager ICMA Credentialed Manager (650) 329-2280 | ed.shikada@cityofpaloalto.org www.cityofpaloalto.org From: Burt, Patrick <Pat.Burt@CityofPaloAlto.org> Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2023 9:20 AM To: Joanna Chai <jo_chai@hotmail.com>; Shikada, Ed <Ed.Shikada@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Binder, Andrew <Andrew.Binder@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: Kou, Lydia <Lydia.Kou@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Stone, Greer <Greer.Stone@CityofPaloAlto.org> Subject: RE: Cars doing donuts and speeding at high speed down Edgewood almost every evening/night Chief Binder, If the department has not done so already, can you provide a response to Ms Chai and copy us? Thanks, Pat Burt From: Joanna Chai <jo_chai@hotmail.com> Sent: Friday, November 17, 2023 4:03 PM To: Kou, Lydia <Lydia.Kou@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Burt, Patrick <Pat.Burt@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Lauing, Ed <Ed.Lauing@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Lythcott-Haims, Julie <Julie.LythcottHaims@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Stone, Greer <Greer.Stone@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Tanaka, Greg <Greg.Tanaka@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Veenker, Vicki <Vicki.Veenker@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Kratt, Ken <Ken.Kratt@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: Sanjiv Wadhwani and Joanna Chai <sanjiv.wadhwani1@gmail.com> Some people who received this message don't often get email from jo_chai@hotmail.com. Learn why this is important Subject: Re: Cars doing donuts and speeding at high speed down Edgewood almost every evening/night CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hi, Appreciate a response from someone. It's concerning that no one seems to take this seriously enough to warrant a response. Thanks, Joanna and Sanjiv From: Joanna Chai <jo_chai@hotmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 7:52 PM To: Lydia.Kou@cityofpaloalto.org <Lydia.Kou@cityofpaloalto.org>; Pat.Burt@CityofPaloAlto.org <Pat.Burt@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Ed.Lauing@CityofPaloAlto.org <Ed.Lauing@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Julie.LythcottHaims@CityofPaloAlto.org <Julie.LythcottHaims@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Greer.Stone@CityofPaloAlto.org <Greer.Stone@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Greg.Tanaka@cityofpaloalto.org <Greg.Tanaka@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki.Veenker@CityofPaloAlto.org <Vicki.Veenker@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Kratt, Ken <Ken.Kratt@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: Sanjiv Wadhwani and Joanna Chai <sanjiv.wadhwani1@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Cars doing donuts and speeding at high speed down Edgewood almost every evening/night We forgot to attached pics of the skid marks in the intersection of Edgewood and Philips so you can see for yourselves what the cars have been doing. From: Joanna Chai Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 7:49 PM To: Lydia.Kou@cityofpaloalto.org <Lydia.Kou@cityofpaloalto.org>; Pat.Burt@CityofPaloAlto.org <Pat.Burt@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Ed.Lauing@CityofPaloAlto.org <Ed.Lauing@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Julie.LythcottHaims@CityofPaloAlto.org <Julie.LythcottHaims@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Greer.Stone@CityofPaloAlto.org <Greer.Stone@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Greg.Tanaka@cityofpaloalto.org <Greg.Tanaka@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki.Veenker@CityofPaloAlto.org <Vicki.Veenker@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Kratt, Ken <Ken.Kratt@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: Sanjiv Wadhwani and Joanna Chai <sanjiv.wadhwani1@gmail.com> Subject: Cars doing donuts and speeding at high speed down Edgewood almost every evening/night Dear Mayor Kou, PA City Council and Sergeant Kratt, We are the owners of 1525 Edgewood Dr. in Palo Alto. I've written to both Sergeant Afanasieva and Sergeant Kratt before about overnight parked cars without permits on our street. I've given up hope on that issue as I haven't seen any parking tickets issued for these violators for almost 9 months. However, for the past few weeks, something more concerning and dangerous has been happening on our street. Almost every evening and night, there are cars doing donuts at the intersection of Edgewood and Philips, revving their engines and driving down Edgewood at high speeds. I've called the Palo Alto Police Department non-emergency number a few times, but nothing is really being done. Tonight, one of the cars actually revved its engine, slowly U-turned and shone its headlights at me when I opened my front door. I felt threatened. Please address this issue immediately as there are people and kids walking, jogging and biking along Edgewood, and we're afraid they're going to hit and cause serious injuries to someone. Especially since it's getting dark earlier and there are kids coming home from after school activities (our kids included!). We've heard them starting as early as 6pm and going till late. In the meantime, please send more patrol in the evening/night along Edgewood/Philips Road as this is extremely unsafe behavior. We appreciate your help in this urgent matter. Thank you. Sincerely, Joanna and Sanjiv From:Nguyen, Vinh To:Council, City Cc:ORG - Clerk"s Office Subject:FW: Comments on Cal Ave - Arton Investments Date:Monday, November 20, 2023 10:36:33 AM Attachments:Arton Investments.pdfimage001.pngimage003.pngimage004.pngimage006.pngimage007.pngimage008.pngimage009.pngimage014.pngimage016.pngimage017.pngimage018.pngimage019.pngimage020.png Good morning Council Members, Sharing with you this letter from Fen Arton (Arton Investments, owner of 414 California Avenue) about the street closure. Kind regards, Vinh Nguyen Assistant City Clerk Office of the City Clerk (650) 329-2267 | vinhloc.nguyen@cityofpaloalto.org www.cityofpaloalto.org From: Tran, Joanna <Joanna.Tran@CityofPaloAlto.org> Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2023 2:56 PM To: Ah Yun, Mahealani <Mahealani.AhYun@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Guagliardo, Steven <Steve.Guagliardo@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Kamhi, Philip <Philip.Kamhi@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: Shikada, Ed <Ed.Shikada@CityofPaloAlto.org> Subject: Comments on Cal Ave - Arton Investments Hi Steve, Philip, and Mahea, Sharing this letter that Ed received today from Fen Arton, from Arton Investments (owner of 414 California Avenue) about the street closure. Mahea, Fen would also like to share these comments with Council. Thank you, Joanna Joanna Tran Executive Assistant to the City Manager Office of the City Manager (650) 329-2105 | joanna.tran@cityofpaloalto.org www.cityofpaloalto.org From:Lucy Baldwin To:Council, City; City Mgr; UtilitiesCommunications; UTL-Customer Service Cc:Lucy Baldwin Subject:Recent gas meter change and nearly quadrupling of therms! Date:Monday, November 20, 2023 10:24:56 AM Some people who received this message don't often get email from bilpayer@aol.com. Learn why this isimportant CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hi, The gas meter was recently "upgraded" at my home at 330 Edlee Avenue. Account number 30008270. I have had this account for about 40 years. Subsequently, Palo Alto Utility workers returned. They stated that there was a gas leak as a result of the newly installed gas meter and they were fixing the leak. This information alone is very disturbing. Imagine my surprise and dismay when my utility bill arrived Saturday and shows nearly 4 times the gas therms used this month. I can attest that nothing has changed in my gas usage pattern. There is a preset thermostat for heating set for only a few hours a day for 67 degrees. The weather has not been colder from October billing, The hot water use and gas stove use haveremained consistent with the previous month's use. I am baffled at the increase in the reported therms used. I checked with a neighbor and they reported the same inexplicable increase inreported therm use that is three times the previous month's use. Like me, no change in gas usage. Like me, a new gas meter installed. I would appreciate a thorough investigation and explanation how after the gas meterupgrade, and subsequent gas leak reported by Palo Alto Utilities, resulted in a nearly quadrupling of the therms used by me from mid October to mid November. I look forward to a prompt reply. Lucy Baldwin From:Shikada, Ed To:Burt, Patrick; Joanna Chai; Binder, Andrew; Council, City Cc:Kou, Lydia; Stone, Greer Subject:RE: Cars doing donuts and speeding at high speed down Edgewood almost every evening/night Date:Monday, November 20, 2023 10:01:53 AM Attachments:image002.pngimage003.png Thank you for forwarding this, Councilmember Burt. As you know, we have a system for following up on constituent emails that go to city.council@cityofpaloalto.org but do not see emails to individual councilmembers. Ms. Chai, I’m sorry you’re needing to address this issue and appreciate your bringing it to our attention. I will ask the department to follow up and respond. Best regards, --Ed Ed Shikada, City Manager ICMA Credentialed Manager (650) 329-2280 | ed.shikada@cityofpaloalto.org www.cityofpaloalto.org From: Burt, Patrick <Pat.Burt@CityofPaloAlto.org> Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2023 9:20 AM To: Joanna Chai <jo_chai@hotmail.com>; Shikada, Ed <Ed.Shikada@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Binder, Andrew <Andrew.Binder@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: Kou, Lydia <Lydia.Kou@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Stone, Greer <Greer.Stone@CityofPaloAlto.org> Subject: RE: Cars doing donuts and speeding at high speed down Edgewood almost every evening/night Chief Binder, If the department has not done so already, can you provide a response to Ms Chai and copy us? Thanks, Pat Burt From: Joanna Chai <jo_chai@hotmail.com> Sent: Friday, November 17, 2023 4:03 PM To: Kou, Lydia <Lydia.Kou@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Burt, Patrick <Pat.Burt@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Lauing, Ed <Ed.Lauing@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Lythcott-Haims, Julie Some people who received this message don't often get email from jo_chai@hotmail.com. Learn why this is important <Julie.LythcottHaims@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Stone, Greer <Greer.Stone@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Tanaka, Greg <Greg.Tanaka@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Veenker, Vicki <Vicki.Veenker@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Kratt, Ken <Ken.Kratt@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: Sanjiv Wadhwani and Joanna Chai <sanjiv.wadhwani1@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Cars doing donuts and speeding at high speed down Edgewood almost every evening/night CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hi, Appreciate a response from someone. It's concerning that no one seems to take this seriously enough to warrant a response. Thanks, Joanna and Sanjiv From: Joanna Chai <jo_chai@hotmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 7:52 PM To: Lydia.Kou@cityofpaloalto.org <Lydia.Kou@cityofpaloalto.org>; Pat.Burt@CityofPaloAlto.org <Pat.Burt@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Ed.Lauing@CityofPaloAlto.org <Ed.Lauing@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Julie.LythcottHaims@CityofPaloAlto.org <Julie.LythcottHaims@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Greer.Stone@CityofPaloAlto.org <Greer.Stone@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Greg.Tanaka@cityofpaloalto.org <Greg.Tanaka@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki.Veenker@CityofPaloAlto.org <Vicki.Veenker@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Kratt, Ken <Ken.Kratt@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: Sanjiv Wadhwani and Joanna Chai <sanjiv.wadhwani1@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Cars doing donuts and speeding at high speed down Edgewood almost every evening/night We forgot to attached pics of the skid marks in the intersection of Edgewood and Philips so you can see for yourselves what the cars have been doing. From: Joanna Chai Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 7:49 PM To: Lydia.Kou@cityofpaloalto.org <Lydia.Kou@cityofpaloalto.org>; Pat.Burt@CityofPaloAlto.org <Pat.Burt@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Ed.Lauing@CityofPaloAlto.org <Ed.Lauing@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Julie.LythcottHaims@CityofPaloAlto.org <Julie.LythcottHaims@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Greer.Stone@CityofPaloAlto.org <Greer.Stone@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Greg.Tanaka@cityofpaloalto.org <Greg.Tanaka@cityofpaloalto.org>; Vicki.Veenker@CityofPaloAlto.org <Vicki.Veenker@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Kratt, Ken <Ken.Kratt@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: Sanjiv Wadhwani and Joanna Chai <sanjiv.wadhwani1@gmail.com> Subject: Cars doing donuts and speeding at high speed down Edgewood almost every evening/night Dear Mayor Kou, PA City Council and Sergeant Kratt, We are the owners of 1525 Edgewood Dr. in Palo Alto. I've written to both Sergeant Afanasieva and Sergeant Kratt before about overnight parked cars without permits on our street. I've given up hope on that issue as I haven't seen any parking tickets issued for these violators for almost 9 months. However, for the past few weeks, something more concerning and dangerous has been happening on our street. Almost every evening and night, there are cars doing donuts at the intersection of Edgewood and Philips, revving their engines and driving down Edgewood at high speeds. I've called the Palo Alto Police Department non-emergency number a few times, but nothing is really being done. Tonight, one of the cars actually revved its engine, slowly U-turned and shone its headlights at me when I opened my front door. I felt threatened. Please address this issue immediately as there are people and kids walking, jogging and biking along Edgewood, and we're afraid they're going to hit and cause serious injuries to someone. Especially since it's getting dark earlier and there are kids coming home from after school activities (our kids included!). We've heard them starting as early as 6pm and going till late. In the meantime, please send more patrol in the evening/night along Edgewood/Philips Road as this is extremely unsafe behavior. We appreciate your help in this urgent matter. Thank you. Sincerely, Joanna and Sanjiv From:Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce To:Council, City Subject:Reminder: Annual Meeting & Holiday Party on Dec. 5th - Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce Date:Monday, November 20, 2023 9:06:13 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Annual Membership Meeting Flyer We look forward to seeing all of our members at the 2023 Chamber of Commerce Annual Membership Meeting & Holiday Party. Enjoy light refreshments and drinks, sponsored by Homewood Suites by Hilton, proud member of the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce. Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce - Annual Membership Meeting Tuesday, December 5, 2023, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM PST Homewood Suites 4329 El Camino Real Palo Alto, CA, 94306 Members: Free Guests: $20 REGISTER This email was sent on behalf of Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce 355 Alma St Palo Alto, CA 94301.To unsubscribe clickhere. If you have questions or comments concerning this email or services in general, please contact us by email at info@paloaltochamber.com. From:Dilma Coleman To:general@alwaleedphilanthropies.org; citycouncil@cupertino.org Cc:christopher.denney@dechert.com; Council, City Subject:Fwd: A Stanford hospital patient recognizes A construction site nurse that participated in the injury for PaulPelosi. Depape"s hammer in his tool belt isn"t the weapon used. deceptive tainted observations with wrongfulgeographic locations. Date:Sunday, November 19, 2023 1:25:05 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. So you see the Acorn..remove nurse Steve. Absolutely. Attachment 5-6 is a golf course surrounded by water..ok..surfs up dude. Best regards Dilma Andrea Coleman ---------- Forwarded message ---------From: Dilma Coleman <dhappinessforever@gmail.com> Date: Sun, Nov 19, 2023, 1:09 PMSubject: A Stanford hospital patient recognizes A construction site nurse that participated in the injury for Paul Pelosi. Depape's hammer in his tool belt isn't the weapon used. deceptivetainted observations with wrongful geographic locations. To: <achuang@gmail.com>, <districtattorney@sfgov.org>Cc: <Jodi_Linker@fd.org> Dearest SF public defenders, it's important to understand the scope of illness because PaulPelosi was not injured at home in SF with David Depape's tool belt equipment(hammer). Paul Pelosi was injured at a Sunnyvale CA construction site. Attachment #1-6 watercolors .. description of reality vs. confessions of a nurse's unexpectedunethical outbursts.. attachment for #5-6 isn't an acorn. The nurse's observations it is an acorn. Ok now Dilma Coleman thinks of the geographic locations whereas acorns are present Futhermore the connection with Nurse Steve and Paul Pelosi. Verify that this type ofinvestigations doesn't require psychiatrist's observations to administer medicine to patient. Psychiatrist needs to observe the nurse Steve's outbursts towards #2 watercolors onAttachment #5-#6. Construction site workers with gambling addictions and addiction for building Porno sites with addictions of real estate ownership planned the attack on Paul..they made an attempt toExtort from Paul Pelosi. David Depape didn't plan the attacks. As this type of investigations reveals the truth about CDCR secretary Jeff Macomber..his falsifying statements on other sites remodeling projects behind his own personal itineraryrelated to the death of my aunt Delores Martes Jackson aka Dee Dee Velma Martes Jackson. Jeff Macomber CDCR secretary always desires to covet on the real estates that generatedincome. Dilma is Angry about criminals Mimicking falsifying crime scenes with data transferred from one crime scene analysis to another. Depape is innocent..the construction site workers are guilty. The unethical nurse'sobservations aren't in compliance with any courthouse documentation. Not enough evidence provided as of 11/19/2023. New evidence claims that David Depape didn't injured Paul because the site nurse at theconstruction site in Sunnyvale CA seen Paul Pelosi attacked a different approach. Those construction site nurses are employed at Stanford hospital and Life Moves homeless shelterorganization on 2566 Leghorn Ave (HomeKey Tiny homes ).. Let's verify the new evidence. On 11/18/2023, Stanford hospital nurse Steve assigned to patient Dilma ..described Dilma'swatercolors as an green acorn..this type of uninvited outbursts (observations of Dilma 's watercolors). It lead Dilma to think of the geographic locations whereas Acorns were on theground Futhermore if Steve had participated in doing harm to Paul Pelosi. The Pelosi's home oftentimes had an abundance of acorns. Verify it. The golf course oftentimes had acorns yet the geese poop nearer. List the golf course in the geographic locations between Sunnyvale CA and SF nearer to Paul Pelosi 's home. The Sunnyvale CA construction site Futhermore hostilely arose with Paul's altercations hisfall.the men choked him ...the uninvited caucasian male transported Paul to Stanford hospital for treatment..then a caucasian male transported Paul Pelosi to his home. Paul Pelosi arrivedhis observations of David Depape wasn't clear..is Paul Pelosi delirious, delusional or with hallucination? Was Paul Pelosi with symptoms of delirium? Construction site near Washington Ave and Murphy St across from Bambu drinks. Then Paul Pelosi transported home..then David Depape stood there inside the home with hiswork belt with the hammer inside his belt. the falsifying statements about David Depape..with use of hammer on Paul Pelosi is false. Pay Dilma for her observations and crime scene data analysis? Dilma Coleman currently hospitalized for diuresis for excessive edema fluids in lungs etc. heart failure and cardiomyopathy. Best regards Dilma Andrea Coleman From:Susan Nicholls To:Council, City Cc:City Mgr Subject:Street closures Date:Saturday, November 18, 2023 11:21:30 PM [Some people who received this message don't often get email from rsnicholls@mindspring.com. Learn why this is important at https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification ] CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clickingon links.________________________________ Dear City Council Members,I write to you to express my shock and dismay at the decision to keep Ramona and California Ave. closed. Where isthe data to support this decision? I have seen nothing showing the city did any objective survey or data collection ofstreet usage. I live downtown and can attest to the fact that the half block of Romona street that is closed is not used for dining. People are not using the actual street nor should they since restaurants have parklets. The idea that some restaurantscan supposedly use the street yet others need to build parklets is clearly inequitable. I’ve noticed nearly allrestaurants on the closed streets are using the parking spaces in front of their business for outdoor dining and not theactual street. I’ve also noticed that on any given day regardless of time of day, the closed streets are nearly empty. Where is the community survey that reaches more than a few of the vocal minority? I, along with several friends,have lived in Palo Alto for more than 30 years and yet we have never received any survey from the city. I read allthe time that the city surveyed residents. Who exactly is getting surveyed? How many are being surveyed? The datacited on the city website regarding the street closures shows 128 responses. Seriously? There are 66,010 residentsand you are getting feedback from 128 people. Anyone can claim they visit an area several times or once a week,but it doesn’t make it true. The city has a duty to reach out to a far greater number of residents so we feel valued andheard. The city also has a duty to use an objective measure to gather usage data. The vocal minority should not beswaying the decision making process as they have historically done. Enough. Al fresco dining is lovely, but this can continue to be accommodated with parklets. Scheduled closures for theFarmers Market and the new Third Thursdays can continue to be successful. Give ALL businesses a chance to thriveand please, please open the streets.Respectfully,Susan Nicholls Sent from my iPhone View this email in your browser Fresno's Secret Budget Negotiations Are Unlawful. We're Suing. Dear Aram, It began with investigative reporting by Fresnoland's Omar Rashad. He discovered that before the city of Fresno passed its most recent budget in June, key negotiations were done in secret meetings. Doesn’t that violate open meetings law, his article asked? Yes, it does. With the ACLU of Northern California, we sent a letter to the city in September demanding its budget committee stop meeting in secret and flouting the Brown Act, the state’s open meetings law for local governments. If From:Aram James To:Braden Cartwright; Council, City; Dave Price; Emily Mibach; Shikada, Ed Subject:Re: Fresno is Violating Open Meetings Protections. We’re Suing. Date:Saturday, November 18, 2023 1:21:07 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. On Wed, Nov 15, 2023 at 4:28 PM David Snyder, First Amendment Coalition <FAC@firstamendmentcoalition.org> wrote: it continued, it risked legal action. Unfortunately, the city insisted it’s perfectly legal for its budget committee to negotiate a nearly $2 billion dollar budget proposal behind closed doors. So today, with the ACLU of Northern California, we sued the city of Fresno for violating the Brown Act. The lawsuit asks the court to order Fresno to comply with the Brown Act’s open meeting, notice, and public comment requirements. Thanks to Rashad’s reporting, we learned these secret meetings have been going on since at least 2018, and in the city’s most recent budget, more than 75 changes and amendments were made, totaling nearly $30 million. All of these proposed changes were made without any notice to, or input from, the public. Although the Fresno City Council rubber-stamped the final budget in open session, the public was shut out of committee meetings where it was shaped. Fresno stands alone as the only city among the state’s 10 largest by population that doesn’t open budget committee deliberations to the public, Fresnoland reported. There are few decisions more important than how to spend taxpayer dollars. Fresno residents may have opinions to share about the city’s priorities before the city council votes on the final budget. Should money go toward repairing roads? Addressing homelessness? Helping small businesses? The day the budget was passed, Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said at a press conference, "A lot of sausage was made in the back room." The public has the right to see how the sausage is made in the back room, not just how it’s sold in the showroom. Thank you for your interest in our work. David Snyder, Executive Director First Amendment Coalition DONATE Follow us to receive the latest news and updates: Copyright © 2023 First Amendment Coalition, All rights reserved. The First Amendment Coalition: Defending Free Speech and Your Right To Know Our mailing address is: First Amendment Coalition 534 4th Street, Ste. B San Rafael, CA 94901 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. From:Winter Dellenbach To:Council, City Subject:See Canopy’s Jan. Webinar - Creating and Sustaining Denser, Greener Cities Date:Saturday, November 18, 2023 9:43:27 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hi Council members - Scroll down to this webinar registration for mid-Jan. Taught by smart experts about planning for the co-existence of dense development and trees. Canopy webinars are high quality, by experts who are grounded and practical. Well worth listening to, not wasting your time. We all need to be as smart as possible about this subject as it will mightily affect our City’sfuture. Happy Thanksgiving, you all. Winter Dellenbach Canopy TreEnews Grateful for You This Season! As we look ahead to Thanksgiving, we would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to you, our Canopy community. Your support as volunteers, donors, and advocates is key to our success— we are grateful for you! As volunteers, you dug in to plant needed trees in schools, parks, and neighborhoods, and helped Canopy expand young tree care. You engaged local youth to deeply connect with nature through hands-on environmentalscience lessons. As tree stewards, you partnered with Canopy staff to tend new trees and grow our urban forests. And as donors, you helped Canopy offer training and advice to local residents, expand our team of Teen Urban Foresters providing paid internships for young environmental leaders...and somuch more! Thanks to all of you, this year has been full of growth and new opportunities for Canopy and for local communities. We can’t wait to see what we can do together next! Healthy, resilient communities depend on healthy trees, from cleaner air and water to protection from extreme heat and storms. We are grateful to do this work on the Midpeninsula alongside all of you. In the coming weeks, you’ll see letters and emails from Canopy inviting you to continue partnering with us in the new year and to consider supporting this work with a year-end gift. The year-end giving season is key in fundingCanopy’s programs in the year ahead, and every donation makes a difference. We hope you’ll take a chance and dig in with us or share these messages with others who care deeply about healthy trees and healthy communities. Thank you for being part of the Canopy community—you makethis work possible! Upcoming Canopy Events Fall 2022 CFS cohort Community Forestry School February 21 - April 17, 2024 Online Zoom classes + Outdoor field experiences Become a Canopy-certified Community Forester! This 9-week course will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and training you need to take action in your community right away. As a Community Forestry School (CFS) graduate, you’ll be prepared to identify trees, plant and prune effectively, explain the value of the urban forest to others, and advocate for trees in your community. Learn More Volunteer Opportunitie s Learn Over Lunch with Canopy North Fair Oaks Sat., Dec. 9, 2023 Mountain ViewThur., Dec. 14,2023 Help plant andcare for trees inthe community! All ages and experience levels are welcome. Get Involved Wed., Dec. 13, 2023 11:45 a.m. - 1:00p.m. Learn moreabout Canopy's classroom tree educational programs forelementary school students at this virtual event hosted byCalifornia ReLeaf! Register Creating & Sustaining Denser, Greener Cities Thursday, January 18, 2024 10:00 - 11:30 a.m Zoom Webinar The phrase “high density” can trigger images of concrete and crowding, but dense urban and suburban areas have more green potential than you might think. Not only does high-density housing and other development create walkable, livable cities with a lower carbon footprint, but it can also—with some creative urban planning—incorporate green spaces that promote biodiversity, health, and well-being. Hear from a panel of experts on how cities in Santa Clara County can become both greener and denser. Webinar featuring: Paul Kephart, Founder, Principal Ecologist and Designer, RANA Mayor Alison Hicks, City of Mountain View Dr. Erica Spotswood, Director of Science and Sr. Ecologist, Second Nature Register Neighborhood Tree Walks Explore the trees outside your door at a Canopy tree walk! At these monthly events, a certified arborist guides participants through one of the neighborhood routes, sharing in-depthinformation, fun facts, and tips about caring for trees andselecting tree species. Mountain View Sat., Jan. 20, 2024 Palo AltoSat., Feb. 17, 2024 East Palo Alto Sat., Mar. 2, 2024 Register Press Play on Green Careers Last month, Canopy's education team hosted the Green Careers series, a unique opportunity for high school students to hear from a diverse group of professionals in the environmental sector. Don't worry if your teen missed the live panel! Click below to catch the recorded sessions on our YouTube playlist. Gifts and Grants Tree Gifts and Dedications: Sue and Jerry Krumbein in honor of Catherine Martineau Katie and Josh Petersen in memory of Leonard Mygatt Shelley Ratay in gratitude to the Canopy Staff Kaye Crawford in memory of James H. Crawford Grants: Google.org Silicon Valley Community Foundation Meta Platforms Lockheed Martin Give the Gift of Trees Your tax-deductible gift to Canopy helps grow green, healthy communities where people and nature thrive. Ask your employer today about matching gifts—you might just double your impact! Donate to Canopy Tree Library Find an Arborist Canopy Jobs Newsletter Archives Canopy's mission is to grow the urban forest in Midpeninsula communities for the benefit of all. Our vision is a day when every resident of the Midpeninsula can step outside to walk, play, and thrive under the shade of healthy trees. Canopy | 3921 East Bayshore Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303 Unsubscribe wintergery@earthlink.net Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice Sent by info@canopy.org powered by Try email marketing for free today! Hi All, On November 14th, I attended a community meeting hosted by State Senator Josh Becker and State Assemblymember Marc Berman about the upcoming project to repair El Camino Real (CA Route 82). Senator Becker shared a few of the many messages he has received from constituents about the horribly degraded state of this important road. They would have been funny if they hadn't been so on point.The section of El Camino from the Sunnyvale/Mountain View border to the Palo Alto/Menlo Park border will be transformed, but it will take almost two years to complete the transformation. There was a panel of experts from Caltrans and from the three cities where the repairs are being made- Mountain View, Los Altos and Palo Alto- to explain the project to us. The rough schedule: November 2023: pavement repairs for 2-3 days to fix the most egregious potholes. This "fix" happened in most of Mountain View several months ago so most of the repairs this time will be in Palo Alto. January 2024: Sidewalk/curb ramp/electrical work starts. Think concrete work. It isn't temperature dependent like asphalt. From:Bonnie Packer To:City Mgr; Council, City Cc:NewsSubject:Fwd: El Camino Real Repair Schedule Date:Friday, November 17, 2023 6:13:42 PM Some people who received this message don't often get email from bonniebpacker@gmail.com. Learn why this is important CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. I found Pat’s report very informative. Can you share a similar report with Palo Alto Residents? Thanks. Bonnie Packer Begin forwarded message: From: Pat <patshowalter2020@gmail.com>Subject: El Camino Real Repair ScheduleDate: November 17, 2023 at 5:02:24 PM PSTTo: <bonniebpacker@gmail.com>Reply-To: <patshowalter2020@gmail.com> Late String 2024: Permanent pavement work starts. Generally the work will start at the south end and work northward. Summer 2025: project complete. The reason why the pavement work can't start until spring is due to temperature conditions. Apparently, the optimum temperature to lay asphalt is 70 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer. There are approximately 300 work days planned for this project, so the paving work will take a pause over the cool months in 2024 and start up again in spring 2025 when the weather gets warm enough. The project: This is a comprehensive project along a nine mile length of El Camino Real, essentially from the Sunnyvale/Mountain View border to the Palo Alto/Menlo Park border. Not only is Caltrans repaving the entire width and length, but they are updating all the adjoining sidewalks for ADA access, adding enhanced crosswalks at key intersections AND adding bike lanes all the way through Mountain View and Los Altos. We should thank our own Director of Public Works, Dawn Cameron, for how comprehensive this project has become. While reviewing the pavement replacement project, she kept asking "while we are at it, couldn't we also fix….." New protected bike lanes on both sides of El Camino and three new pedestrian crossings are the result of Dawn asking for critical active transportation improvements that were identified in the 2019 El Camino Streetscape Plan. Thank you, Dawn. Where there is room, there will be flex posts separating the bike lane from the car lane. To make room for the bike lanes, on-street parking will be removed. The protected bike lanes are being funded by the cities and not the State. Palo Alto hasn't decided to fund the bike improvements in their city yet. Since the paving is being done in a northward direction, there is still time for the City of Palo Alto to make the decision to add bike lanes. Road Closures: Most of the repaving work will be done on scheduled nights. Northbound work will go from 9 PM to 7 AM. Southbound work will go from 10 PM to 8 AM. Some work will be done during the day. Communications: The specifics on this are still being worked out, but everyone agreed this was crucial. Expect there to be lots of notices about closures and traffic disruptions. On-the-ground work will be planned on a three week cycle so notices should come out in time to give us all a little notice of exactly when and where the work will be taking place. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Pat Showalter Vice Mayor City of Mountain View Copyright © 2020 Pat Showalter, All rights reserved. Contact us at: patshowalter2020@gmail.com pat.showalter@mountainview.gov Paid for by Pat Showalter for Council 2020 FPPC#: 1425808 This email was sent to bonniebpacker@gmail.com why did I get this? unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences Pat Showalter 2020 · 2711 Levin Ct · Mountain View, CA 94040-4423 · USA From:Richard Corny To:Council, City; Kou, Lydia Subject:Pat Burt is lying about Cal Ave Date:Friday, November 17, 2023 6:12:49 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of openingattachments and clicking on links. ________________________________ Pat Burt is saying some false things that need to be addressed .He says “We see that businesses that have embraced the change and saw change as an opportunity aretending to thrive”Total BSGive me an example please, Gamelandia ? not thriving. They may get by but not thriving.The Cobblery on the other hand has something you can’t find anywhere else. Service. Shoe repairand shoe store. We don’t need to change our hours to survive but your closed street looks like crap and that’s why no one is coming down here. I repeat NO ONE IS THRIVING on a closed street unless you havesomething people can’t go without. And you hired a consultant that recommended allowing nailsalons and hair salons…. And gymsMan we already have all that. Are you blind?There’s 15% vacancy on Cal and that’s twice the average amount for PA.I tell all my customers not to vote for you that you have done a horrible job with Cal Ave and havedropped the ball for the last 4 years.I don’t know maybe you’re getting paid off by some restaurants but from what I see everyday whererestaurants are barely busy at lunch (some closed)and maybe a couple of times a week when it’s niceout for dinner, which it ain’t gonna be all winter, the street should be open.Your street closure is a failure.The street was thriving just fine before the closure. Rich from the CobbleryThanks for nothing The street is dead and here is some proof of tonight. Kali, dead, La Bohème dead, Terun , dead. PaloAlto Sol , dead. The restaurants would be a lot busier with an open street. But instead it’s dead.Thanks city of Palo Alto for your horrible job. I can’t say enough bad things about you guys, youhave failed us completely. Sent from my iPhone Sent from my iPhone From:pennyellson12@gmail.com To:Council, City Subject:FW: See what your fellow team-mates have been upto! Date:Friday, November 17, 2023 9:18:25 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. FYI… From: pennyellson12@gmail.com <pennyellson12@gmail.com> Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2023 1:22 PM To: 'Sandhya Laddha' <sandhya@bikesiliconvalley.org> Cc: 'Frank Viggiano' <fpviggiano@gmail.com>; 'Eric Nordman' <eric.nordman12@gmail.com>; 'David Coale' <david@evcl.com>; 'Kathy Durham' <kfdurham@earthlink.net>; robert@neffs.net; 'Anthony Montes' <anthony@bikesiliconvalley.org> Subject: RE: See what your fellow team-mates have been upto! Hi Sandhya, I’d still appreciate an answer to my question about what SVBC is doing with regard to ECR in Palo Alto. SVBC says they support Safe Routes to School. Our city has been advocating for improved school commute crossings on ECR because a majority of PAUSD students walk or bike to school and many of our school commute routes cross ECR. School commuting students in Palo Alto and other communities have been maimed and killed walking and bicycling across this state highway. Why is regional SVBC not actively working on problematic ECR crossings –especially on school route crossings? I don’t understand why any city should have to seek grants or self-fund a project to improve crossing safety of ECR (as Mountain View has done), given that it is a State highway. The State has adopted a Safe System approach to transportation. Caltrans has adopted a Complete Street directive. Without safe crossings, ECR will not be a complete street, nor will it conform with any of the Safe System road design countermeasures and strategies. See https://www.transportation.gov/NRSS/SaferRoads . SVBC says that they support facilities that serve all riders, including less skilled and confident riders, but on this project, SVBC appears to be acting only on calls from fearless regional commuters to advocate for bike lanes along ECR, as though they are the only foot-powered people who use ECR. That is simply not true, especially in Palo Alto where hundreds of k-12 students cross ECR every school day. SVBC says they support transit. The only VTA buses with really good headways in Palo Alto are the VTA 22 and 522 lines that run along ECR. As Palo Alto continues to build high density housing along this corridor, we anticipate greater demand for access to these bus lines. That means more people will be crossing ECR on foot and on bikes to get to bus stops and other nearby destinations. Ped/bike crossing safety improvements are needed at these locations. How can SVBC collaborate with Palo Alto in their effort to improve bike/ped cohesiveness and safety on ECR in Palo Alto? Palo Alto SVBC Local Team (and PABAC) submitted comments months ago and the city has not seen any updated plans—neither from Caltrans nor SVBC. How does SVBC’s single-minded push for bike lanes along ECR conform with Safe System and Complete Street policies and SVBC’s mission and planned strategic outcomes? SVBC Mission: to build healthier and more just communities by making bicycling safe andaccessible for everyone. We envision a community that values, includes, and encourages bicyclingfor all purposes for all people. Our overarching goal is to increase the number and diversity ofpeople using bicycles for everyday transportation.2025 Strategic OutcomesKey outcomes we are working to achieve by 2025 as a result of our programs and initiatives: 1. All people feel safe on bikes in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties. 2. Bicycling is accepted as a normal part of everyday life. 3. Bicycling is accessible, convenient, and fun. 4. Bicycling is integrated into youth education and the culture of future generations. 5. People utilize bicycling as a core component of a healthy and active lifestyle. 6. Local & regional governments and community leaders look to SVBC for trusted expertise. 7. Bicycling is recognized as a key indicator for quality of life, economic wellbeing, and talent retention for Silicon Valley. Guiding PrinciplesWe think how we accomplish our goals is extremely important, and we support our mission, vision, and outcomes with the following principles: Innovation Connection to the community Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Collaboration I would like SVBC to advocate for ECR crossing improvements with the same vigor you have given bike lanes along ECR. Further, the State, not cities, should be paying for CompleteStreet improvements that are necessary in their ROW. Sincerely, Penny Ellson From: Sandhya Laddha <sandhya@bikesiliconvalley.org> Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2023 8:00 AM To: pennyellson12@gmail.com Cc: Frank Viggiano <fpviggiano@gmail.com>; Eric Nordman <eric.nordman12@gmail.com>; David Coale <david@evcl.com>; Kathy Durham <kfdurham@earthlink.net>; robert@neffs.net; Anthony Montes <anthony@bikesiliconvalley.org> Subject: Re: See what your fellow team-mates have been upto! Thanks Penny for sharing and kudos on all the amazing things you are all working on! It is true that the Palo Alto page is out of date - and same is the story with all ourlocal team web pages - it has been really hard to keep them up-to-date unlesssomeone from the team itself is available to run and maintain it. On Wed, Nov 8, 2023 at 5:45 PM <pennyellson12@gmail.com> wrote: The Palo Alto page on this link is over a year out of date. I don’t remember our team voting on goals this year. We had an incomplete Zoom conversation on the subject and then our Zoom meeting timed out. Maybe I missed the vote on another date? We also have been advocating for improved school commute crossings on ECR because 57% of PAUSD students walk or bike to school and many of our school commute routes cross ECR. School commuting Palo Alto students and others have been maimed and killed walking and bicycling across this state highway. (This has also happened in other communities impacted by ECR traffic. Why is regional SVBC not actively working on problematic ECR crossings as well as bike lanes along ECR?) That is not acknowledged on the Palo Alto page…nor by SVBC in their advocacy efforts. The Safe System Approach mentioned on the linked page as a petition drive has since been approved by City Council. The city already got a grant to implement it and incorporate it in our City of Palo Alto Bicycle & Pedestrian Transportation Plan Update –a process that is underway right now. (A Safe System Approach would not solely focus on bike lanes along ECR. It would support improving unsafe multi-lane, high speed crossings as well.) We have been attending City Council Rail Committee meetings, working on integrating excellent bike/ped facilities in the city’s multiple rail grade separation planning projects. Some of us have been working with Public Works on getting repairs made to aging bike/ped bridges. We just brought back our Bike Palo Alto event for the first time since the pandemic. It drew over 400 participants. (SVBC had a booth there). We organized four BTWD stations in Palo Alto this year. I sent photos. That’s a few things that immediately come to mind in the moment. Friends, what did I miss? Penny From: Sandhya Laddha <sandhya@bikesiliconvalley.org> Sent: Wednesday, November 8, 2023 3:24 PM To: pennyellson12@gmail.com Subject: See what your fellow team-mates have been upto! Dear Penelope, SVBC has 9 local teams spread across multiple cities and towns in San Mateo and Santa ClaraCounties. And these teams together in the past year have lead 20+ campaigns, 20+ bike rides,several bike repair events, pop-ups and what not! Next week, November 15th at 5pm - wewill be celebrating the actions of all our local team members. Register here for this fun-filled, inspiring and motivating forum For those who don't know, Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition is an umbrella organization, and wespend a lot of time supporting and growing local teams. The local teams are made up ofbiketivists in a particular city or region in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties. For an up-to- date list of local teams, see our SVBC local teams page. Our local teams meet regularly, have 3-5 yearly goals, and run active and effectivecampaigns to make our communities more friendly to those walking and biking. They alsohave fun! Our teams plan events to bring in new members and share the joy of biking andwalking. At the upcoming forum, we will celebrate all the hard work the local teams put in! Teamswill present campaigns and events that were particularly successful in making the movementvisible; gathering more support for the movement; or instigating policy change. Come be inspired to take action in your own community! Any questions, contact heather@bikesiliconvalley.org. Cheers,Sandhya LaddhaPolicy Director Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition Virus-free.www.avg.com -- Cheers,Sandhya LaddhaPolicy Director | she/her/hers Like Bikes? Donate to SVBC today! From:Erika Jurney To:French, Amy; Historic Resources Board Cc:Council, City Subject:Palo Alto Historical Inventory - Objection Letter for 230 Kellogg Avenue Date:Friday, November 17, 2023 8:09:20 AM Some people who received this message don't often get email from erika@thejurneys.com. Learn why this isimportant CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Historical Resources Board and Amy French, Thank you for the opportunity to provide input for your consideration on my property’s potential nomination for listing on the Palo Alto Historical Inventory. This email conveys my objection to any such listing/inclusion of my property at 230 KelloggAvenue. I love my home which is why I purchased it, but I do not want to be part of the Palo Alto Historical Inventory program and its implications. Not a unique example of design My home is wonderful to me, but it is hardly an exemplar of Craftsman design. It has a quite ordinary exterior and interior. Impact to home salability Realtors with extensive experience buying and selling Palo Alto properties have advisedthat the restrictions on potential/future development resulting from a historic designation can lower resale value by 10-20 percent.“Board Member Wimmer said she talked to some of the realtors trying to get their perspective on what it means to have a house that’s listed on an inventory, in terms ofsalability. They have said it narrows the buying pool and it is seen as a negative thing.” (HRB retreat minutes, July 28, 2023) SB-9 not applicable My property is zoned R-2 and is therefore exempt from SB-9 sub-division. If amotivation to make my home historic is to exempt it from SB-9, it is already exempt. Added restrictions and requirements I do not want my property to have more restrictions and requirements above and beyond the City’s already rigorous and lengthy permit approval process. Homeowner choice For most people, their home is their most consequential asset. Palo Alto voters in 2000sent a clear message to the City Council to let the homeowners decide by defeating Measure G.I want to live in a 1900s home, not live in the 1900s. “We don’t suspect the council would designate a property to the inventory over the objections of the property owners, French said.” (Palo Alto Weekly, November 3, 2023) Sincerely, Erika JurneyHomeowner - 230 Kellogg Avenue From:Susan Stuermer Thomas To:French, Amy; Historic Resources Board Cc:Council, City Subject:Objection to Designation of 1757 Park Blvd. as a Historic Home Date:Thursday, November 16, 2023 6:09:22 PM [Some people who received this message don't often get email from sthomas210@comcast.net. Learn why this is important at https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification ] CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clickingon links.________________________________ I believe that my home identified above may have been put on a list to be categorized as a historic home. I am sorryI did not have an opportunity to object sooner, but I very, very strongly object. I do not think that any suchdesignation should be made without the homeowner’s consent. I have reviewed the incentives for so doing, anddecided that they do not adequately compensate homeowners for the possible diminution in the value of their homes,the imposition of procedural requirements, and the limitation of the homeowners’ rights with respect to their ownhomes. If my home was added to this list, please remove it immediately. If my home has not already been put onthis list, but may be put on it in the future, please take into account my extremely strong objections. I would appreciate a prompt response and notification as to what future steps I should take with respect to thismatter. Susan Stuermer Thomas1757 Park BoulevardPalo Alto, CA 94306sthomas210@comcast.netPhone and text: 650.279.6434. Sent from my iPad From:matt@evolutionaryteams.com To:Palo-Alto@FridaysForFutureUSA.org Subject:FFF Follow Up – Nov 10 (Week #96) Date:Thursday, November 16, 2023 3:55:29 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. ***This Friday we will meet at the corner of Embarcadero and El Camino at Noon (instead of City Hall). More details below.*** When we arrived at King Plaza on Friday, we encountered a large group of Palo Alto elementary school students. We invited them to use our signs, and they knew exactly what to do with them – they started chanting, “end fossil fuels,” and directed their chants at City Hall. Their energy and enthusiasm impressed everyone! Students instinctively know what they are up against and how those who should be protecting them are failing to take the urgent action necessary to bring down carbon emissions and planetary temperatures. We all must stop burning fossil fuel! Hear their voices here: https://youtu.be/tXJUiV_WnJs Thank you, Palo Alto students! After the rousing rally, Claudia led a discussion of Chapter 5 entitled, “Persist” of the book, “All We Can Save.” We pondered the dilemma of maintaining energy and, well, persistence, in the face of a problem that took generations to create and will take generations to solve. Those of us who enjoy the satisfaction of solving problems wondered how to approach working on a problem while knowing that it won’t be solved today, or tomorrow, or next year, or even in our own lifetime. But we know that we must work on the problem with “radical incrementalism.” (Thanks, Rick, for coining that phase.) Thanks to Ingrid, Rick, Robin, Casey, and George for bringing your energy, and thanks, Claudia, for leading this fascinating discussion. Andrea informs us that we are fast approaching the Dec. 1 deadline for the 350 SV Palo Alto Petition to Set a Sunset Date for Gas Shut-off in Palo Alto. Pleasehelp reach the goal of 750 signatures. Given the war in the Middle East that’s causing division here at home, we agreed to raise our voices and call for peace. We decided to join Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom on Friday 11/17 for a peace vigil at the corner of El Camino and Embarcadero. Keep Up the Fight and See You Friday! Social Justice is Climate JusticeUpcoming Events Friday, Nov 17, Noon to 1:00: Fridays for Future Palo Alto and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Joint Peace Vigil – DIFFERENT LOCATION: CORNER OF EMBARCADERO and EL CAMINO EngageOn calendar: https://www.engageon.org/events Peninsula Peace and Justice calendar: https://peaceandjustice.org/events-calendar/ More Climate Action We are fast approaching the Dec. 1 deadline for our 350 SV Palo Alto Petition to Set a Sunset Date for Gas Shut-off in Palo Alto. Please help reach the goal of 750 signatures. Matt is fundraising for The Climate Mobilization Project who organize communities in the US on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Please chip in here:https://givebutter.com/ClimateSurvival/mattschlegel Thank you! Palo Alto’s Heat Pump Water Heater Program Status Heat Pump Water Heater Program Update On top of our recent canvassing effort, new state incentives for heat pump water heaters and increased discounts for Palo Alto’s program are driving a significant increase in interest and signups for the program! As of:11/2 10/2 9/7 7/27 6/29 6/1 4/27 4/5 HPWH full-service interest list signups 604 549 521 459 511 488 466 432 Site assessment agreements (SAA) sent 604 549 519 458 437 399 345 125 Signed SAAs 448 407 387 326 306 280 156 70 Completed site assessments 381 342 311 244 147 111 58 22 Installations Total Full Service HPWHs installed 117 90 70 27 16 12 8 1 Total DYI HPWH installed 37 n/a 13 Total HPWHs installed 154 90 83 Target Installations 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 Monthly Installation Rate Monthly Installation Rate 64 7 43 13 9 4 7 n/a Target Monthly Installation Rate 83 83 83 83 83 83 Highlighted numbers are not accurate because of missing data point Weekly PhotosFFF Nov 10: https://photos.app.goo.gl/NUCLqZf2ugHwWQcMA What We Are Reading/Watching/Listening to: Climate One podcast: https://www.climateone.org/listen-watch/podcasts The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens (podcast): https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/ Follow Fridays For Future Palo Alto: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fridaysforfuture_paloalto/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Fri4Future_PA Email notifications of FFF Palo Alto events: https://mailchi.mp/c8c130127345/join-fridays-for-future-palo-alto You are receiving this email because you have expressed an interest in supporting climate action in Palo Alto. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, please let me know. Matt Schlegel Organizer Fridays For Future Palo Alto Cell: 650-924-8923 Email: Palo-Alto@FridaysForFutureUSA.org Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fridaysforfuture_paloalto/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Fri4Future_PA YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMGKrv_ADB5k7HPK9FJO_Hw Web: https://fridaysforfutureusa.org/local-groups/palo-alto/ Email List: https://mailchi.mp/c8c130127345/join-fridays-for-future-palo-alto From:Aram James To:<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Bryan Gobin; Cindy Chavez; Council, City; D Martell; Damon Silver;District1@bos.sccgov.org; Don Austin; DuJuan Green; GRP-City Council; Gennady Sheyner; HRW Silicon Valley;Human Relations Commission; Jay Boyarsky; Jeff Moore; Joe Simitian; Josh Becker; Julie Lythcott-Haims; KEVIN JENSEN; Kaloma Smith; Lewis james; Linda Jolley; Lotus Fong; Zelkha, Mila; Raj Jayadev; Roberta Ahlquist;Rodriguez, Miguel; Rosen, Jeff; Sean Allen; Shana Segal; Shikada, Ed; Sue Dremann; Supervisor Otto Lee;Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Vara Ramakrishnan; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Barberini, Christopher; Lee, Craig; cromero@cityofepa.org; dennis burns; friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com; ladoris cordell;yudof@law.berkeley.edu Subject:Support for cease-fire grows in the face of white wing opposition Date:Thursday, November 16, 2023 2:00:38 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious ofopening attachments and clicking on links. THREE-HUNDRED THIRTY delegates to the Democratic National Convention who backed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in his 2016 and 2020 presidential bids sent a letter to the senator urging him to introduce a resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza. The letter, sent on Wednesday, urges Sanders to introduce a Senate companion bill to a ceasefire resolution introduced last month in the House of Representatives. The Sanders convention delegates also called on him to support an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza, the occupation of Palestinian land, U.S. military funding for war crimes against Palestinians, and the expansion of Israeli settlements. “Palestinians require more than just a ‘humanitarian pause.’” “We’ve progressed beyond the stage of seeking mere condemnations or symbolic gestures,” the delegates wrote. “We concur with your assertion that these ‘unspeakable crimes’ must cease and that ‘the bombs and missiles from both sides’ should be halted. But Palestinians require more than just a ‘humanitarian pause.’” The House resolution was introduced by by Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo.; Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; André Carson, D-Ind.; Summer Lee, D-Pa.; and Delia Ramirez, D-Ill. The House resolution now has 18 co-sponsors. So far, at least 31 members of Congress, including Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., have come out in favor of a ceasefire — although Durbin and others conditioned their calls on the release of Israeli prisoners in Gaza. The letter comes three weeks after hundredsof Sanders presidential campaign alumni sent a letter urging the senator to back a ceasefire. Since that letter’s release, Sanders has all but supported a ceasefire: calling for a humanitarian pause; to “stop the bombing”; and saying Congress, the Biden administration, and the world “must take action.” MOST READ “We Need Him Now, More ThanEver” Sanders’s delegates delivered the letter to the Vermont senator one day after more than 115 former staffers for President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama — including former Biden chief of staff Ron Klain and former Treasury Secretary and Harvard University President Lawrence Summers — applauded Biden for his “staunch support of Israel.” The former top administration officials lauded Biden’s proposed $14.3 billion in military aid for Israel. It also follows a decision by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D. N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., to join Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, at Tuesday’s March for Israel in Washington, D.C., where the quartet proclaimed, “We stand with Israel.” I Joined Gaza’s Trail ofTears and Displacement Hind Khoudary Anti-Defamation LeagueMaps Jewish Peace RalliesWith Antisemitic Attacks Micah Lee Blowback: How Israel WentFrom Helping Create Hamasto Bombing It Mehdi Hasan, Dina Sayedahmed Hours later, Israel invaded Al-Shifa hospital, the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital, where thousands of displaced and injured civilians were trapped, including dozens of premature babies. Wednesday is the fifth consecutive day that the Gaza Ministry of Health has been unable to update its death toll, owing to a lack of fuel and power that has totaled the health care system, making tallying the dead and communications nearly impossible. The last time the ministry updated the death toll, on Friday, Israel had killed 11,078 people. “As a Jewish person of conscience watching Israeli genocide in real time, I say, not in my name, not with my tax dollars, shall Israel bomb and deprive a trapped population, half of them children, of water, food, medicine and fuel,” said Marcy Winograd, a 2020 Sanders delegate from California’s 24th congressional district, and a co-founding member of the Los Angeles chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. “As a Jewish member of Congress, Senator Sanders’ voice would be particularly persuasive in demanding an end to Israel’s violations of international law that shock the world to leave us feeling unmoored from our own humanity.” Related Dick Durbin, AIPAC’s First Successful Recruit, Becomes FirstSenator to Call for Gaza Ceasefire The latest letter adds to a growing opposition among Democrats against unconditional U.S. support for Israel. Over a dozen former Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., campaign staffers, 411 current congressional staffers, 400-plus current Biden administration employees, 500- plusformer Biden campaign alumni, 133 Obamastaffers and appointees, and 260 former presidential campaign staffers for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., issued statements demanding support for a ceasefire. More have since signed on. “From coastal cities to rural valleys like mine, millions of young people turned their attention to politics for the first time in 2016 and 2020 because we shared Bernie’s vision for peace and justice,” said Taran Samarth, a student organizer and 2020 Sanders delegate from Pennsylvania. “We need him now, more than ever, to champion those values once more and call for a ceasefire in the face of the Biden administration’s unconditional support for the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. https://theintercept.com/ From:Charlie Weidanz To:Council, City Subject:Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce News & Updates - November 16, 2023 Date:Thursday, November 16, 2023 1:45:17 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. NEWS & UPDATES - November 16, 2023 Annual Membership Meeting & Holiday Party City of Palo Alto Tree Lighting iCode Palo Alto Grand Opening Celebration Family Night at Gamelandia Member Spotlight: Friends of the Palo Alto Junior Museum Member Spotlight: GitKash Sibling Cities Town Hall - Climate Action & Sustainability Annual Membership Meeting & Holiday Party Annual Membership Meeting Flyer W e look forward to seeing all of our members at the 2023 Chamber of Commerce Annual Membership Meeting & Holiday Party. Enjoy light refreshments and drinks, sponsored by Homewood Suites by Hilton, proud member of the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce. Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce - Annual Membership Meeting Tuesday, December 5, 2023, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM Homewood Suites 4329 El Camino Real Palo Alto, CA, 94306 Members: FreeGuests: $20 REGISTER City of Palo Alto Tree Lighting City of Palo Alto Tree Lighting Flyer Kick off the 2023 Holiday season and join us for a family friendly evening of live music, bell ringers, carols and winter treats! Friday, December 1st 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM Lytton Plaza 200 University Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94301 iCode Palo Alto Grand Opening Celebration iCode Palo Alto Grand Opening Celebration flyer Get ready for an evening of fun and prizes! iCode's Grand Opening Celebration is on Saturday, December 2nd. Join us from 4-7pm for a fantastic time featuring stations with fun demos for the kids, including drones, robotics, and more. Learn about how to become a platinum founding member with exclusive lifetime benefits in person. 1765 E Bayshore Rd GPalo Alto, CA 94303 Family Night at Gamelandia Family Night at Gamelandia Flyer Join Gamelandia and get a 15% discount at Gamelandia for games for your winter holiday gift list! December 6th5:00 - 7:00 PM or 7:30 - 9:30 PM Gamelandia Palo Alto 290 California Ave, Ste APalo Alto, CA 94306 RSVP! (Space is limited) Friends of the Junior Museum & Zoo logo This month, we are spotlighting The Friends of the Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo (Friends) a nonprofit organization that works to support and enhance the Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo (JMZ), a beloved Palo Alto institution whose mission is to engage a child’s curiosity in science and nature. For generations, the Friends have funded learning and discovery at the JMZ through hands- on exhibits. Most recently, the Friends supported the California Dinosaur Garden exhibit that features life-size dinosaur and animal sculptures, prehistoric plants, and interactive exhibits– including a fossil dig. MEMBER SPOTLIGHT Woman holding turtle nose-to-nose with dinosaur. The Friends also funds impactful programs that expand access to the JMZ and to science education in the community, such as: Super Family Sundays – Special days for families who have children with disabilities, which provide exclusive access to the JMZ in a calm and friendly environment. JMZ Science Outreach – Exceptional and engaging science programming for K-5 students, brought to children in the Ravenswood City School District and East Palo Alto Charter School. To learn more about the JMZ Science Outreach Program, please watch this video: To learn more about the Friends, our corporate sponsorship opportunities or how toget involved: www.friendsjmz.org 1451 Middlefield Road Palo Alto, CA 94301 (650) 326-6338 Follow the Friends on Instagram @friendsjmz Meet GitKash, a mobile marketing company for local brick-and-mortar retailers. The GitKash mobile marketing solution transforms the way retailers connect with consumers. They can easily create promotions that attract customers into their store at specific times, attracts new customers, increase total sales, or encourages repeat business, as well as offers that move excess or expiring inventory and highlight new products and services. With GitKash (www.gitkash.com), retailers get immediate, real-time feedback on offer performance and only pay for success. And they reach consumers where they are - on their smartphones. Using GitKash is frictionless. There is no hardware to install, integrations to perform, or operational changes to make. And no contracts, fees, or monthly charges. Retailers can easily manage offers through a user-friendly web interface. Signing up takes about five minutes, and creating promotions takes less than two. GitKash MEMBER SPOTLIGHT Retailers control the whole process through a simple Web Interface. GitKash Web Interface GitKash Web Interface View the GitKash Merchant Info The free GitKash mobile app is available on both the Apple and the Google Play stores.GitKash Mobile App GitKash Mobile App Consumers can search for deals as well as seeing them on a map. Redemption in the store is simple and the same no matter how they pay - debit, credit, cash, or check. With GitKash, retailers can stop paying for anything except success. Learn more at www.gitkash.com, info@gitkash.com or 650.307.6140. Get it on Google Play Sibling Cities - Climate Action & Sustainability flyer Want to help knit this country back together? Ready to listen with curiosity and empathy to residents of Palo Alto’s Sibling City, Bloomington, Indiana? Curious what they think about how to get along, climate action, and race and belonging? Want to share your views and build friendship, trust, and respect across the miles? Come to a Town Hall where Palo Altans will gather in person and connect by videoconference with a room full of people in Bloomington. Co-sponsored by the cities of Palo Alto and Bloomington, these events aim to renew our public squareand offer opportunities to discuss tough issues with fellow Americans distant from us. One more Town Hall will be held on Sunday afternoon from 1-3 pm: Climate Action & Sustainability, December 3rd In Palo Alto, we’ll gather at the Mitchell Park Community Center, 3700 Middlefield Road for conversation, comparing and contrasting how these issues arise in each of our communities and sharing both concerns and potential solutions. To register, go to www.siblingcitiesusa.org/events or use this QR code: Sibling Cities USA is a non-profit organization that fosters relationships between city pairs using three pillars of Connection: Community, Commerce, and Civil Discourse. Palo Alto and Bloomington have engaged in numerous joint activities over the last year to get to know each other and develop friendship and respect. Join the movement! See Our Upcoming Events Learn More About The Chamber PALO ALTO CHAMBER & VISITORS CENTER 355 ALMA STREET | PALO ALTO | CA | 94301 | 650-324-3121 WWW.PALOALTOCHAMBER.COM This email was sent on behalf of Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce 355 Alma St Palo Alto, CA 94301.To unsubscribe click here. If you have questions or comments concerning this email or services in general, please contact us by email atinfo@paloaltochamber.com. From:Kou, LydiaTo:Diane; Council, City; Shikada, Ed Cc:Susan Rosenberg; Durham, KathyF; Lait, Jonathan; Kou, Lydia Subject:Re: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcementDate:Thursday, November 16, 2023 1:23:21 PM Attachments:image012.pngimage013.pngimage015.pngimage009.pngimage016.pngimage011.pngimage001.pngimage002.pngimage003.pngimage005.pngimage006.pngimage008.pngimage010.png Hello Mr. Lait, I’ve vidited the site and it appears like the area is being used as a construction storage area for materials and equipment. Additionally they have a gateinstalled for their construction trucks to go into the area but there is no driveway, so they are driving over the curb, planting area and sidewalk. Thereis a city sign post in front of the gate. Kindly look into whether there are violations and keep our residential neighborhoods safe and healthy. Thank you,lk Get Outlook for iOS From: Diane <dianeef@comcast.net> Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2023 3:59:51 PM To: Council, City <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>; Shikada, Ed <Ed.Shikada@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: Susan Rosenberg <susanpa@sonic.net>; Durham, KathyF <kfdurham@earthlink.net> Subject: Fwd: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcement Dear Mayor Kou, members of the Council and the City Manager, I am forwarding to you my email which was sent to Staff on November 7th for which II still have not received a reply. I am including the Staff emailabout these Code violations that have existed in our neighborhood since last June. As neighbors of this property we are at a loss to understand what appears to be foot dragging in enforcing City Codes. Tenants of adjoining propertyhave also had no response to their complaints. Very truly yours,Diane Finkelstein 2049 Dartmouth Street Sent from my iPad Begin forwarded message: From: Diane <dianeef@comcast.net>Date: November 7, 2023 at 4:30:34 PM PSTTo: "Vargas-Aguilera, Elisa" <Elisa.Vargas@cityofpaloalto.org>Cc: "Hoyt, George" <George.Hoyt@cityofpaloalto.org>, Susan Rosenberg <susanpa@sonic.net>, Kathy Durham<kfdurham@earthlink.net>Subject: Re: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcement Dear Ms. Vargas-Aguilera, The neighbors of 1361 Stanford Avenue reached out to Doria Summa, who besides being a resident of College Terrace is, as you mayknow, the Chair of the Palo Alto Planning and Transportation Commission for assistance with this aggravating situation.We have heard little from the City. My last phone message to Craig was never returned. This situation has gone on since last June. What are the stipulated timelines you refer to for compliance? Where are they found in City regulations? And, what is the formal processyou also refer to if there is not compliance? The original complaint was filed in June and an inspection was not made until October 3 rd.Surely these non-compliant owners have had ample time to follow the rules for renovation and the use of property in an R 1 zone. We look forward to hearing from you and thank you for your anticipated cooperation in resolving these Code violations in ourneighborhood. Very truly yours,Diane Finkelstein 2049 Dartmouth Street Sent from my iPad On Nov 2, 2023, at 7:21 PM, Vargas-Aguilera, Elisa <Elisa.Vargas@cityofpaloalto.org> wrote: Hi Doria, My apologies for not getting back to you sooner. It’s a very busy time in our City. I would like to thank you for the information regarding 1361 Stanford Way, Palo Alto, CA. Your assistance has and is appreciated. I’d also like to add that I apologize for my email sent in error to you. I thought you were a colleague. But as you might have gleaned, I am reaching out to our Urban Forestry Department to request an Tree Wellness Inspection associated with the unpermitted construction on this parcel. I am also writing to inform you that a code case has been opened [23PCE-00924] and two comprehensive inspections have been carried out. The property owners have been apprised of any violations observed. Our Code Enforcement Team is committed to overseeing the property's compliance and will be conducting two more follow-up inspections. Our goal is to ensure that full compliance is achieved within the stipulated timelines. We have included the concern of the storage yard that is being used for construction materials and heavy equipment in our Notice of Violation(s) that have been sent and will be sent. A notice has been sent or will be sent to the property owner on file for each address located on this parcel. While we anticipate that the property owners will take the necessary steps to rectify the violations, it is important to acknowledge that, in certain instances, further enforcement actions may be required. In such cases, it may become necessary to initiate a formal hearing process to resolve the matter. To ensure transparency and uphold the principles of due process, it may be requested during the hearing that the official complaint information, including any relevant complainant information, be disclosed to all involved parties. Your cooperation in this regard will be greatly appreciated, and rest assured, your information will only be disclosed if it becomes a mandatory part of the enforcement proceedings. We understand the sensitive nature of this information and will handle it with the utmost care and discretion. If you have any further questions, concerns, or would like to discuss this matter in greater detail, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly. Thank you once again. Elisa Vargas, Building Inspector, CCEO Code Enforcement Supervisor (Interim) Planning & Development Services (650) 885-8565 Cell | elisa.vargas@cityofpaloalto.org https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/Departments/Planning-Development- Services From: doria s <doriasumma@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 1, 2023 6:46 PM To: Vargas-Aguilera, Elisa <Elisa.Vargas@cityofpaloalto.org> Cc: Hoyt, George <George.Hoyt@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Diane Finkelstein <dianeef@comcast.net> Subject: Re: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcement Dear Elisa and George, I am adding Diane Finkelstein to this email thread who lives at 2049 Dartmouth. The issue of concern regarding the properties at 1361/51 Stanford are not primarily about tree health. The issue originated with a concern in mid June with interior unpermitted renovations to 1361 Stanford. Additionally and perhaps of more direct concern to nearby neighbors, is the storage of construction equipment and materials not related to any permitted project on the premises, thus creating an illegal unpermitted construction storage yard. This storage includes but is not limited to trucks, Bobcats, debris trailers and miscellaneous construction materials. Furthermore the illegal site is accessed by rolling over the curb and sidewalk on Dartmouth where there is no curb cut . In addition to this being in an R-1 zoned neighborhood there is an elementary school directly across Stanford avenue and many children walk up and down both Dartmouth and Stanford avenue along these blocks. Please direct your attention and response to the issue of unpermitted interior renovations and the unpermitted construction storage yard behind 1361/51 Stanford's avenue. Very best, Doria On Wed, Nov 1, 2023 at 6:09 PM Vargas-Aguilera, Elisa <Elisa.Vargas@cityofpaloalto.org> wrote: Hello Dorina, Craig and I have been providing inspections at this site for building violations. There is a large tree in the rear of the property that stands out to me of potentially having been impacted by a fence that was built in very close proximity of its trunk base. I believe it was my intention to have the tree in the rear of the lot inspected by Uriel. Please let me know if I need to submit anything further. Thanks, Elisa Get Outlook for iOS From: doria s <doriasumma@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 1, 2023 4:56:32 PM To: Hoyt, George <George.Hoyt@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: Vargas-Aguilera, Elisa <Elisa.Vargas@cityofpaloalto.org> Subject: Re: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcement Hi George and Elisa, Still haven't a word from either of you regarding code violations at 1361/51` Stanford ave. Conditions at the site have not changed. Please get back to me and/or the neighbors on Dartmouth. Very best, Doria On Wed, Oct 25, 2023 at 3:06 PM Hoyt, George <George.Hoyt@cityofpaloalto.org> wrote: Doria, Thank you for reaching out. You are correct our Code Enforcement team does report to me as of July 1st of this year. Elisa Vargas is our acting Code Enforcement Supervisor, and she is familiar with this case. I have ask Elisa to provideyou with a brief update that you can pass along to the concerned neighbors. George E. Hoyt, CBO Chief Building Official / ADA Coordinator Planning & Development Services (650) 329-2368 | George.Hoyt@cityofpaloalto.org https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/Departments/Planning-Development-Services <image009.png> <image011.png> You don't often get email from doriasumma@gmail.com. Learn why this is important From: doria s <doriasumma@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2023 11:59 AMTo: Hoyt, George <George.Hoyt@CityofPaloAlto.org>Subject: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcement CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of openingattachments and clicking on links. Good Morning Mr. Hoyt, I don't know if you remember me I was on the DCAG for many years and currently I am chair of theplanning commission. My neighbors on Dartmouth street have asked for my help with an ongoing code violation behind 1361 Stanford and1351 Stanford Avenue. New fencing behind the two rental units has been added to create an enclosure for aconstruction yard for storage of equipment and materials not being used on the site, including two Bobcats, a largedebris trailer and many smaller construction items . Things come and go. The site is serviced by trucks that access the site through a gate on Dartmouth, by driving over the curb and sidewalk.This is large parcel that is part of two adjacent parcels that have 13 small rental homes on Hanover St and Stanford ave . A code violation case was opened on June 22 of this year to address non permitted interior work at 1361 Stanford whichis unoccupied. This appears to not be resolved if one checks the case on Building eye. An additional inspection was made at the neighbors request on October 3rd by Code enforcement officer Craig Hartleyalong with others, I assumed to be a Building Inspector, and one of the residents of 1351, but the residents ofDartmouth have not been updated on the situation and the illegal Construction yard persists. To sum up I am just trying to help my neighbors and I believe that Code enforcement officers report to you. Please forgive me for contacting you on their behalf.They are feeling very frustrated by the lack of communicationand/or action. Please feel free to call me at any time Very Best, Doria Doria Summa(650) 867 7544 Mobile -- Doria Summa (650) 867 7544 Mobile -- Doria Summa (650) 867 7544 Mobile From:Susan Rosenberg To:Diane Cc:Council, City; Shikada, Ed; Durham, KathyF Subject:Re: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcement Date:Thursday, November 16, 2023 1:09:54 PM Some people who received this message don't often get email from susanpa@sonic.net. Learn why this is important Thank you, Diane. Susan On Nov 16, 2023, at 10:59 AM, Diane <dianeef@comcast.net> wrote: Dear Mayor Kou, members of the Council and the City Manager, I am forwarding to you my email which was sent to Staff on November 7th for which II still have not received a reply. I am including the Staff email about these Code violations that haveexisted in our neighborhood since last June. As neighbors of this property we are at a loss to understand what appears to be foot dragging in enforcing City Codes. Tenants of adjoining property have also had no response to theircomplaints. Very truly yours, Diane Finkelstein 2049 Dartmouth Street Sent from my iPad Begin forwarded message: From: Diane <dianeef@comcast.net> Date: November 7, 2023 at 4:30:34 PM PSTTo: "Vargas-Aguilera, Elisa" <Elisa.Vargas@cityofpaloalto.org>Cc: "Hoyt, George" <George.Hoyt@cityofpaloalto.org>, Susan Rosenberg <susanpa@sonic.net>, Kathy Durham <kfdurham@earthlink.net>Subject: Re: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcement Dear Ms. Vargas-Aguilera, The neighbors of 1361 Stanford Avenue reached out to Doria Summa, who besides being a resident of College Terrace is, as you may know, the Chair of the Palo AltoPlanning and Transportation Commission for assistance with this aggravating situation.We have heard little from the City. My last phone message to Craig was never returned. This situation has gone on since last June. What are the stipulated timelines you refer to for compliance? Where are they found in City regulations? And, what is the formal process you also refer to if there is notcompliance? The original complaint was filed in June and an inspection was not made until October 3 rd. Surely these non-compliant owners have had ample time to follow the rules for renovation and the use of property in an R 1 zone. We look forward to hearing from you and thank you for your anticipated cooperation in resolving these Code violations in our neighborhood. Very truly yours, Diane Finkelstein 2049 Dartmouth Street Sent from my iPad On Nov 2, 2023, at 7:21 PM, Vargas-Aguilera, Elisa <Elisa.Vargas@cityofpaloalto.org> wrote: Hi Doria, My apologies for not getting back to you sooner. It’s a very busy time in our City. I would like to thank you for the information regarding 1361 Stanford Way, Palo Alto, CA. Your assistance has and is appreciated. I’d also like to add that I apologize for my email sent in error to you. I thought you were a colleague. But as you might have gleaned, I am reaching out to our Urban Forestry Department to request an Tree Wellness Inspection associated with the unpermitted construction on this parcel. I am also writing to inform you that a code case has been opened [23PCE-00924] and two comprehensive inspections have been carried out. The property owners have been apprised of any violations observed. Our Code Enforcement Team is committed to overseeing the property's compliance and will be conducting two more follow-up inspections. Our goal is to ensure that full compliance is achieved within the stipulated timelines. We have included the concern of the storage yard that is being used for construction materials and heavy equipment in our Notice of Violation(s) that have been sent and will be sent. A notice has been sent or will be sent to the property owner on file for each address located on this parcel. While we anticipate that the property owners will take the necessary steps to rectify the violations, it is important to acknowledge that, in certain instances, further enforcement actions may be required. In such cases, it may become necessary to initiate a formal hearing process to resolve the matter. To ensure transparency and uphold the principles of due process, it may be requested during the hearing that the official complaint information, including any relevant complainant information, be disclosed to all involved parties. Your cooperation in this regard will be greatly appreciated, and rest assured, your information will only be disclosed if it becomes a mandatory part of the enforcement proceedings. We understand the sensitive nature of this information and will handle it with the utmost care and discretion. If you have any further questions, concerns, or would like to discuss this matter in greater detail, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly. Thank you once again. <image012.png>Elisa Vargas, Building Inspector, CCEO Code Enforcement Supervisor (Interim) Planning & Development Services (650) 885-8565 Cell | elisa.vargas@cityofpaloalto.org https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/Departments/Planning-Development-Services <image013.png><image014.jpg><image015.png><image009.png><image016.png> <image011.png> From: doria s <doriasumma@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 1, 2023 6:46 PM To: Vargas-Aguilera, Elisa <Elisa.Vargas@cityofpaloalto.org> Cc: Hoyt, George <George.Hoyt@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Diane Finkelstein <dianeef@comcast.net> Subject: Re: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcement Dear Elisa and George, I am adding Diane Finkelstein to this email thread who lives at 2049 Dartmouth. The issue of concern regarding the properties at 1361/51 Stanford are not primarily about tree health. The issue originated with a concern in mid June with interior unpermitted renovations to 1361 Stanford. Additionally and perhaps of more direct concern to nearby neighbors, is the storage of construction equipment and materials not related to any permitted project on the premises, thus creating an illegal unpermitted construction storage yard. This storage includes but is not limited to trucks, Bobcats, debris trailers and miscellaneous construction materials. Furthermore the illegal site is accessed by rolling over the curb and sidewalk on Dartmouth where there is no curb cut . In addition to this being in an R-1 zoned neighborhood there is an elementary school directly across Stanford avenue and many children walk up and down both Dartmouth and Stanford avenue along these blocks. Please direct your attention and response to the issue of unpermitted interior renovations and the unpermitted construction storage yard behind 1361/51 Stanford's avenue. Very best, Doria On Wed, Nov 1, 2023 at 6:09 PM Vargas-Aguilera, Elisa <Elisa.Vargas@cityofpaloalto.org> wrote: Hello Dorina, Craig and I have been providing inspections at this site for building violations. There is a large tree in the rear of the property that stands out to me of potentially having been impacted by a fence that was built in very close proximity of its trunk base. I believe it was my intention to have the tree in the rear of the lot inspected by Uriel. Please let me know if I need to submit anything further. Thanks, Elisa Get Outlook for iOS From: doria s <doriasumma@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 1, 2023 4:56:32 PMTo: Hoyt, George <George.Hoyt@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: Vargas-Aguilera, Elisa <Elisa.Vargas@cityofpaloalto.org> Subject: Re: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcement Hi George and Elisa, Still haven't a word from either of you regarding code violations at 1361/51` Stanford ave. Conditions at the site have not changed. Please get back to me and/or the neighbors on Dartmouth. Very best, Doria You don't often get email from doriasumma@gmail.com. Learn why this is important On Wed, Oct 25, 2023 at 3:06 PM Hoyt, George <George.Hoyt@cityofpaloalto.org> wrote: Doria, Thank you for reaching out. You are correct our Code Enforcement team does report to me as of July 1st of this year. Elisa Vargas is our acting Code Enforcement Supervisor, and she is familiar with this case. I have ask Elisa to provide you with a brief update that you can pass along to the concerned neighbors. <image001.png>George E. Hoyt, CBO Chief Building Official / ADA Coordinator Planning & Development Services (650) 329-2368 | George.Hoyt@cityofpaloalto.org <image002.png> <image003.png> <image004.jpg> <image005.png> https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/Departments/Planning-Development-Services <image006.png><image007.jpg><image008.png><image009.png><image010.png> <image011.png> From: doria s <doriasumma@gmail.com>Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2023 11:59 AMTo: Hoyt, George <George.Hoyt@CityofPaloAlto.org>Subject: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcement CAUTION: Thisemailoriginated fromoutside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Good Morning Mr. Hoyt, I don't know if you remember me I was on the DCAG for many years and currently I am chair of the planning commission. My neighbors on Dartmouth street have asked for my help with an ongoing code violation behind 1361 Stanford and 1351 Stanford Avenue. Newfencing behind the two rental units has been added to create an enclosure for a construction yard for storage of equipment and materials not beingused on the site, including two Bobcats, a large debris trailer and many smaller construction items . Things come and go. The site is serviced by trucks that access the site through a gate on Dartmouth, by driving over the curb and sidewalk. This is large parcel that is partof two adjacent parcels that have 13 small rental homes on Hanover St and Stanford ave . A code violation case was opened on June 22 of this year to address non permitted interior work at 1361 Stanford which is unoccupied. This appears to not be resolved if one checks the case on Building eye. An additional inspection was made at the neighbors request on October 3rd by Code enforcement officer Craig Hartley along with others, I assumed to be a Building Inspector, and one of the residents of 1351, but the residents of Dartmouth have not been updated on the situation and the illegalConstruction yard persists. To sum up I am just trying to help my neighbors and I believe that Code enforcement officers report to you. Please forgive me for contacting you on their behalf.They are feeling very frustrated by the lack of communication and/or action. Please feel free to call me at any time Very Best, Doria Doria Summa (650) 867 7544 Mobile -- Doria Summa (650) 867 7544 Mobile -- Doria Summa (650) 867 7544 Mobile From:DianeTo:Council, City; Shikada, Ed Cc:Susan Rosenberg; Durham, KathyF Subject:Fwd: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcementDate:Thursday, November 16, 2023 1:00:37 PM Attachments:image012.pngimage013.pngimage015.pngimage009.pngimage016.pngimage011.pngimage001.pngimage002.pngimage003.pngimage005.pngimage006.pngimage008.pngimage010.png Dear Mayor Kou, members of the Council and the City Manager, I am forwarding to you my email which was sent to Staff on November 7th for which II still have not received a reply. I am including the Staff emailabout these Code violations that have existed in our neighborhood since last June. As neighbors of this property we are at a loss to understand what appears to be foot dragging in enforcing City Codes. Tenants of adjoining propertyhave also had no response to their complaints. Very truly yours,Diane Finkelstein 2049 Dartmouth Street Sent from my iPad Begin forwarded message: From: Diane <dianeef@comcast.net>Date: November 7, 2023 at 4:30:34 PM PSTTo: "Vargas-Aguilera, Elisa" <Elisa.Vargas@cityofpaloalto.org>Cc: "Hoyt, George" <George.Hoyt@cityofpaloalto.org>, Susan Rosenberg <susanpa@sonic.net>, Kathy Durham<kfdurham@earthlink.net>Subject: Re: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcement Dear Ms. Vargas-Aguilera, The neighbors of 1361 Stanford Avenue reached out to Doria Summa, who besides being a resident of College Terrace is, as you mayknow, the Chair of the Palo Alto Planning and Transportation Commission for assistance with this aggravating situation.We have heard little from the City. My last phone message to Craig was never returned. This situation has gone on since last June. What are the stipulated timelines you refer to for compliance? Where are they found in City regulations? And, what is the formal processyou also refer to if there is not compliance? The original complaint was filed in June and an inspection was not made until October 3 rd.Surely these non-compliant owners have had ample time to follow the rules for renovation and the use of property in an R 1 zone. We look forward to hearing from you and thank you for your anticipated cooperation in resolving these Code violations in ourneighborhood. Very truly yours,Diane Finkelstein 2049 Dartmouth Street Sent from my iPad On Nov 2, 2023, at 7:21 PM, Vargas-Aguilera, Elisa <Elisa.Vargas@cityofpaloalto.org> wrote: Hi Doria, My apologies for not getting back to you sooner. It’s a very busy time in our City. I would like to thank you for the information regarding 1361 Stanford Way, Palo Alto, CA. Your assistance has and is appreciated. I’d also like to add that I apologize for my email sent in error to you. I thought you were a colleague. But as you might have gleaned, I am reaching out to our Urban Forestry Department to request an Tree Wellness Inspection associated with the unpermitted construction on this parcel. I am also writing to inform you that a code case has been opened [23PCE-00924] and two comprehensive inspections have been carried out. The property owners have been apprised of any violations observed. Our Code Enforcement Team is committed to overseeing the property's compliance and will be conducting two more follow-up inspections. Our goal is to ensure that full compliance is achieved within the stipulated timelines. We have included the concern of the storage yard that is being used for construction materials and heavy equipment in our Notice of Violation(s) that have been sent and will be sent. A notice has been sent or will be sent to the property owner on file for each address located on this parcel. While we anticipate that the property owners will take the necessary steps to rectify the violations, it is important to acknowledge that, in certain instances, further enforcement actions may be required. In such cases, it may become necessary to initiate a formal hearing process to resolve the matter. To ensure transparency and uphold the principles of due process, it may be requested during the hearing that the official complaint information, including any relevant complainant information, be disclosed to all involved parties. Your cooperation in this regard will be greatly appreciated, and rest assured, your information will only be disclosed if it becomes a mandatory part of the enforcement proceedings. We understand the sensitive nature of this information and will handle it with the utmost care and discretion. If you have any further questions, concerns, or would like to discuss this matter in greater detail, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly. Thank you once again. Elisa Vargas, Building Inspector, CCEO Code Enforcement Supervisor (Interim) Planning & Development Services (650) 885-8565 Cell | elisa.vargas@cityofpaloalto.org https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/Departments/Planning-Development- Services From: doria s <doriasumma@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 1, 2023 6:46 PM To: Vargas-Aguilera, Elisa <Elisa.Vargas@cityofpaloalto.org> Cc: Hoyt, George <George.Hoyt@CityofPaloAlto.org>; Diane Finkelstein <dianeef@comcast.net> Subject: Re: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcement Dear Elisa and George, I am adding Diane Finkelstein to this email thread who lives at 2049 Dartmouth. The issue of concern regarding the properties at 1361/51 Stanford are not primarily about tree health. The issue originated with a concern in mid June with interior unpermitted renovations to 1361 Stanford. Additionally and perhaps of more direct concern to nearby neighbors, is the storage of construction equipment and materials not related to any permitted project on the premises, thus creating an illegal unpermitted construction storage yard. This storage includes but is not limited to trucks, Bobcats, debris trailers and miscellaneous construction materials. Furthermore the illegal site is accessed by rolling over the curb and sidewalk on Dartmouth where there is no curb cut . In addition to this being in an R-1 zoned neighborhood there is an elementary school directly across Stanford avenue and many children walk up and down both Dartmouth and Stanford avenue along these blocks. Please direct your attention and response to the issue of unpermitted interior renovations and the unpermitted construction storage yard behind 1361/51 Stanford's avenue. Very best, Doria On Wed, Nov 1, 2023 at 6:09 PM Vargas-Aguilera, Elisa <Elisa.Vargas@cityofpaloalto.org> wrote: Hello Dorina, Craig and I have been providing inspections at this site for building violations. There is a large tree in the rear of the property that stands out to me of potentially having been impacted by a fence that was built in very close proximity of its trunk base. I believe it was my intention to have the tree in the rear of the lot inspected by Uriel. Please let me know if I need to submit anything further. Thanks, Elisa Get Outlook for iOS From: doria s <doriasumma@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 1, 2023 4:56:32 PM To: Hoyt, George <George.Hoyt@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: Vargas-Aguilera, Elisa <Elisa.Vargas@cityofpaloalto.org> Subject: Re: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcement Hi George and Elisa, Still haven't a word from either of you regarding code violations at 1361/51` Stanford ave. Conditions at the site have not changed. Please get back to me and/or the neighbors on Dartmouth. Very best, Doria On Wed, Oct 25, 2023 at 3:06 PM Hoyt, George <George.Hoyt@cityofpaloalto.org> wrote: Doria, Thank you for reaching out. You are correct our Code Enforcement team does report to me as of July 1st of this year. Elisa Vargas is our acting Code Enforcement Supervisor, and she is familiar with this case. I have ask Elisa to provideyou with a brief update that you can pass along to the concerned neighbors. George E. Hoyt, CBO Chief Building Official / ADA Coordinator Planning & Development Services (650) 329-2368 | George.Hoyt@cityofpaloalto.org You don't often get email from doriasumma@gmail.com. Learn why this is important https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/Departments/Planning-Development-Services <image009.png> <image011.png> From: doria s <doriasumma@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2023 11:59 AMTo: Hoyt, George <George.Hoyt@CityofPaloAlto.org>Subject: 1361 Stanford Ave - code enforcement CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of openingattachments and clicking on links. Good Morning Mr. Hoyt, I don't know if you remember me I was on the DCAG for many years and currently I am chair of theplanning commission. My neighbors on Dartmouth street have asked for my help with an ongoing code violation behind 1361 Stanford and1351 Stanford Avenue. New fencing behind the two rental units has been added to create an enclosure for aconstruction yard for storage of equipment and materials not being used on the site, including two Bobcats, a largedebris trailer and many smaller construction items . Things come and go. The site is serviced by trucks that access the site through a gate on Dartmouth, by driving over the curb and sidewalk.This is large parcel that is part of two adjacent parcels that have 13 small rental homes on Hanover St and Stanford ave . A code violation case was opened on June 22 of this year to address non permitted interior work at 1361 Stanford whichis unoccupied. This appears to not be resolved if one checks the case on Building eye. An additional inspection was made at the neighbors request on October 3rd by Code enforcement officer Craig Hartleyalong with others, I assumed to be a Building Inspector, and one of the residents of 1351, but the residents ofDartmouth have not been updated on the situation and the illegal Construction yard persists. To sum up I am just trying to help my neighbors and I believe that Code enforcement officers report to you. Please forgive me for contacting you on their behalf.They are feeling very frustrated by the lack of communicationand/or action. Please feel free to call me at any time Very Best, Doria Doria Summa(650) 867 7544 Mobile -- Doria Summa (650) 867 7544 Mobile -- Doria Summa (650) 867 7544 Mobile From:John Guislin To:Council, City Cc:Dave Price; editor@paweekly.com Subject:Day late and 40+ cents wasted Date:Thursday, November 16, 2023 12:05:55 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Today - Nov 16 - I received a postcard from the city advising me of a community stormpreparedness work shop on Nov 15. The card is postmarked Nov 13 and the cost of mailing listed as 40 cents. Yes, there were other ways to learn of the community event but reports are that there was lowturnout. Many city issues stem at least in part from poor communications. This appears to be another example.Improved communications and engagement with residents must become a city priority. Images of postcard attached. From:Charlie Weidanz To:Council, City Subject:Reminder: Annual Meeting & Holiday Party on Dec. 5th - Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce Date:Thursday, November 16, 2023 11:00:21 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Annual Membership Meeting Flyer We look forward to seeing all of our members at the 2023 Chamber of Commerce Annual Membership Meeting & Holiday Party. Enjoy light refreshments and drinks, sponsored by Homewood Suites by Hilton, proud member of the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce. Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce - Annual Membership Meeting Tuesday, December 5, 2023, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM PST Homewood Suites 4329 El Camino Real Palo Alto, CA, 94306 Members: Free Guests: $20 REGISTER This email was sent on behalf of Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce 355 Alma St Palo Alto, CA 94301.To unsubscribe clickhere. If you have questions or comments concerning this email or services in general, please contact us by email at info@paloaltochamber.com. From:Sheriff Transparency To:Aram James Cc:Binder, Andrew; Council, City; Jeff Moore; Joe Simitian; Josh Becker; Mata, Anthony; Sean Allen;kenneth.Binder@shf.sccgov.org Subject:Re: ALERT: Officer Accused Of Punching Woman Has Certification Suspended – Wed 01:33:13PM Date:Thursday, November 16, 2023 10:37:58 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious ofopening attachments and clicking on links. Aram, We hope to amend legislation on this to include Chiefs and Sheriffs and any Commanders, to includecrimes and other egregious dept policy violations committed during their careers. This would include Bob Jonsen. He has alleged to have done worse than this officer punching awoman. When investigations are wrapped up, we are confident that the findings will not be in his favor. Unfortunately it may take a long time, but hopefully perhaps before he runs for Sheriff again ordecides to hop to another agency. Something he is good at. He needs to be decertified. He has no business serving in LE in our opinion based on what we know about his background. -SCCSTG On Wed, Nov 15, 2023, 2:21 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: On Wed, Nov 15, 2023 at 1:34 PM Campbell Patch <noreply@patch.com> wrote: The officer, whose certification was suspended this month, repeatedly punched the woman during a road rage incident, authorities said. | The best of Campbell Patch right to your inbox.The officer, whose certification was suspended this month, repeatedly punched the woman during a road rage incident, authorities said. BREAKING NEWS Campbell ADVERTISEMENT Officer Accused Of Punching Woman Has Certification Suspended The officer, whose certification was suspended this month, repeatedly punched the woman during a road rage incident, authorities said.... Read more » Read full story Advertise on Patch | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy You received this message because you are subscribed to Campbell newsalerts. To update your email preferences, click here. Patch Media | 134 West 29th St., 11th Fl, NY, NY 10001 | Copyright 2023 Patch. All rights reserved. From:mark weiss To:Council, City; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Shikada, Ed Cc:Rebecca Eisenberg; Matt Gonzalez Subject:Apropos of my ongoing kibitzing about our so-called business tax, which… Date:Thursday, November 16, 2023 8:36:28 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links.________________________________ Apropos of my ongoing kibitzing about our so-called business tax, which I call a tax holiday: San Jose businessjournal today reports that Palo Alto networks a publicly traded company that licenses our name for free, is worth$73 billion, has nearly $2 billion in revenue and just bought two Israeli companies for $1 billion. If asked nicely, they would surely give us the paltry $500,000 you ask of larger companies actually located here. Really we should be collecting $100 million not $9m. Each year. Plus back taxes of $2b.Mark Weiss Palo Alto Networks Inc.'s fiscal first-quarter earnings and revenue may have beat Wall Street estimates, but billingsguidance for the current quarter and full-year fiscal 2024 fell decidedly short of estimates, dragging thecybersecurity company's stock down with it.In early trading Thursday, shares in Palo Alto Networks (Nasdaq: PANW) were down about 6.5% to be trading at$240.15 (as of 6:45 a.m. Pacific). Total revenue for the 2024 fiscal Q1 grew 20% year-over-year to $1.9 billion for the Santa-Clara-based company,which had a market cap of $73.5 billion as of Thursday morning.The company also ended Q1 with the announcement of its acquisition of two Israel-based cybersecurity companies,Talon Cyber Security Ltd., and Dig Security Systems, both headquartered in Tel Aviv. The combined deals costabout $1 billion. Sent from my living three blocks from the office of widow of the guy who left her $9 billion in stock although shedoes put some of it and nice places. From:mark weissTo:Council, CityCc:Shikada, Ed; Stump, Molly; Julie Lythcott-Haims; Drekmeier, Peter; Rebecca Eisenberg; Curtis Smolar; Summa, Doria; Binder, AndrewSubject:LA Times on 1aDate:Thursday, November 16, 2023 8:23:22 AMAttachments:image0.pngimage1.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. At UCLA, for instance, more than 300 faculty members have signed a letter demanding that campus leadership denounce pro-Palestinian rallies that cross the line from protected free speech to"unlawful incitement."They specified the definition includes celebrating Hamas violence, issuing event advertisements that feature images of weapons or violence, and chanting"intifada," an Arabic word that in the Palestinian context means uprising or rebellion against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.We " all cherish the First Amendment and its guarantees of freedom of speech and assembly... It is inconceivable why such celebrations are not denounced by the UCLA leadership, regardless of political Mark WeissRe “limited public forum” vs First Amendment apropos of Israeli music event in Palo AltoBy Earthwise Yes, of course it is ironic or nuance that I have spoken more than 100 times in favor of absolutism of the first amendment as it applies to freedom of assembly or Music @lytton,plaza, etc. Sent from my henani From:Deborah Goldeen To:Council, City Subject:Mollie Stones Date:Wednesday, November 15, 2023 10:41:45 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. ________________________________ The constant refrain I am hearing from neighbors unhappy with a car free Cal Ave is “what will happen if Mollie Stones closes?!” That’s really the only store they care about. We are all spoiled by the convenience. However, if there was a Ranch 99 instead of a Mollie Stones at that spot, the store would be doing a booming business. Let’s be real here. The city is one third Asian. If you want local retail to thrive, it behooves that local retail to serve the people who live here. I mentioned the idea to friend, neighbor and twenty year resident, Aileen Yang. She practically cried tears of joy at the thought. Deborah Goldeen, 2130 Birch From:Deborah Goldeen To:Council, City Cc:City Mgr Subject:Traffic Island at Southwood and E Crescent Date:Wednesday, November 15, 2023 10:32:51 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links.________________________________ After listening to the complaints about the traffic island (traffic calming installation) at Southwood and EastCrescent at the Nov 6 council meeting, I decided to go take a look and see for myself. It is pretty awkward. My take is all of Crescent Park needs a major Visions Zero/ Complete Streets overhaul/ redesign. Of course if thecity takes the lead on that kind of a project, the residents, out of sheer cussedness, will shoot it down. Hopefully theywill get frustrated enough as a neighorhood to finally start working on that. These streets were designed for a world before cars had power steering or much power of any kind and there areprobably ten times the number of cars on those streets today. Back in the day there were no delivery trucks to speakof, nor was there a constant parade of construction, pool cleaning, gardening and house keeping vehicles. Crescent Park used to be a lovely, peaceful neighborhood. Not anymore. I feel sorry for them. Deborah Goldeen, 2130 Birch From:Deborah Goldeen To:Council, City Cc:City Mgr Subject:Bike Lanes on ECR Date:Wednesday, November 15, 2023 10:20:46 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links.________________________________ I attended the Becker/Berman CalTrans ECR townhall on Tuesday. It’s still unclear whether or not Palo Alto isgoing to agree to bike lanes on El Camino. ECR reminds me of a homeless encampment, not without some organization, but decisions about organization madebased on lowest common denominator. Applying intelligent, well considered urban design to this thoroughfare islong overdue. Bike lanes are part of that. When the idea was first floated twenty years ago, I thought it was nuts. But I’ve been watching how, where andwhen I am forced to bike along El Camino and it’s a lot more frequent than I had been admitting to myself. Whenyou are forced to use ECR on your bike, you are taking your life into your own hands. About once a month, I end uphaving no choice - usually only for two or three blocks, but that’s still way too much. If Palo Alto is serious about Complete Streets, they will give the thumbs up to the bike lanes. Deborah Goldeen, 2130 Birch Download full resolution images Available until Nov 23, 2023 From:Magrissa Funnie To:Council, City; Becchetti, Benjamin Subject:Re: Let’s tag them, no tags on any of these vehicles Date:Wednesday, November 15, 2023 7:56:36 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Officer Ben, Thank you thank you for the RV removals. Fabian way went from 15 RVs, one boat and three abandoned cars down to two RVs. Thank you! You can see the building and the sunshine.Thank you!!!!! Today I actually saw people walking up the street. This what Palo Alto used to look like. Thank you again! Sent from my iPhone On Oct 24, 2023, at 3:25 PM, Magrissa Funnie <mikkifunnie@yahoo.com> wrote:<IMG_4120.jpg> <IMG_4121.jpg> <IMG_4122.jpg> <IMG_4123.jpg> <IMG_4124.jpg> <IMG_4125.jpg> <IMG_4126.jpg> <IMG_4127.jpg> <IMG_4128.jpg> <IMG_4129.jpg> <IMG_4130.jpg> <IMG_4131.jpg> <IMG_4132.jpg>Abandoned vehicles, so sorry, city council your constituents are wonderingwhat’s going on. Officer Ben you are great, I know you are working hard but citycouncil not so much. Officer Ben, can you tell me who to call to have the trash removed? This is where we live and not how we want to live. Sent from my iPhone View this email in your browser From:LWV Palo Alto Winter Luncheon CommitteeTo:Council, CitySubject:Join Our Winter Luncheon on December 6th!Date:Wednesday, November 15, 2023 3:08:11 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious ofopening attachments and clicking on links. LWVPA ANNUAL WINTER LUNCHEON Wednesday, December 6, 2023 12:00 - 2:00 pm 520 Cowper St, Palo Alto 94301 Register Now Tickets are $40/person. Register Early as Space is Limited Members are welcome to bring a guest. In Conversation with Donna Norton A Founder and Executive VP of MomsRising About The Power of Moms Learn about how moms are making a difference online, and on the ground, across the nation to advocate for policies like early education, maternal health, and immigrant rights that lift families and mobilize their communities to vote. Donna Norton is a founding member of MomsRising and serves as MomsRising’s Executive VP and Chief Advancement & Strategy Officer, helping to develop and drive the strategic direction of MomsRising’s agenda. Norton is an innovator and strategic manager with more than 20 years of experience working on women’s rights and gender equality on a variety of policy challenges. Since 2006, she has led numerous winning campaigns at MomsRising, including the national healthcare campaign, the national early learning campaign, and the national immigration campaign. Prior to joining MomsRising, Norton directed the National Workplace Resource Center on Domestic Violence for Futures Without Violence and was the Executive Director of the Southern Alameda County Domestic Violence Law Project. Norton has also worked in international development, serving as the Rule of Law Program Officer at U.S. Agency for International Development in Moscow, Russia in 1994-95, conducting research on dowry related violence at the Indian Law Institute, and speaking at numerous conferences and events in Russia while her husband, Michael McFaul, served as U.S. Ambassador to Russia from 2012-2014. Norton holds a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley, a master’s degree in public policy and public administration from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Stanford University. Tickets are $40/person. Register Early as Space is Limited Members are welcome to bring a guest. LWVPaloAlto.org Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn Email Email Copyright © 2023 League of Women Voters Palo Alto, All rights reserved. Register Now From Voter Recipient List Our mailing address is: League of Women Voters Palo Alto 3921 E Bayshore Rd Ste 209 Palo Alto, CA 94303-4303 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. From:Charlie Weidanz To:Council, City Subject:Special Holiday Deals at our Local Hotels Date:Wednesday, November 15, 2023 2:28:06 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hotel Holiday Events Thanksgiving at the Poolside Grill - Sheraton Palo Alto Thanksgiving Buffet at Crowne Plaza Palo Alto Santa's Coming to Dinah's! Holiday Happier at Graduate Palo Alto el PRADO Holiday Special Thanksgiving at the Poolside Grill - Sheraton Palo Alto Thanksgiving at the Poolside Grill - Sheraton Palo Alto flyer Thursday, November 23, 202312:00 PM - 4:00 PM To make a reservation, call 650.328.2800 x 7280 or hmendoza@pahotel.com Thanksgiving Buffet at Crowne Plaza Palo Alto Thanksgiving Buffet at Crowne Plaza Palo Alto Join Crowne Plaza Palo Alto for a decadent Thanksgiving buffet with multiple stations featuring turkey, prime rib, seafood, sides, salads, and your favorite Thanksgiving desserts. Thursday, November 23rd from 11 AM to 3 PM. $69.99 per adult, $29.99 per child (6-10), children 5 and under FREE Reserve at 650-628-0172 or email tina.phongam@cabanapaloalto.com. Santa's Coming to Dinah's! Santa's Coming to Dinah's flyer Stay at Dinah's and see Santa on December 15th & 16th, 2023 Join Dinah's from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM for Hot Chocolate & Cookies, a picture of Santa, and other fun activities! RSVP REQUIRED: Call (650) 493-2844 and mention "Cookies with Santa". Get Santa's special deals when you stay at Dinah's on December 15th and 16th. RSVP Required: Email reservations@dinahshotel.com or call (650) 493- 2844 and mention "Santa's Invite" Santa's Staying to Dinah's Holiday Happier at Graduate Palo Alto Holiday Happier 2023 - Graduate Hotels flyer Host your holiday party at the Graduate Palo Alto's President's Terrace rooftop or Lou & Herbert's. Book by December 30, 2023 for parties hosted before January 30, 2024. LIMITED AVAILABILITY Contact: sales@graduatepaloalto.com for more info. el PRADO Holiday Special el PRADO Holiday Special Flyer Book your holiday party with el PRADO during the promotional period, and you will receive a complimentary night stay certificate to be used towards our luxurious accommodations. It's the perfect addition to your employee holiday raffle! Must book between Sept 27 - November 20, 2023 Holiday party must actualize before 12/31/23 Call: 650-323-1912 Email: eventservices@elpradopa.com See Our Upcoming Events Learn More About The Chamber PALO ALTO CHAMBER & VISITORS CENTER 355 ALMA STREET | PALO ALTO | CA | 94301 | 650-324-3121 WWW.PALOALTOCHAMBER.COM This email was sent on behalf of Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce 355 Alma St Palo Alto, CA 94301.To unsubscribe clickhere. If you have questions or comments concerning this email or services in general, please contact us by email at info@paloaltochamber.com. From:Aram James To:Binder, Andrew; Council, City; Jeff Moore; Joe Simitian; Josh Becker; Mata, Anthony; Sean Allen; Sheriff Transparency;kenneth.Binder@shf.sccgov.org Subject:Re: ALERT: Officer Accused Of Punching Woman Has Certification Suspended – Wed 01:33:13PM Date:Wednesday, November 15, 2023 2:21:59 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious ofopening attachments and clicking on links. On Wed, Nov 15, 2023 at 1:34 PM Campbell Patch <noreply@patch.com> wrote: The officer, whose certification was suspended this month, repeatedly punched the woman during a road rage incident, authorities said. | The best of Campbell Patch right to your inbox. The officer, whose certification was suspended this month, repeatedly punched the woman during a road rage incident, authorities said. BREAKING NEWS Campbell ADVERTISEMENT Officer Accused Of Punching Woman Has Certification Suspended The officer, whose certification was suspended this month, repeatedly punched the woman during a road rage incident, authorities said.... Read more » Read full story Advertise on Patch | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy You received this message because you are subscribed to Campbell newsalerts. To update your email preferences, click here. Patch Media | 134 West 29th St., 11th Fl, NY, NY 10001 | Copyright 2023 Patch. All rights reserved. From:Ken Joye To:Council, City Subject:CalTrans letter of 3 Nov 2023 Date:Wednesday, November 15, 2023 1:36:03 PM Attachments:Letter to Palo Alto for new Bike Lanes_11.3.2023.pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of openingattachments and clicking on links.________________________________ I have attached a letter sent to the City Manager earlier this month. I sincerely hope that Palo Alto’sbike infrastructure will have good connections to that in adjoining jurisdictions. Please take actionas described in the Caltrans letter as soon as you are able. There is no perfect solution to the problem of regional facilities, do not let the perfect be the enemyof the good. thank you for your service, Ken JoyeVentura neighborhood > STATE OF CALIFORNIA CALIFORNIA STATE TRANSPORTATION AGENCY GAVIN NEWSOM, Governor Making Conservation a California Way of Life. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION DISTRICT 4 P.O. BOX 23660, MS 1A OAKLAND, CA 94623-0660 PHONE (510) 286-5900 FAX (510) 286-6301 TTY 711 www.dot.ca.gov November 3, 2023 Ed Shikada City Manager City of Palo Alto 250 Hamilton Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94301 Subject: Caltrans State Route (SR) 82/ El Camino Real proposed bikeway project Dear Mr. Shikada: The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) proposes to add new bikeways along El Camino Real, State Route (SR) 82, in conjunction with the upcoming paving project in the Cities of Mountain View, Los Altos, and Palo Alto. Monitoring Program has identified two segments of SR 82 in the City of Palo Alto (City) with higher safety risks due to many of bike-related collisions of either bicycling against traffic on the sidewalk or on El Camino Real. The proposed new bikeways are expected to significantly reduce the incidence of riding against traffic or riding on sidewalks: 1. From Los Altos Ave. to Serra Street/ Park Boulevard (postmile 22.171/24.77) 2. From Quarry Rd. to Sand Hill Road/ Palo Alto Avenue (postmile 26.055/26.327) In addition to the two segments with higher safety risks in Palo Alto and consistent with Caltrans Complete Streets policy to provide comfortable, convenient, and connected facilities for all travelers, Caltrans intends to extend the continuous bikeways on SR 82 as part of a connected network within the limits of the Cities of Mountain View and Los Altos. To accommodate the new bikeways within the existing pavement width, existing street parking must be removed and prohibited pursuant to an ordinance adopted by the City of Palo Alto. To improve safety for all travelers in the community and pavement condition timely, partnership with the City is critical to engage the community and to advocate for the new bikeways. Caltrans requests a parking by April 1, 2024, so that to reduce further pavement deterioration, safety risks and cost escalation. Mr. Ed Shikada August 24, 2023 Page 2 of 3 Caltrans appreciates ongoing discussions about the draft bikeway design with City staff. Thank you for your partnership and cooperation to improve safety and operations on SR 82 corridor. If you have any questions, please contact Nick Saleh, Project Management District Division Chief, at nick.saleh@dot.ca.gov or at (510)715-9046. Sincerely, Dina El-Tawansay District Director Caltrans Bay Area Mr. Ed Shikada August 24, 2023 Page 3 of 3 c: Doanh Nguyen/Nick Saleh/Taslima Khanum/Eunmi Choi, Project Management Tam Ly/Son Ly/Quynh Nguyen, Design Celia McCuaig/Sergio Ruiz/Gregory Currey, Transportation Planning and Local Assistant Aung Maung/Lester Lee/Rick Yeung, Transportation Safety Sean Nozzari, Operations From:Lythcott-Haims, Julie To:Council, City; Clerk, City; Shikada, Ed Subject:reminder I will not be at the meeting tonight Date:Wednesday, November 15, 2023 11:18:41 AM Dear Colleagues, This is a reminder that I cannot attend the City Council special meeting that was recentlyscheduled to take place tonight, as I have a previously-scheduled non-cancellable event that is a square conflict. Best,Julie Julie Lythcott-Haims Council Member, City of Palo Alto From:Aram James To:<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Wagner, April; Binder, Andrew; Braden Cartwright; Bryan Gobin; CindyChavez; Council, City; Donna Wallach; DuJuan Green; Emily Mibach; GRP-City Council; Greg Tanaka; JayBoyarsky; Jeff Moore; Joe Simitian; Julie Lythcott-Haims; KEVIN JENSEN; Kaloma Smith; Karen Holman; Lewisjames; Linda Jolley; Maelin Aquino; Mengna Lin; Van Der Zwaag, Minka; Ortega, Javier; Pacific GrovePD; RajJayadev; Raymond Goins; Reifschneider, James; Rosen, Jeff; Sean Allen; Supervisor Otto Lee; Supervisor SusanEllenberg; Tom DuBois; Perron, Zachary; Barberini, Christopher; chuck jagoda; Lee, Craig; dennis burns;districtattorney@sfgov.org; Tannock, Julie; kenneth.Binder@shf.sccgov.org; vramirez@redwoodcity.org; walterwilson Subject:Watch "Suburban officer tases, shoots teen with special needs" on YouTube Date:Tuesday, November 14, 2023 11:41:38 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. https://youtu.be/J4IiRfECgyA?si=leTYzkwjVvsieQ5R From:Megan Watson To:Council, City Cc:Harris, Arielle O.; Ted O"Hanlon Subject:Nov. 14th - Policy and Services Committee - Agenda Item No. 1 Date:Tuesday, November 14, 2023 5:26:25 PM Attachments:image001.pngimage006.pngimage007.pngimage008.png Some people who received this message don't often get email from mwatson@grubbproperties.com. Learn whythis is important CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. To Members of the City Council, I firstly want to thank Planning Director Jon Lait and this Policy and Services Committee for your prompt attention to the urgent matter of the Entitlement Extension Request for the 788 San Antonio Road project that we submitted on October 18, 2023. We are fully aligned with the Council’s goals of maintaining the viability of pipeline housing projects and we remain fully committed to seeing this project through as we look to 2024 for economic conditions to improve. The two ordinances proposed tonight are a critical step in that process and we offer our full support of its intent. Our team has reviewed the proposed ordinances you are reviewing this evening and respectfully submit one modification for your consideration, as characterized below by our counsel at Cox Castle: As drafted, the proposed Urgency Ordinance and Interim Ordinance each limit the duration of the Director’s authority to grant 18-month extensions of planning permits for Housing Development Projectsonly until the California Department of Housing and Community Development (“HCD”) certifies Palo Alto’sHousing Element Update (“HEU”), or until December 31, 2024, whichever is sooner. It is unclear whenthe City’s HEU will be certified by HCD and as a result this clause creates unnecessary uncertainty andhas the potential to reduce the duration of the Director’s authority to a very narrow window of time. Giventhe primary purpose of this amendment is to address difficulties associated with current economicconditions impacting housing production that are projected to continue throughout 2024 (and possiblybeyond), Grubb Properties requests that the Policy and Services Committee recommend a revision toSection 2 of both ordinances to provide that the Director’s authority to issue 18-month extensions shallcontinue through the end of 2024, without qualification. Proposed Redline:SECTION 2. Notwithstanding Section 18.77.090 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code or the provisions of anyplanning permit or approval, the Director of Planning and Development Services is authorized, in his orher sole discretion, to extend the duration of a planning permit or approval for a Housing DevelopmentProject, as defined in Government Code Section 65589.5, by an additional eighteen (18) months beyondthe expiration date that would otherwise apply. The authority granted to the Director herein shall be effective only until the City’s 2023-2031 Housing Element is certified by the California Department of Housing and Community Development or until December 31, 2024, whichever is sooner. We appreciate your time on this matter and look forward to the continued efforts on seeing this housing project come to fruition. Sincerely, Megan Watson Megan Watson Director, Development | Grubb Properties Los Angeles, California Mobile: 405-973-5229 mwatson@grubbproperties.com grubbproperties.com From:gel@theconnection.com To:Harris, Alexandra Cc:City Mgr; Council, City Subject:RE: Fiber to the Home (Ticket# 2219) Date:Tuesday, November 14, 2023 5:01:46 PM Attachments:image001.pngimage003.pngimage004.pngimage007.pngimage008.pngimage009.png Hello Alexandra, Thank you for the e-mail response. At this time, I’m not aware of any new Sonic.net fiber installations in Palo Alto. Up until the beginning of the year, Sonic.net fiber installation was handled by AT&T, but billed through Sonic to the customer. But now that relationship has been severed. So now Sonic would be on their own, will Sonic have access to the power/telephone poles for new installations? That would be the critical question. And probably in a more touchy situation, how about access to Palo Alto Communication boxes in the undergrounded electric areas. If I recall correctly, Palo Alto’s fiber to the premise would bypass the areas where the electric was undergrounded. In my case, when I built my house in 1983 I had to install conduit from the house to the ‘future’ communication box that was installed by the city at the same time as the underground electric box was installed. Take Care, Gary Lindgren From: Harris, Alexandra <Alexandra.Harris@CityofPaloAlto.org> Sent: Monday, November 13, 2023 6:19 PM To: Lindgren, Gary <gel@theconnection.com> Cc: City Mgr <CityMgr@cityofpaloalto.org>; Council, City <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org> Subject: RE: Fiber to the Home (Ticket# 2219) Hi Gary, According to market conditions monitored by staff, the City would align our fiber internet services and prices to be competitive with other providers including Sonic, which provides services within Palo Alto. The City will continue to require companies that wish to provide internet services within Palo Alto to follow standard business processes. Regards, Alexandra Harris From: gel@theconnection.com <gel@theconnection.com> Sent: Monday, November 13, 2023 1:45 PM To: Harris, Alexandra <Alexandra.Harris@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: City Mgr <CityMgr@cityofpaloalto.org>; Council, City <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org> Subject: RE: Fiber to the Home (Ticket# 2219) CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hello Alexandra, Thank you for the reply. I am familiar with all the items you mentioned. But the problem I see is that it will be several years from now before the first residents are hooked up to the cities fiber network. As you mentioned engineers need to be hired and workers hired and trained and plans need to be put together. And lots of money spent to get this going. Sonic.net is a local company based in Santa Rosa. They have the infrastructure in place. They have the engineering in place. Best of all Sonic has an excellent reputation. Many of us residents in Palo Alto have been Sonic customers for several years. Right now I’ve heard that Sonic is offering 10Gb fiber for $49.99/ month. Will the City be able to match that? My question is: if Sonic wants to come to Palo Alto and offer its services, how would Palo Alto respond? Thank You and Take Care, Gary Lindgren From: Harris, Alexandra <Alexandra.Harris@CityofPaloAlto.org> Sent: Tuesday, November 7, 2023 12:41 PM To: Lindgren, Gary <gel@theconnection.com> Cc: City Mgr <CityMgr@cityofpaloalto.org>; Council, City <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org> Subject: Fiber to the Home (Ticket# 2219) Hello Gary, Thank you for sharing your input about the fiber broadband project. On December 19, 2022, the City Council approved the expansion/rebuild of the existing dark fiber backbone and a phased approach to “build the last mile” to provide municipal broadband internet (see meeting Agenda report ID#14800 and Council’s decision in the Minutes.) Although there are existing internet service providers covering the City of Palo Alto, some areas still lack access to fiber broadband internet. Plus, the community expressed strong interest in having more options, specifically a municipal broadband internet option. Some reasons the City will offer municipal broadband internet include: 1. High speed internet: Fiber broadband has faster speeds and lower latency than traditional cable or DSL networks. 2. Affordable pricing: Community broadband networks provide high-speed, reliable connections at affordable costs. 3. Competition: Public investment in broadband infrastructure creates competition, improving services and keeping costs down for reliable high-speed internet. 4. Locally owned: Whereas large corporations are accountable to their shareholders, the Palo Alto Fiber network is accountable to our community, creating more responsiveness and local control. 5. Service excellence: Improved customer service over existing internet service providers. The decision to provide municipal fiber broadband internet evolved over years of careful deliberation. On May 24, 2021 the City Council was presented with various partnership models during the more recent decision-making process and decided to select the business model with more local ownership and financial control (see meeting Agenda report ID#12117 and Council’s decision in the Minutes). If you would like to share your comments with the City Council, you may do so at their meetings, by emailing them at city.council@cityofpaloalto.org, or mail. Again, thank you for your input and questions. You can stay updated on the project by visiting www.cityofpaloalto.org/PaloAltoFiber or at the Fiber Hub. Best Regards, ALEXANDRA HARRIS Sr. Business Analyst City of Palo Alto Utilities Department (650) 329-2410 | Alexandra.Harris@cityofpaloalto.org www.cityofpaloalto.org From:Jeff Hoel To:UAC Cc:Hoel, Jeff (external); Council, City Subject:TRANSCRIPT & COMMENTS -- 11-01-23 UAC meeting -- Utilities Annual Report Date:Tuesday, November 14, 2023 3:31:37 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments andclicking on links. Commissioners, Here's a TRANSCRIPT of portions of your 11-01-23 UAC meeting -- including Item 1 (Utilities Annual Report) and Future Topics -- plus myCOMMENTS (paragraphs in red beginning with ###). General comment: it would be good to agendize each Utilities Quarterly Update, as an ACTION item, so you can vote your advice to Councilif you want to. Thanks. Jeff ------------------- Jeff Hoel 731 Colorado Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94303------------------- ========================================================================================================= Video:https://midpenmedia.org/utilities-advisory-commission-32-1112023/ Agenda -- 11-01-23 UAC meetinghttps://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/2/agendas-minutes-reports/agendas-minutes/utilities-advisory-commission/archived-agenda-and-minutes/agendas-and-minutes-2023/11-nov-2023/11-01-2023-uac-packet.pdf ========================================================================================================= TRANSCIPT 0:02:04: Chair Segal: Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the November 1st Utilities Advisory Commission meeting. We do not have any agenda changes, additions, or deletions. I will roll call, starting to my right. 0:02:24: Commissioner Phillips: Commissioner Phillips here. 0:02:27: Commissioner Croft: Commissioner Croft here. 0:02:30: Commissioner Forssell: Commissioner Forssell here. 0:02:40: Commissioner Metz: Commissioner Metz here. Thank you. 0:02:44: Chair Segal: And Chair Segal is here. ### Commissioner Mauter attended via zoom. Vice Chair Scharff was absent. So, I did that backwards. So, I'll say we don't have any additions or deletions to the agenda. Are there any public comments on any item not on the agenda? 0:02:58: Jenelle Kamian: This is Jenelle Kamian, Program Assistant. If anyone would like to make an oral communication, please raise your hand or dial *9 on your phone. No hands raised. 0:03:13: Chair Segal: Thank you. And we do not have any minutes. Our meeting was just a couple weeks ago and there hasn't been time to turnthose around, so we'll review them at the next -- December meeting. And so, we'll turn to Director Batchelor for his report. 0:03:29: Director Batchelor: Thank you, Chair Segal. Evening, Commissioners. Ah, start off with a little bit -- I think I mentioned this at the lastmoment in the last meeting, but -- Staff submitted two grant applications to the Department of Energy (DOE) for grid resiliency andinnovation partnership, which was -- program for the electric grid modernization. We recently learned, last month -- and it was actually thenight of when we had our last meeting -- that the City was not awarded the $110 million that we had asked for, for the grant funding. Theprogram is, from what we saw, was very competitive. There was a lot of applications And the awards seemed to trend to utilities indisadvantaged communities. And then, with older distribution systems, harsher weather conditions. We also applied for a 4,000 buildingupgrade prize from the DOE for affordable housing. And we didn't receive that as well either. The -- We'll have more details. We weresupposed to be receiving a letter in -- this month, hopefully before the December meeting, so I'll be able to give you a little bit more in depthon why we didn't receive those grants. But, unfortunately, we did not. But we will resubmit in the coming year for our projects. And, hopefully, we'll learn a little bit more from what we get from the details, so that we can address those, and figure out how we're able to get some of this money that they're offering up on these grants. 0:05:17: We're thrilled to announce a new, limited-time pricing adjustment for our heat pump water heaters program, thanks to additional funding from TECH Clean California. ### TECH Clean Californiahttps://techcleanca.com/ TECH is a statewide initiative, adopting clean water and space heating technologies to help California meet its goals and becoming a carbonneutral by 2045. For a limited time, residents now can receive a higher rebate and discount on heat pump water heater installations. If youchoose to hire your own contractor, you can receive up to $1,500. And from Palo Alto. Plus to $3,800 from the state. For a total rebate of$5,300. The full service program offers a standard 65 gallon heat pump water heater, installed at a price of $1,900 plus $1,500 credittowards site preparation costs. And this price covers the permits, the equipment, installation for customers. The discount pricing's availablefor only six months. After, the City will smaller discounts, until the state TECH funding runs out. And to learn more about that, we can go tocityofpaloalto.org/switch. ### https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/Departments/Utilities/Residential/Ways-to-Save/Switch-to-an-Electric-Water-Heater Or we can call 650-713-3411. 0:06:35: Talking a little bit about also heat pump water heater day campaign, October the 25th was heat pump water day. Entire dedication to heat pump water heaters education and awareness. Collectively, we have the power to create clean energy, low-carbon future. And the City hosted a marketing campaign, surrounded around heat pump water heaters. The day, asking residents to take a picture of your selfie of your heat pump water heater and share it, so that we can put it -- post it on social media. Again, it's not too late to get your selfie to us. Just check it out. Hashtag it to paloaltoheatpumpwaterheaterHPWHselfie. And/or hashtag heatpumpup. And we'll be more than glad to put those up on the website portions. 0:07:25: A little bit about our hydro conditions. They're predicting a strong El Niño this year, which may result in warmer and wetter weather for thewatersheds. Palo Alto, on the hydroelectric generation and water average generation. Likewise, the storage in the regional water system isin good shape going into the rainy season. October 1 was the official start date of the water for the year, and the staff will provide updatesthroughout the winter on how we're doing with hydro. So, we're hoping for another great weather, so that -- winter -- that we can, again, takeadvantage of the hydro, as we move forward. 0:08:03: Just around energy prices, compared to this time last year, the state gas storage is in better shape. And forward gas prices have come downto about $2 per BTU. So, the winter gas bills and the wholesale electric costs will hopefully be back to normal range that we've seen in the past for -- in the wintertime. In accordance to the Council direction, staff did purchase some insurance against pricing for the hedging, that we'll talk about later today. Or tonight. About how that program actually works. And how it comes about. 0:08:39: Just upcoming events. November the 2nd, there was a gardening and online workshop. November the 11th, there's multi EV financing incentives, with EV expos at Mitchell Park. And then, November the 16th, is EV charging online workshop that we have. And then, December 2nd, we have another EV102 online workshop. And, with that, that concludes my report. Thank you. 0:09:12: Chair Segal: Thank you, Director Batchelor. Were there any questions on his report? One quick question. You said the added funding was for six months. When does that date end? 0:09:27: Director Batchelor: Let's see. [staff huddle] I think it -- I'll have to get back to you, but I believe it's around the April timeframe. Because itstarted October 1st. So, six months from that period of time. 0:09:47: Chair Segal: OK. Thank you. We'll move on to new business then. Item 1 is a discussion of the Utilities Annual Report for Fiscal Year '23. Are there any public comments? 0:10:02: Jenelle Kamian: This is Jenelle Kamian, Program Assistant. If anyone from the public would like to speak on Item number 1, please raiseyou hand or dial *9 on your phone. No hands raised. 0:10:17: Chair Segal: Thank you. Is there any kind of presentation for this? 0:10:20: Director Batchelor: So, staff doesn't have a presentation for this. This is, you know, the fourth quarter basically update for -- And we talked about that. In the future -- And we're bringing this back -- that we would talk about this fourth quarter one as a whole. We don't -- We did make a presentation. We were going to leave it up to the commission to ask questions. And any kind of follow-ups that you might have. It's more of an informational report. But again, like we talked about, that we wanted to bring the last one to the commission for any kind ofcomments or follow-ups. 0:11:03: Chair Segal: Are there any initial questions? Yup. 0:11:11: Council Member Lauing: In your report, you referenced the good progress you're making on recruiting, which is excellent. And with the helpof three internal folks in your department. Which I think is absolutely terrific. There and later in the report, you talk about getting threestaffers for the -- um -- you know, what -- the interim -- let's see, what am I trying to say -- the [laughs] -- the -- FIBER (fiber fiber) You needan assistant director and so on. And then, the IT guy is going to be our interim director there. And you referenced the '24 budget, where youhad requested that. And I think you did, and it was approved. Correct? 0:11:53: Director Batchelor: That is correct. Matter of fact, we did some interviews today for -- We are not quite ready yet to look for the Director's position. So, what we did was, we decided that we should do the manager -- Telecom Manager position, since it has been in the budget, and it's always been in the budget, for -- probably for the last 6-7 years, it's been there. But we decided that since that position was there, we didn't want to add a bunch of extra headcount, since we're really not yet moving forward on the fiber pilot. You know, we're waiting for CEQA, as well as, we're waiting on the grid mod, to go at the same time. But we do think, though, that we need a Telcom Manager, to kind of set up some of the contracts that's going to be needed. And we started that process today. And we should conclude the interviewstomorrow. For that position. 0:12:49: Council Member Lauing: Great. OK. Thanks. 0:12:52: Chair Segal: I think, just to make the discussion a little easier, why don't we just go in the same order that the report was given. So, startingwith staffing. Which is convenient. If anyone has any staffing questions. And then we'll move to electric utility from there. So, are there anyother staffing-related questions? 0:13:16: Commissioner Metz: Well, first of all, I had -- Despite the fact that we lost the DOE solicitation, the impression I got from reading the report - - that we were pretty successful in getting grants, winning lawsuits, and generally getting money in the door. So, that seemed really good. Under staffing, I just had the broad question, you know, what's being done to improve it. It looks like, from the data in the table, that it's kind of at about the same place, in terms of vacancies, that it was last time. You know. So, to -- just -- do we understand the root causes of it? And what are we doing to try go get past it? 0:14:07: Director Batchelor: So, if I heard your question right, Commissioner, was around the grid mod? And around staffing around that grid modportion of it? 0:14:18: Commissioner Metz: Yeah. Particularly in the electric operations, ... 0:14:20: Director Batchelor: Operations. 0:14:20: Commissioner Metz: ... engineering -- 0:14:21: Director Batchelor: Yeah. 0:14:21 Commissioner Metz: We seem to be about in the same place. 0:14:14: Director Batchelor: I think -- You know, I think that we've actually gained in that area. You know, we've been very fortunate, you know, withthe last SEIU contract, we were able to get some compensation for those hard-to-fill positions. We are bringing linemen on. Strangely. Thatit's good -- it's great news on the lineman class. And we were down to about four linemen most of last year. And we've picked up six, overthe last -- in this year's budget timeframe. Or, from January to November, at this period of time. And, you know, we were able to -- startingas November the 13th is our last hire for our system operator. So, we are going to be going to a 24/7 operation. We're going to take it backfrom PD. So, we actually have five full-fledged operators. And we have one operator that's still in training. And he'll be moving into hissecond year around the January/February timeframe. So, we figured that since we've got five operators, we're going to move to 24/7. Weare debating amongst ourselves, from a staff's perspective, about should we have 24/7 over the weekend. ### The term "24/7" includes weekends. 24 hours per day, 5 days per week would be "24/5." And that's something that we're looking at. And we do have the capabilities, with five, that we could do 365 if we wanted to. So, it's just an internal thought process. Does it really make the most sense? Now, maybe, during the wintertime, it definitely makes sense, I believe. I don't know about the summertime. But, again, we're working those details out as this last operator comes on board. So, good news for us that we've taken that back over 100 percent. You know, we did put in the OMS system. Seems to be working very well with that. So, it's actually helping the operators being -- spending more time on the desk when there is an outage, and not worrying about how many calls are coming in, what kind of calls are we receiving, and where the areas are. The maps seem to be working well for us. So, it predicts it automatically now for us. So, the -- I think that we're -- If I was concerned in one area, it's still the engineering group. You know, we were able to hire three that -- three engineers that just came out of college. And they're learning quickly. And they're moving through, becoming, you know, engineers on bases. They've been here now for just about a year -- year and a half now. So -- But we do still have openings. We did have another oper- Or, we had an engineer leave us a couple months ago that was fully trained. But, you know, we are trying to seeif we can refill that with someone that's more senior, than going right directly to the college portion of it. But, I mean, I am a little concernedthat we have two engineering positions that are open. We also have two senior positions that are open. We did fill -- as I mentioned in thepast we did -- recently fill the Electric Manager's position, that had been open for quite some time, with somebody that has about 27 yearsworth of experience. So, we feel that there's good leadership moving forward in that area. And I think that -- So, some of the criticalpositions that we have called out in the past, we've been able to do some recruitments in those areas, and it's been pretty positive at thispoint. 0:18:22: Comissioner Metz: Thank you. 0;18:25: Commissioner Croft: I guess -- I recall from a couple meetings ago, I think it was -- that you guys have done a survey of the staff to see what might be reasons for difficult hiring or people leaving. Did you guys find any -- At that point, you hadn't analyzed it -- 0:18:40: Director Batchelor: Yeah. We haven't -- We are analyzing it. We have not got to that, as of yet. The plan is, as, you know, for us to analyze it and then share it with all of you. But we're a little bit behind on that. We have not fully analyzed everything that came through. So, we had about 50 percent. So, there's about 255 employees. Well, let me take that back. There's 255 APPROVED positions. Taking outthese numbers here. So, there's about 210-215 actual filled. So, we got about half of that. So, we got a little bit over 100 employees thatactually took the survey. Which -- We thought that was actually really good. So, don't have those answers quite yet for you. 0:19:31: Commissioner Forssell: Question on the packet page 13, the capital improvement plan status for the electric utility. I was just curious withthe list of projects -- Which of these, would you say, are sort of like directly grid modernization projects, that sort of have come about with theCity's recent commitment to upgrading in order to electrify? And which ones are just sort of business as usual? Does that question makesense? 0:20:03: Director Batchelor: Yes. So, the very first one -- the East Meadow Circuit [Circle?] 4/12 kV Conversion -- that's definitely number one. And that's what we've been working on from an internal standpoint. We did just recently get our new doc crew -- our new contractor on board. They're called VIP. They're out of Canada. ### VIP Powerline.https://www.vippowerline.com/contact-us/ And from all indications, they're actually doing really good work out there for us. So this 4/12 kV -- This is close to Colorado. And thisactually where we chose to do the first phase on the electric grid mod, as well as -- This is the first place that -- where fiber is going to begoing, as well, too. ### East Meadow Circle is about 1.5 miles (by car) from the Colorado Substation. According to a map to be presented to the FinanceCommittee on 11-07-23 at Item 2,https://cityofpaloalto.primegov.com/Portal/Meeting?meetingTemplateId=13231East Meadow Circle is not part of the pilot area for doing both grid modernization and FTTP. East Meadow Circle is commercial, notresidential. There's already a dark fiber node ("DX") at the intersection of East Meadow Circle and East Meadow Drive. So, important piece is that 4/12 kV. And, as I mentioned in the past, the -- Magellan, who got bought by ENTRUST, ### ENTRUST https://www.magellanbroadband.com/news/entrust-solutions-group-acquires-magellan-advisors.stml https://entrustsol.com/ is an electric design house. And that's who we're working with, because we felt that since they already have the internal information -- detailed information of the fiber design, that they can overlay that into the electric design pretty easy. And so, that's why we went there. 0:21:18: The other that -- you look down -- if you go down to 19004 -- wood pole replacement -- You know, in the first area, not just in the pilot areathat we chose, but if you look in that first -- I don't have a map with me, but I can send out a map again. But if you look at the very big squarethat went from basically East Bayshore all the way up to Alma, there's about 1,300 poles that have to be replaced in that area. For differentreasons. Some are due to replacement age-wise. Some of them need to grow in size, because they're in backyard easements, and there'snot enough spacing between -- to add fiber on to the heighth limits. So, that is important. This is the first 50 poles in the small square thatwe des- -- looked at. And then, the 60 kV breaker replacement is -- has really nothing to do with the grid mod. It's just an update. So, it'sreally basically just wood poles and the 4/12 kV areas that we're looking at. 0:22:34: Commissioner Forssell: Thanks. That's super helpful. And then, both of those that you called out, I note, are delayed because of staffingshortages. Is that the engineering positions you were just talking about? 0:22:44: Director Batchelor: Some of it is, Yeah. Some of it is around the engineering. And then, also, we were waiting on this VIP contract to go through. They are on board now. They came in back in the middle of the month of October. So, they will be doing actually a lot of heavy lifting on the 50 poles. And we're actually going to increase this really to about 100 poles. That we're going to get to. 0:23:13: Commissioner Forssell: Thanks. 0:23:15: Director Batchelor: And then, just to -- it has nothing to do with the grid mod, but Foothill Rebuild, that 11 miles that we talk about. We areabove Foothill[s] Park now. Which is about half of the 11 miles -- is undergrounded. And we have switched it over to the undergroundsystem. Which has fiber as well in the conduits. We are going to leave the overhead line in, just in case, if there's an emergency situationthat we have to switch it back, then we'll have line. Until we get to the rest. Expected date on that is somewhere late spring, right atsummertime in '24. And we'll be all the way up. And then we'll de-energize the overhead. So, we're going to have to watch it over this nextwinter coming up here. But by next winter, it will be 100 percent underground So, we're hoping with that. The good news about that iswhen we put that job out to bid, it was a build-design. So they designed it and also built it. Cheapest price that we found on it was $25million. To do this 11 miles. Right now, to date, we've spent $1.3 [million] doing in-house. So, huge savings. Crews are doing a great jobon this. We do have a small contract with -- contract that's just doing the dirt work of installing the conduit. So, we think that this cost willlook like around $3 million at the end of the day. So, like I said, kudos to the crews, as well as to this contractor that's working this line for us. 0:24:47: Chair Segal: With the way you have it now, where you still have the above-ground, if there were weather issues, that you had to turn it off, would you be able to switch to the underground and keep power on? 0:24:57: Director Batchelor: Um. Yeah. So, right now, all the underground section is at a switch. So, if we lost that overhead section from that switch going up the hill, towards Skyline, those customers will be out. Right now, if the weather conditions, and a tree fell, broke the linebelow the switch line, where the switch is, customers are still going to be in service at that point. 0:25:29: Commissioner Phillips: I have two questions on packet page 14. So, on Figure 3, is there a comparable figure for -- comparable figures forcommercial use, average commercial use? Would that be our median commercial use? How the rates would compare between us andPG&E and Santa Clara? And could that be included, if it's relevant, if there's a relevant measure? 0:25:59: Karla Dailey: Hi. Karla Dailey, Assistant Director. And I want to introduce Eric Wong, Resource Planner, my colleague, who is the architectof this report, although many, many staff contribute to it. Eric, please chime in. Generally, commercial customers are difficult to findaverages. They're just so varied in types of customer, and size of customer, that we don't put that out generally. But can you talk about that a little bit? 0:26:32: Eric Wong: Hi. So, generally, customers right now for gas is paying a little bit more compared to PG&E. As you -- Right now, we're going through a cost-of-service study, that will evaluate how we compare to PG&E. And the result will -- after -- the result then we'll publish the report -- in this report. 0:26:58: Commissioner Phillips: Well, I was asking about electricity, not gas. 0:27:00: Eric Wong: That is gas. 0:27:02: Karla Dailey: He was asking about electricity. 0:27:03: Eric Wong: OK. Sorry. 0:27:07: Commissioner Phillips: Figure 3. Electricity Bill Comparison. 0:27:12: Eric Wong: I am not sure. But we'll try to get it include in this report. In future reports. 0:27:16: Commissioner Phillips: I'm sorry. What? 0:27:17: Eric Wong: We'll try to get it included in future reports. 0:27:20: Commissioner Phillips: OK. Is it follow -- I assume, generally, the same pattern as this, where we're less expensive than PG&E but moreexpensive than Santa Clara? Again, since it's 80 percent of the load, it would seem important to understand some of the economics at work. 0:27:41: Karla Dailey: I think that that's true. But if you'll let us get the numbers for you, to make sure, before we say something that would be wrong. 0:27:47: Commissioner Phillips: OK. That would be fine. And my second question -- maybe a higher-level question -- is, why is Santa Clara so much cheaper than we are? I kind of understand why we're cheaper than PG&E. I think. Although it's quite possible I'm confused. But why arethey typically 30 to 50 percent cheaper? 0:28:10: Karla Dailey: I mean, one reason is, they just have a really different customer base. They have a lot of very, very large commercial loads. And that's a lot less expensive to serve. 0:28:22: Commissioner Phillips: So, the commercial loads get lower-cost baseload power, so they have a flatter load curve during the day? Oracross the year? 0:28:30: Karla Dailey: And the whole system is just less expensive to run. You have fewer connections. Just a lot less expensive to run a system like that. 0:28:42: Commissioner Phillips: OK. Thanks. I would like to see that commercial comparison. 0:28:52: Commissioner Croft: I have a question on the tables that are included for electric, gas, and water, that are about the number of breaks, theminutes, the customers affected. And I don't have any complaints or concerns about it. But just a suggestion would be to trend it over alonger period of time. Because just having quarters, I'm unable to see like any measure of the reliability over the long term of our system. So, it just might be helpful to see that. To know IF we should ask questions about that. 0:29:30: Director Batchelor: So, these quarters were actually asked by the commission. To look at, on a quarterly basis. And so, they wanted to seehow we did from quarter to quarter. And then, we took it even a step further and said, well, what are we going to compare this to. And wethought that what we would do is we would compare to last year's quarter, for each of the quarters. Because what we did was -- We weredoing six months. And we're just showing a si- -- We were only doing a six-month comparison -- um -- against ourselves. And, again, thecommission asked for -- quarterly basis. So -- 0:30:12: Commissioner Croft: OK. 0:30:12: Director Batchelor: We can go back, if the commission would prefer. ### As an example, Fort Collins has been reporting SAIDI (system average interruption duration index) information. Each report spansseveral previous quarters -- for example, 18 quartershttps://fortcollins.clearpointstrategy.com/economic-health/electric-system-average-interruption-duration-index-saidi-in-minutes/or 24 quarters.https://publish.clearpointstrategy.com/594/Measures/scorecardId=6290&object=measure&objectId=91417&periodId=282372.htmlIs this what UAC should have asked for? ### At one time, CPAU reported SAIDI information annually in its 4th quarter Utilities Quarterly Report. For example:https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/1/agendas-minutes-reports/reports/uac-informational-reports/2015-informational-reports/10-07-15-meeting/info-item_utilities-quarterly-update-4th-q-fy-2015.pdfThe report included information about each outage: month, duration, number of customers affected, whether the outage was aerial orunderground, etc. Why did CPAU stop doing this? ### UAC discussed SAIDI at its 02-01-23 meeting, during Item VIII, COMMISSIONER COMMENTS. See TRANSCRIPT here:https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/2/agendas-minutes-reports/agendas-minutes/utilities-advisory-commission/archived-agenda-and-minutes/agendas-and-minutes-2023/03-mar-2023/public-letters-to-uac-march-2023.pdf (But since it was not agendized, there was no staff report, and commissioners didn't get a chance to vote on their advice to Council.) 0:30:17: Commissioner Croft: I don't have the history of seeing these numbers over time. So I have no idea if these -- You know, it's just -- when I see the capital improvement projects, or any kind of delays because of staff shortage, and I see these numbers, I just have no idea if they're good numbers or -- I know with the electricity side that there's a standard. You know, the standard four metrics, ### What four standard metrics? SAIDI, SAIFI, CAIDI, MAIFI? (I didn't see MAIFI in the staff report, packet page 15.) ### I'm unclear about what the data in Figure 4 (packet page 15) actually means. What does the data in the "Total" column mean? ### In Fort Collins' SAIDI reports, each SAIDI data point is for the last four quarters. ### Does Palo Alto's SAIDI include "momentary" outages (page 36) and/or outages that occur on "major event days" (page 6)?https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-website/transparency/commissioner-committees/emerging-trends/2021/2021-02-17-electric-system-reliability-presentation---final.pdf that we -- like, I compared them to PG&E and they look really good. Right? Palo Alto looked on the electricity side. But on the gas andwater, I have no idea. Like, number of breaks -- I don't know. It seems like we should compare ourselves to ourselves, just to trend overtime. But I'm not concerned about it. It just was a suggestion. 0:30:52: Director Batchelor: So, I guess, when we've looked at the reliability aspect, we've never really broke it down from a gas and electric -- or, I'm sorry, a gas and a water reliability, from breaks to breaks, or gas leaks to gas leaks. And we've always looked, in this report, as electric reliability was the key. And that's why you see, you know, these four items. And these are four items that every utility uses a standard against that. But we have not done it so much -- I would -- 0:31:29: Commissioner Croft: The numbers are very small. So -- 0:31:32: Director Batchelor: Yeah. 0:31:32: Commissioner Croft: And, I mean, I don't think I've ever experienced an outage of either of the others. So, I will just -- I'm fine with this. Unless the commission decides they want to see more. 0:31:43: Commissioner Forssell: If I may, it seems like, Director Batchelor, you're responding to the fact that it's broken down in quarters. But I think it's possible that the request is for more years. Like all we see is '22 and '23. And listening to you and the desire for trends, you might want to see '21 and '20 and '19 and '18, to just get a sense of a longer time span 0:32:07: Commissioner Croft: Yeah. You're looking at a different table than I am. So -- 0:32:10: Commissioner Forssell: You're looking at gas. 0:32:11: Commissioner Croft: Yeah, I know. So, it's electric. So, the electric one is on page 15. 0:32:16: Commissioner Forssell: And it's the same thing. It's '22 and '23. 0:32:17: Commissioner Croft: Yeah, yeah. Same thing. No, my comment was for all the -- electric, gas, water -- was just to see if there were any kind of trends that we could see. If our reliability is getting better, or ... 0:32:25: Commissioner Forssell: But like that's -- that's not opposed -- like, you can do quarterly AND have a farther look-back and make -- so it's not -- I don't think the request is to do something different from what the previous commission has asked for. 0:32:41: Commissioner Croft: Maybe it's just -- 0:32:41: [multiple speakers] 0:32:45: Director Batchelor: So, what you're asking, then, is for a 5-year trend, going back 4-5 years? 0:32:54: Commissioner Croft: That would definitely be sufficient. It could just even be this table taken backwards a little while. Or a line. But it might be easiest to just use the same table and go backward. Since all those are probably in the reports you've seen before. 0:33:14: Chair Segal: I think if I could -- I don't know how I'm going to help or complicate it -- but if the idea is to see -- we've -- as we invest in the infrastructure, to see -- this is one way to measure whether those investments are having impact. It's one of many different measurements. But it's one way to see, as we upgrade different infrastructure, then presumably they should go down. 0:33:38: Commissioner Croft: Or even just maintenance. Are you effectively maintaining, or do we have any concerns about that. 0:33:44: Chair Segal: Fair enough. I did have one other question on just the electric side. Which, even though the numbers are low, it does seem to be -- the trend for 2023 was -- there were many more outages in '22. And I don't know if it was the weather or what. But if we're expecting another wet year, what are your -- what do you anticipate for this coming season? 0:34:07: Director Batchelor: Well, I would hope to say zero. But -- [laughs] No, I think the thing is is that, you know, we looked hard, because '21 and'22 did NOT look good. You know. We had quite a few outages in those two years. And part of that was is that we like -- we kind of wentbackwards on tree trimming. So, we took a proactive approach, that -- in '23, that we definitely went out, spent quite a lot of money on treetrimming. We moved forward again into this year's budget, and we were trimming about as much trees as we can. And we think that -- Youknow, the majority of the outages that we saw last year was due to trees. There was some electrical pieces that failed on us. But I think,though, that what we saw was that the tree trimming definitely helped, and it helped our numbers in '23. We think that we're pretty sure thatwe're going to see the same kind of numbers moving forward. 0:35:22: Commissioner Phillips: I'm sorry. Are we done with electricity? If we're not -- 0:35:23: Chair Segal: Well, I was just going to ask: any other questions on electricity? Or we'll move on to gas. 0:35:33: Commissioner Metz: OK. I had one question on electricity. I'm not sure this is exactly a CPAU question. This is packet page 42. And talking about heat pump water heater installations. It sounds like they're already uncovering quite a number of, you know, common problems across, you know, a small number of installations so far, by the significant number of problems. Is there -- Is this CPAU's problem? Or -- You know, it seems like we all need to address it somehow, to -- if we're to electrify heating the hot water. Who -- I guess the question iskind of who owns this? Is it as pervasive as this early data makes it sound? 0:36:25: Karla Dailey: Sorry, I'm trying to find exactly where you are in the report. But, I mean, what we've found is -- 0:36:31: Commissioner Metz: Packet page 42. 0:36:33: Karla Dailey: Right. Um. I think, you know, Palo Alto has a lot of older homes, and a lot of really unique homes. And so, the idea that we just have a lot of standard installations with no tricky wiring setups has proved to not be as common as we would have hoped that it would have been when we set up the program. So, we've just encountered a lot of non-standard installations. And I think that's the direct result of just the housing stock in this community. 0:37:09: Commissioner Metz: Right. I think I understand that. You kind of expect it, with the mature housing stock that we have, as you said. But I guess the question is, who owns addressing that. I mean, does this call into question the whole idea of electrification? If that's going to be, you know, super expensive and energy-intensive to do? How do you -- Who owns addressing it, and how do we address it? 0:37:35: Karla Dailey: Well, I think we as a community need to address it. And, you know, we're learning a lot from this program. And thinking abouthow to apply what we're learning to a longer term -- not just heat pump water heater program but whole-home electrification program. Andso, we're taking all of these lessons into account, and how we're thinking about the programs, and how we'll design them in the future. 0:38:03: Chair Segal: If I can help to tell you what it says, because maybe we can -- just to -- 'cause you're speaking -- you know, you don't have thebenefit of seeing what it says. It says, "A number of challenging H- [HPWH] -- or, heat pump water heater installations that includes longcircuit runs, electrical panels without additional capacity, complex condensate management, and water heater relocation requirements." 0:38;26: Karla Dailey: Um hum. 0:38:28: Director Batchelor: So, I think it -- If I could add to Karla's comments -- is that I think, you know, it's really CPAU as well as the City as a whole. Through the S/CAP committees. You know, they talk about the goal that they set for the 1,000 heat pump water heaters. And they've been talking to Council about some of the challenges that they've come against. But I also think that there is areas of improvementaround just communications, and getting the word out to the customers more than what we do today. And that's why we've hired anotherconsulting firm that does more communications -- a little bit more familiar with this type of installs, as well as some of these challenges. Ithink that the big thing is is that, you know, we -- we were talking from internal staff, and we were talking how do we get the word out? Howdo we -- You know, we've worked on social media. We put it in our bill inserts. So, one of the ideas was using the field service representatives that go out to your homes for gas leaks. Right now, it's going to be one of the busier times of the year, where they're going to relight pilots. They're also checking stoves for the holidays, that have -- people that have gas stoves. They always want their burners running well, and their ovens as well. And so, we're creating a flyer, so that when one of these individuals come out to a home, that they can drop this flyer off, talk a little bit about the program if there's questions that come up. You know, we're doing more stakeholder meetings withthe community, as we talk about smart grid and fiber in the areas. We're also making a pitch about whole-electric, since we're out thereupgrading their areas, they should know, you know, what some of these incentives are they can take advantage of today. So, I think, toanswer your question, is, it's really basically the City as well as CPAU that has ownership to setting this goal, and trying to meet these goalsthat we set. 0:40:53: Commissioner Metz: OK. Great. 0:40:54: Commissioner Croft: I can give -- on the same topic, I had seen that as well, that 440 interest forms were submitted, 147 site assessmentswere made, and 16 installations were completed. I kind of had the same question. Like, there's so much drop-off at each step. I guess thequestion is, with the 440 interest forms submitted, and 147 site assessments, why are the site assessments not more? I just went through this myself. And one of the things is, the immediate thing they do is, they send you a DocuSign. And so, I kind of held off on the DocuSign, 'cause I thought, well, I might have some questions before I just sign and have someone come to my house. But eventually, I just signed it. And then someone came. But, like, do you have knowledge of the reason for the drop-off at each step? 0:41:44: Director Batchelor: Yeah. I think, you know, part of it is that, you know, we're using an installer to basically do these home installs. And one of the things that we've talked about is that, first of all, we need more installers. You know, we need to open it up to other installers with the same type of program that we offer. A company that we're working with today. My personal feeling is is that they don't have enoughresources. And I think that's part of the drop-off. The other thing is is that -- exactly what you're talking about. The process is cumbersome. You know, it is, as you say, you have to do the DocuSign before they contact you. Why? Why can't they just -- You know, if you sign up,then what we should be doing is, we should be calling you, setting up an appointment -- 'Cause essentially that's what you're asking for. You're looking for the interest -- if you want to get into this program, or you may not. But, you know, a live body needs -- a warm body needsto come to the homes. One of the things that -- Also, you know, at the end, we send you a survey about how did your experience go. Well,again, that -- I think, though, that's OK, but we survey the community for every little survey we want. And so, my feeling is -- and I'vestressed this to -- um -- to the S/CAP committee -- that we really need to have actually someone come back out, and actually contact you,find out when you're going to be home -- or maybe it's just over the phone. But it's actually a live call, that we can learn from. And --because from what I've seen so far, there's definitely SOME learning, but I don't think that we're getting the whole story about really what'sgoing on. I mean, I've heard it from most of you that have tried to -- and gone through heck to try to get folks to actually come out andactually get it done for you. And the length of periods of time and -- You know, I hear these horror stories, and -- So, I think we have tochange our ways. And that's one of the ideas that as we would be able to. I mean, we've even talked to -- And the City Manager has givenus somewhat of a direction that, you know, he really wants to see us expand this out to even -- why is it that a plumber in Palo Alto, that works strictly in Palo Alto. And I've used them personally, if I live here, all the time. I'm comfortable with that person. Why can't I go though them? Why can't I go through someone that I know, that is able to -- be able do this for me in a quicker period of time? Or, maybe it's an electrician that I know, that can help me with my electricianal piece, and get my plug working, and then, you know, go through that. So, we are looking at different changes to this program as it sits today. 0:44:44: Commissioner Croft: I think those things you said are spot on with my experience. So, it seems to be like it would be very hard to get this if your water heater broke down. So, like, the urgent need -- Or the -- you know, the opportunity to upgrade because of that would be hard todo with these guys, because they're just not that fast. It -- My impression is that they need a -- Like you said, they need like a customerrelationship manager. Someone who will -- So, for me, they came in and -- um -- we kind of discussed the two places it could go. And theygot stumped, and they never got back to me. So, I kept bugging them. And I was like, why hasn't -- I mean, you know, it was like 2-3weeks. And so, after bugging them a couple times, they said, well, it won't work because, you know, the distance between the fence andwhere the current water heater is is not big enough. I said, well, we discussed the basement where the old water heater was, as well. Butthey had lost that thread. And so, they had to send someone out again. And if felt like -- And if they had just gotten stumped, but they hadn'ttold me. And I feel like we need a vendor that won't get stumped. They are going to figure something out. And they're going to help theresident figure it out. And so, once I got the quote -- it's very expensive, but I'm still willing to consider it. But I still have lots of questions. And it just feels like it's not really -- I don't have a person that can put a call on my calendar. You know, sometimes they just call out of theblue. I'm like, I'm not going to -- 0:46:16: Director Batchelor: Right. 0:46:16: Commissioner Croft: you know, I have to put it on my calendar. Right? [laughs] So, those things that you said are I think right on. But I do support the thought of both having follow-up by a person and also opening it up to other vendors that have more throughput, or just different capabilities, in terms of just commitment to getting it done. 0:46:36: Director Batchelor: Yeah. I think that, you know, the downfall is -- or one of the downfalls is, you know, if the water heater goes out tonight,you're not waiting, you know, as much as time as you are now. Even though that we tried to push those customers up front. But that's stillusually about a 5-7 day period of time. And when you have a family, are you going to take cold showers for seven days? I don't think so. And so, you know, there has to be a way that we can send -- And I think that this -- this is where, if we had more installers, then we'd be able to send -- you know, and have a quicker response periods. And I don't think -- maybe we won't see as many drop-offs as we see today. So, we are working on that, and trying to address how we can be much more efficient, and also, what kind of changes do we need to move the program forward. Because I think that we're going to have the same problems, then, if we just go into the whole home. Or even just trying tochange out furnaces. If it's going to be this type of length of period of time. 0:47:44: Chair Segal: Yeah. ** Because I'm in the same morass. I mean, and now I'm supposed to schedule my third visit, because they lost thephotos, and they couldn't figure it out, and they still don't know. And -- Maybe -- We know we have these problems that are listed on thisreport. And maybe it's thinking about a second vendor who -- or some kind of flow chart. If you have one of these kinds of problems, you getto do XYZ. Or there's a different expert. Or something. And maybe the person we're using now is more comfortable with more of a routinekind of replacement. And maybe that's part of the problem. But, yeah, it's been super slow. I just got an email today saying, well, is iturgent? Can you wait longer? [laughs] 0:48:29: Director Batchelor: No, I can't. [laughs] 0:48:31: Chair Segal: And I can. I mean, I don't -- thankfully, you know, [knock wood] I don't have a broken water heater. But I'd love to take advantage of the discount. And if, you know, at the rate we're going right now -- I don't know. 0:48:42: Director Batchelor: Right. 0:48:44: Chair Segai: OK. That's probably all on water heaters. Any other electric utility questions or comments? [pause] Oh. I think we can move -- OK, we'll move on to gas. Maybe it already has. Gas. 0:49:01: Commissioner Phillips: Yeah. Very simple question about Figure 12. It's on page 23. Does the gas -- The comparison of gas rates -- Does the Palo Alto rate -- does that include the rebate? Or is that before the rebate? Obviously, I think that wouldn't -- that makes a hugedifference. So, it says, FY '23, Palo Alto at the median usage of 402 therms is $1,064. PG&E, $930. We were higher than PG&E for thatrare -- for the whole year. But it seemed like it was only for that one month that we were actually higher, and then we rebated that back. So,my question -- make sense? 0:49:48: Karla Dailey: Sorry. Are we on packet page 23, or report page 23? 0:49:52: Commissioner Phillips: It's packet page 23, report page 20. Figure 12. 0:50:02: Karla Dailey: Yup, yup, yup. 0:50:03 [staff huddle] 0:50:11: Eric Wong: Yes, it does include the rebate. 0:50:12: Commissioner Phillips: So that's after the rebate. We were still higher on the annual average than PG&E? 0:50:17: Eric Wong: That's correct. 0:50:18: Commissioner Phillips: OK. [pause] Thank you. 0:50:29: Commissioner Forssell: Let's see. Couple of questions. Packet page 17 refers to a letter that Mayor Kou sent to Governor Newsom just to report the request for a federal investigation. What happened? Is there a federal investigation? Is a few months later far too soon to ask for the results of a federal investigation? 0:50:52: Karla Dailey: Yes. [laughs] Yeah. It will probably be a couple of years, at least. 0:51:02: Commissioner Forssell: But there will be a federal investigation? 0:51:04: Karla Dailey: Yes. 0:51:04: Commissioner Forssell: OK. So we got that far. But then it's going to take a couple years. Next question -- which, I don't know if there's a question so much as a -- maybe it's just a comment. You know. 'Cause there's been a lot in the news lately about carbon offsets, and greenwashing, and some, you know, sort of expose journalism around the whole topic. Which, you know, I have people asking me, what's the point of Palo Alto's carbon offsets. So, I was happy to see the table on packet page 21 that's listing them out specifically. And, I guess, could you help us -- or maybe just me -- like, how do we respond to that? Like, here are these projects. How do we know that they are for real, and high-quality, and not greenwashing? Especially -- um -- yeah, actually, I'll just stop the question there. 0:52:06: Karla Dailey: Right. I guess I would say that there are folks that just don't like offsets. Period. So, there's that. But we, in designing thisprogram, and Council approving it, really tried to think through how we could make sure that these are the highest-quality offsets possible. And so, really adopted all of the same parameters that CARB uses for compliance offsets, because compliance entities subject to cap-and-trade can use offsets for a portion of that obligation. These offsets that we buy meet all of those criteria, minus that very last extra CARBcertification to be used for compliance. Since we are not using these for compliance reasons. We're using them on a voluntary basis. Self-imposed program by the City of Palo Alto Council. And so, in theory, all these offsets could go through that one additional step. Becomecompliance-eligible. That would cost a little bit more money. It doesn't really make any sense to spend that extra money. But these are, infact, offsets that are being taken off the table for someone else to eventually use them for compliance in California, under the cap-and-tradeprogram. So, all of the protocols, all of the, you know, vintage requirements -- those all mirror the CARB requirements. 0:53:43: Commissioner Forssell: Can you give some examples of what are the compliance requirements that CARB uses? 0:53:48: Karla Dailey: Well, one example is just the project types. And so, the -- we don't buy from project types that aren't CARB-approved, like -- um -- and they have to be in the U.S. So, you know, replacing somebody's hibachi with some portable induction cooktop. I mean, that's no an approved protocol. In theory, that is an offset generator, but that's not approved by CARB. That doesn't go through the registries -- the three registries that CARB relies upon. And so, these are the -- you know, the forestry projects, and all of the rules that are laid out by -- what has to happen in that forestry project for that offset to be potentially cap-and-trade compliance-ready are all the same requirements that we follow for the offsets that we purchase. 0:54:48: Commissioner Forssell: So, on some level, we place our faith in the California Air Resources Board [CARB] that they have high standards,and that if we copy them -- 0:54:56: Karla Dailey: Yes. 0:54:58: Commissioner Forssell: So, that's the -- 0:54:58: Karla Dailey: Yes. 0:54:58: Commissioner Forssell: Which I'm not complaining about. I'm just rephrasing. 0:55:00: Karla Dailey: Yeah. And the three registries that they rely upon to verify these offsets. We -- 0:55:06: Commissioner Forssell: Is that the sort of third party verification? Is that what you're saying? 0:55:08: Karla Dailey: Yes. 0:55:09: Commissioner Forssell: The registries? 0:55:10: Karla Dailey: Um hum. 0:55:10: Commissioner Forssell: I see. OK. All right. Final question, if I may. Speaking of cap-and-trade, I was reading the -- that we're required -- let me refresh my memory here -- packet page 21 and 22, I think -- that the utility is required to auction gas utility allowances. And there are funds that come from that auction, that we have to spend in certain ways. So, does that mean we have an over-allocation of allowances? Or do we have to buy allowances also? Help us understand that. Is that -- 0:55:54: Karla Dailey: [laughs] It's really confusing. So, there's a few different parts with cap-and-trade. There are -- We have an obligation, as a gas utility, to cover all of our greenhouse gas emissions with allowances. (A certain percentage -- tiny percentage -- can be offsets. But let'sjust say, for simplicity's sake, it's all allowances.) And, at the same time, we get a certain number of free allowances given to us. Thatnumber goes down every year over time. And, of the amount that we are given, we can use a certain percentage of that to cover ourcompliance obligation. And that number also goes down over time, percentage-wise. And the balance of that we have to sell back into theauction. We can take that revenue and use it for sustainability-type projects. We can even give it back to the customers. But we can't give itback to the customers based on their volumetric usage. So, it has to be spread out evenly over customers, if it's to be given back to them. Which is what PG&E does, when folks on PG&E's service territory get their climate credit every year. That's not based on how much gasthey used. It's just spread out over all the residential customers. We don't do that. We keep that money and put it to good use, inaccordance with the guidelines that Council has approved for how we use that money. 0:57:45: Commissioner Forssell: But then, we also have to buy allowances on the allowance market? 0:57:49: Karla Dailey: Yes. We still have to cover our full burn of usage. So, whatever -- you know, minus whatever we've been able to apply from our free allowances. We still have to go out and buy back the balance. 0:58:03: Commisisoner Forssell: In terms -- Is it -- Is it about the same amount of money that we earn from selling our -- 0:58:11: Karla Dailey: It was, at the beginning of the program. 0:58:14: Commissioner Forssell: OK. 0:58:14: Karla Dailey: But it's getting more and more expensive. Which is how the program is designed. 0:58:17: Commissioner Forssell: And then -- And the allowances have to cover our CO2 emissions? 0:58:20: Karla Dailey: Yes. 0:58:21: Commissioner Forssell: And that is for -- 0:58:24: Karla Dailey: All the gas burned within the boundaries of Palo Alto. ### I'm guessing that the gas burned by outdoor restaurant heaters, which comes from propane tanks, is not included. 0:58:28: Commissioner Forssell: So that's sort of -- There's nothing we can do about that. It is what it is. You know, as opposed to like the electricportfolio can be -- You can choose more carbon-intensive and less carbon-intensive sources. Natural gas -- The -- Our need for allowancesto cover it is always just going to be based on our gas usage. 0:58:44: Karla Dailey: Correct. 0:58:45: Commissioner Forssell: OK. And it doesn't take like leakage or anything into account? 0:58:51: Karla Dailey: Ah -- No. I guess -- 0:58:52: Commissioner Forssell: Like I guess the question is, is there any incentive to do anything to our infrastructure to -- in order to have a lower allowance requirement? 0:59:02: Karla Dailey: Um. [unamplified] It's based on sales, right? 0:59:06: Director Batchelor: [unamplified] It's based on sales. 0:59:08: Karla Dailey: Yeah. Um. No. But there's incentive to encourage efficiency and electrification. [laughs] 0:59:18: Commissioner Forssell: Sure. Right. Yup. That's it for my gas questions. Thank you. 0:59:25: Commissioner Croft: That caused me to think of another question. Which is, we always talk about the ratio of electricity that's used by commercial. What does it break down in the gas use -- commercial versus residential? 0:59:38: Karla Dailey: [unamplified] The percentage gas use, commercial versus residential. [amplified] It's definitely higher, residential, relative toelectric. I don't have that number right off the top of my head. 0:59:57: Commissioner Croft: And do we have -- I'm assuming that all of the efforts that we're doing for commercial customers -- there's -- Youknow, we have new coding, you know, for new buildings, but for current commercial customers, is that part of the exercise -- is getting themoff of gas? 1:00:15: Karla Dailey: Absolutely. It's harder, though, in a lot of cases. So -- But, yes, we have -- We have programs focused on trying to partner -- particularly with our largest customers -- to figure out, you know, mutual goals. A lot of those large customers have their own sustainability goals. And so, we're actively trying to build those relationships, and speak not just with their facilities managers, who are the folks we've traditionally talked to, but really talk to their sustainability managers, talk to their CFOs, talk to the people who are really making decisions about big changes at their facilities. So, on our roadmap for sure. It's just -- It's a lot -- It's a longer -- It's a longer road. 1:01:03: Commissioner Croft: Do we have visibility? On -- I mean, it seems pretty clear what residential people are using their gas for. But on the commercial side, is it the same as electricity, where we just don't know, you know, what are the uses? Or is it pretty clear, on the commercialside, what they're using it for? And like what the targets could be? 1:01:24: Karla Dailey: Yeah. I mean, mostly, in Palo Alto, you know, we don't have big industry here. So it is mostly space heating still. You know, we've got a number of hotels in town that have fairly large boilers, and I think we have a pretty good handle of what they're using it for. They're just big, expensive projects to do something different. [unamplified] Did you find that -- 1:01:50: Commissioner Croft: Thank you. 1:01:51: Eric Wong: [unamplified] Yeah. For the gas -- 1:01:53: Karla Dailey: [unamplified] Oh, turn on your mike -- 1:01:55: Eric Wong: For the gas usage, about 55 percent commercial and 45 [percent] residential. Thanks. 1:02:04: Commissioner Croft: Thank you. 1:02:09 Chair Segal: We can move on to water. [pause] And wastewater. Oh, I'm sorry, Meagan. I thought you might have something. 1:02:26: Commissioner Mauter: I have several water questions. So, thank you for humoring me. The -- So, thank you for putting together the waterreport. And it was fun to see the additional supplement this quarter. I wanted to ask a couple of questions about consumption estimatesgoing forward. So, currently, we have consumption that is below the, you know, projected consumption. And so, it looks -- if I'm reading thiscorrectly -- like we are, you know, short somewhere around $6 million this year. Is that correct? If I recall correctly from my notes. 1:03:18: Commissioner Forssell: Do you have a packet page we could look at to follow along? 1:03:21: Commissioner Mauter: I'm so sorry. I did not write down the packet page number in these notes. But I should be able to pull that up shortly. Basically, you -- we have a -- We're consuming less water as a community than we projected. And so -- somewhere around 29 -- packet page twenty- -- 28. Excuse me. The consumption is below estimates. Which means that we have a revenue shortfall this year. And I believe that it has been made up. But I wanted to -- OK. So, "sales --" I'm sorry. It's packet page 30. So, we're 11.3 percent lower than budgeted, for -- in revenues, for FY '23. Because of water conservation. And I'm actually just very curious about whether we have any historic data on rebound in the water sector here in Palo Alto. And whether we expect that to rebound. And what time period we expect that to rebound. 1:04:39: Karla Dailey: It's a good, timely question. We're just starting to work on our financial plans for next fiscal year. Eric, do you have anythingpreliminary you can share about that? Or -- No. [laughs] We're not really prepared to talk about that quite yet. 1:04:57: Commissioner Mauter: OK. 1:04:57: Karla Dailey: I would say, yeah, you're right. We're looking at rebound. We're looking at how we've rebounded over these past few months. And assessing how to project that moving forward on our financial plans. 0:05:16: Commissioner Mauter: OK. You know, it may be helpful to look at past rebound. But also, given the -- kind of both depth of drought and also some of the incentive programs -- mandates to curtail, you know, there's often, I think, VERY slow rebound in the water sector. And so, we should be conscious of that when projecting. I'm curious, too, about how we would close that gap. And whether that would be likely to come through increased rates or simply delaying maintenance. Do you have any thoughts there. Or is that part of what you're in the process of evaluating? Like, will you be focusing on reducing costs or raising -- 1:06:07: Director Batchelor: So, it's funny that you bring this up, because we just had some internal conversations a few days ago about this, andwe're talking about where can we look at -- and from an internal standpoint -- just looking at saving dollars. You know, the thing is is that -- We talked also about looking at possibly doing -- So, there's -- I think it was '26, '27. We were talking about rehabbing two more of our reservoirs. And so, we may look at doing some bond financing on that. On those two projects. Maybe taking a little bit of debt. Because otherwise, you know, we're going to have to start seeing much larger increases. So, we are looking at what those expenses are. We do not want to cut back on the maintenance at all on the system. But we are looking at, does it make sense to maybe spread out the size of theCIP. That maybe for what we would typically do for $8-9 million this year, maybe what we should look at is maybe doing a 4-year, and thenspreading that increase over a 2-year timeframe, so that, you know, we would not have these large increases to offset these losses thatwe've seen. 1:07:39: Commissioner Mauter: OK. Um. I have two other -- or, three other questions. One is very brief. You ARE planning a number of seismicresilience upgrades. And I think that's really important. I would recommend that you include seismic resilience explicitly in your goals as awater utility. It is NOT listed as a goal. And it would be very helpful. 1:08:13: Director Batchelor: [unamplified] ** CIP goals. We do? 1:08:21: Commissioner Mauter: So, two other quick things. Backflow prevention. That was listed as one of the areas that needed improvement. I'm curious what fraction of individual users, or customers, have backflow devices in the system. 1:08:42: Director Batchelor: So, right now, that we're tracking close to 6,000 backflow devices in the system. About 400-500 of those are City-owned. 1:08:55: Commissioner Mauter: OK. 1:08:55: Director Batchelor: So, about 5,500 backflow devices. And, you know, we usually set the goal -- Well, of course, we want 100 percent ofthem inspected on a yearly basis. But we come up short on this. Every year, it's right around 90-91 percent of those are actually physicallywhere the customer actually calls and actually does the inspection. It is the customer's responsibility. And we are thinking that we are goingto change the program. There's some neighboring cities that do things a little bit differently. And we've been talking a little bit more aboutpossibly maybe being a little bit more involved in taking over the testing aspects of the -- you know, the backflows. 1:09:48: Commisisoner Mauter: I think -- Personally, I think that would be a wonderful change, because of the burden of compliance, and the efficiencies that come from doing that in-house. I am also curious, if you choose to keep it as it currently stands, can you just help me understand how many individual customers you have? And so, what fraction of those are required to do a backflow prevention test every year? 1:10:21: Director Batchelor: So, it's about a quarter. It's about a quarter of the system -- of customers actually have to have a backflow at this point. 1:10:29: Commissioner Mauter: OK. 1:10:29: Director Batchelor: But, you know, there are rules being changed. 1:10:32: Commissioner Mauter: Right. Right. 1:10:32: Director Batchelor: And it's going to get to the point where we think that it's going to get to 100 percent. Everybody's going to have to have a backflow on their home. But we'll see where -- you know, where legislation takes this. You know, we -- That's why we think that we may want to redesign the program and charge the customer separately, on their bill, for the testing aspect. And then, any kind of repairs or replacements would be on them to do those repairs. We may not do repairs **. 1:11:14: Commissioner Mauter: Right. Sure. And, in the interim, given that there's only a, you know, 25 percent rate right now of customers actuallyare required to do backflow prevention testing, I'm wondering -- and I could be wrong about this, My recollection is that it was more standardto have tests every three years instead of every year. Is that correct? Or am I just misremembering? 1:11:45: Director Batchelor: From what -- 1:11:47: Commisioner Mauter: At like an EPA-level recommendation. 1:11:51: Director Batchelor: Right. From what I've heard from the water folks, and looking at -- the rule had changed, that it's on a yearly basis. 1:12:01: Commissioner Mauter: OK. I have one more just quick question. I've raised the point in the past that it would be advantageous to makeimmediate use of any AMI data, to further improve leak detection, which, of course, is non-revenue water. ### Data from a premises' smart water meter could in theory be analyzed to detect abnormally high flow to the premises. (I suppose the homeowner would define what was "abnormal.") But the premises is still billed for the water. Meters elsewhere in the water system, which potentially could be smart, could detect abnormally high flow that might be non-revenue water. Or to target wasteful water use. And I was wondering whether there was any progress within the water department in terms of a visualization or an analysis of AMI metering data as it does become available to us. Especially in the water space, I think, where we have a budgetary shortfall. 1:12:47: Karla Dailey: We are actively working with WaterSmart and our AMI vendor to make sure that those systems are talking to each other, andthat we can deploy the leak detection features of WaterSmart, using our AMI data as soon as possible. 1:13:03: Commissioner Mauter: Wonderful. Thank you so much. 1:13:07: Commissioner Croft: That was actually -- Can I ask a question? A question I had. Since you're talking about AMI, I'll just ask it now. Doesthe City currently receive the data from the meters that are in place? Or are we still in the process of getting those connected? 1:13:26: Director Batchelor: So, we do have about two meter read routes up and running, with all three devices. And we are receiving that data over the collectors. And then, we're also still doing those routes by hand, just to make sure that -- we're making sure that the reads are correct. And right now it shows that these meters that we've got -- put in place have been reading properly, from an AMI standpoint. So we do have, and we're tracking. It's about -- I'd say about right around 800 meters right now that are fully deployed. Electric, water, and gas. ### So, about 800/3 = 267 homes? And then, we have a few more water and a few more gas. We're still trickling in electric meters, from the supply chain issues that we've had. But we think that AMI will be fully launched by second fiscal quarter next year. So, sometime around that October timeframe. So, about ayear from now -- it's going to take us. Unless we get a whole bunch of electric meters in. It's all surrounding what that supply looks like. 1:14:36: Commissioner Croft: And who is the AMI vendor? And are they providing -- Are they going to provide the software as well? Or -- What isthe software situation? 1:14:50: Director Batchelor: Yeah, where is Dave? 1:14:54: Dave Yuan: Can you guys see me? I don't know. 1:14:56: Director Batchelor: No, but it ** 1:14:58: Dave Yuan: Can you see me now? Or hear me? 1:15:01: Director Batchelor: Oh, yeah. Thank you. 1:15:02: Dave Yuan: Good evening, commissioners. Yeah. This is Dave Yuan, Utilities Strategic Business Manager. For the AMI network, we areusing Sensus. And we are still using Badger meters. We're just using their endpoints to add on to the meter, to make it AMI-capable. Forthe -- We're using also SmartWorks Compass ### See a 02-14-22 staff report here (PDF page 111)https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/7/agendas-minutes-reports/agendas-minutes/city-council-agendas-minutes/2022/20220214/20220214pccsm-amended-linked-final.pdf as the MDM system. Which will also track the leak alerts. Like Karla said, that we are trying to get out the leak alerts as soon as possiblewith WaterSmart, hoping in the first quarter of 2024 that should be available for folks who have AMI meters. So, they will be able to see theirinterval consumption, by hour. ### At one time, the plan was to use battery-powered smart meters for water and gas, so, to make the batteries last long enough, theywould report data only twice per day. Is that still the case? ### Would it be possible to poll water and gas meters more frequently than twice per day, but, to make the batteries last long enough, have the meters reply only if significant usage had occurred? And also get leak alert -- detections, if they subscribe to it. 1:15:45: Commissioner Croft: And will -- I don't know what -- who's doing the collection. And then, you know, what database you might have. Butfrom a customer perspective, would we access it like we access WaterSmart, where it comes through our utility portal, and the data is in a --you know, you guys are working on a report format, or something like that, so we can see the data real time? 1:16:07: Dave Yuan: Yes. It will come from the WaterSmart portal. They can download it and see the interval. And the leak alerts. It will be NEARreal time. It will be a one-day delay. ### Most people think that a one-day delay is not real time. But the leak alert should come the same day, though. ### Interesting. How does that work? More precisely, how long is the delay? For the interval data, it will be a day later. 1:16:23: Commissioner Croft: Is that just for water that's going to be a day later, or is electricity also going to be -- 1:16:27: Dave Yuan: It's all going to be a day later, unfortunately. ### Unfortunately, indeed. ### Why does it have to be a day later? Is it just bad architecture, or is there a good reason? According to this (2019) source (page 51),https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/bigdataanalytics_final_2019-06-17_clean_1.pdffor Chattanooga's AMI system, "The fiber system provides backhaul for meter data such as energy usage, which are accessible in near-realtime. This system makes the 15-minute-interval smart meter and AMI data available to customers over a web portal within 15 minutes of theclose of the interval." 1:16:29: Commissioner Croft: It's all going to be a day later. OK. That's interesting. All right. Thank you. 1:16:35: Dave Yuan: Um hum. 1:16:40: Commissioner Metz: I had one question about the City wells. This is sort of a technical question. It's packet page 62. About emergency wells. It says, "City wells were rehabilitated in 2013, but some maintenance is needed. City has begun evaluating adding generators for wells." I thought we had generators on the wells. Not true? 1:17:11: Director Batchelor: So, we have a few generators on some of the wells. But we don't have it on every well. So, we are evaluating what the size of the pumps are, compared to generation that's going to be necessary. And we're going to be coming up with a solution that will actually have on-site generation for every emergency well. 1:17:47: Commissioner Metz: OK. So -- 1:17:48: Director Batchelor: We don't have it today. 1:17:49: Commissioner Metz: By generator, we mean a pump with a diesel generator, or something like that. 1:17:45: Director Batchelor: Yeah. 1:17:45: Commissioner Metz: OK. 1:17:47: Director Batchelor: Yes. Or a small gasoline. 'Cause there are some smaller pumps that won't need, you know, some of the larger -- Now,the pumps for the water SYSTEM -- And for that portion of it, we DO have large generation, on-site, ready to go. They're large diesel. But athe emergency wells, not all of them yet today. 1:18:09: Commissioner Metz: Right. So -- I mean, the point -- In an emergency, if the only water we have is from the emergency wells, you need thegenerators to pump that. Right? 1:18:18: Director Batchelor: Yeah. We -- 1:18:18: Commissioner Metz: The system pumps wouldn't get that out of the ground. 1:18:23: Director Metz: No. But what can be done, though, is -- today, is that if that happened today, what we'd end up doing is, we would move those large generations -- they're on trailers -- out of those areas. And then we would bring it to wherever the emergency well is, that is necessary -- that we don't have a small generator, or the size generator we need. 1:18:43: Commissioner Metz: OK. Great. Thank you. 1:18:47: Commissioner Croft: Can I go back to one -- just to follow up, because I've been thinking about the answer on the one-day delay. Is thereany way that residents would be able to get their data real time? Um. I think -- 1:18:59: Dave Yuan: There is -- oops, sorry. There is a way. If they purchase like a Zigbee radio. If we put a Zigbee radio into that meter, then thehomeowner could get a device that could get real-time data. But we would have to coordinate with that homeowner, ... ### The Zigbee approach can provide ELECTRIC data in real time, but not water or gas data. The Zigbee approach could in theory provide more detailed electric data to the homeowner than is provided to the utility. But I think the customer couldn't prove to the utility that the Zigbee-provided data hadn't been altered. 1:19:13: Commissioner Croft: OK. 1:19:13: Dave Yuan: ... 'cause we don't have the Zigbee installed in every meter. 1:19:15: Commissioner Croft: And do you have any indication whether I'm an outlier in being interested in that? Or whether that's something that you expect to actually do in the future? 1:19:24: Dave Yuan: We can't put you on the list right now. There is a shortage of those Zigbee radios. So, we actually only have one, as a testunit. Well, I think we're planning on purchasing like 500 of them. So we can put you on the list if you are interested. ### There are roughly 30,000 electric meters. (I wish I knew where I could look up a more accurate number. This 2015 report said it was28,600 meters.https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/1/agendas-minutes-reports/reports/uac-informational-reports/2015-informational-reports/10-07-15-meeting/info-item_utilities-quarterly-update-4th-q-fy-2015.pdfThis 2021 op-ed said it was 29,136 meters.)https://www.paloaltoonline.com/blogs/p/2021/04/04/palo-alto-utilities-breeds-mistrust-with-lack-of-transparency-around-outagesIF 500 meters had Zigbees, that would be 1.6 percent. If it turned out that more people were interested, the City could always buy moreZigbees. ### What will it cost the City to provide Zigbee capability to a premises? How much will the customer be charged for it? What will the customer have to buy to receive the Zigbee signals? 1:19:37: Commissioner Croft: And would that be temporary? Would that be just -- 1:19:41: Dave Yuan: No. It would be permanent. ### The Zigbee approach seems like a kludge to me. The useful life of the current smart meter equipment has been estimated to be 17years. How should the next generation work? 1:19:42: Commissioner Croft: Oh, it would be? OK. OK. Fantastic. Thank you.. OK. 1:19:52: Chair Segal: OK. Now we'll move on to wastewater. Any other -- Any wastewater questions? 1:20:00: Commissioner Croft: I did have a question, because the wastewater facility is used by so many cities. I was curious to know, just financially, who's on the hook for the improvements. How are those costs shared, across the cities that actually use the facility? And so, there's like the debt service. I mean, I saw the breakdown of the costs. And I would be interested in an overview of how -- I know that they pay usage fees. But how does the uptake -- or, the upkeep of the facility work, in terms of who pays for what? 1:20:47: Karla Dailey: I don't know the details on it. There is -- I mean, all the partners are on the hook for the upgrades to the plant. And I know thatPublic Works is starting a process to do a study on the allocation of costs among the partners. Because it hasn't been done in a really longtime, and, obviously, things change over time. So, they're working on that. But that's driven by Public Works. 1:21:17: Commissioner Croft: I guess I'd be interested, because it's in this report, in a follow-up. Because the graph, in terms of the costs -- the thingthat just really causes it to skyrocket out in 2029 -- is the debt service. So, that's what made me wonder, you know, are all of the cities thatuse the facility behind the debt, and we all are sharing that cost? Or, is Palo Alto on the hook for it, and then we're getting paid back throughthe usage fees over time? So -- 1:21:47: Director Batchelor: No, I don't believe we are. I think, as Karla mentioned, it -- all the members are on that. And I think it's by the flow, of how much actually each city actually brings to the facility. I think that's how they break it down. But we'll have to get back to you on that. 1:22:04: Chair Segal: Commissioner Mauter. 1:22:09: Commissioner Mauter: Yes. I was excited to note that you -- it looks like you're at 90 percent design for the advanced water purificationfacility. And I was just wondering whether we have a time in which the UAC will be briefed on the progress by Corolla. 1:22:35: Director Batchelor: That project is, again, being run by Public Works. You know, we are somewhat interfaced with that. But I don't have an answer for you tonight about the timing on that, and when that will actually be from start to finish. But we can definitely get that answer foryou by next meeting. 1:22:59: Commissioner Mauter: Thank you. 1:23:06: Chair Segal: I think we're on fiber now. Any fiber questions? [pause] I had one fiber question, which is, I notice that -- I thought therevenue's like $2.8 million and expenses were $2.7 million. And I think in the past we had a bigger -- I had that back -- yeah, yeah -- therevenue -- anyway, the revenue was just slightly more than expenses. And I was wondering if we think that's going to change going forward. And if we have a sense of why that was this past year. 1:23:40: Dave Yuan: Yeah. This is Dave Yuan again. Yes, Chair Segal. In the past, before COVID, I think we did have a million dollar revenue over expenses. ### A 04-03-13 staff report https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/1/agendas-minutes-reports/agendas-minutes/utilities-advisory-commission/archived- agenda-and-minutes/agendas-and-minutes-2013/04-03-2013-meeting/item-3_fiber-financial-projections-fy-2014-fy-2018.pdf provided a 5-year financial plan for the dark fiber utility that showed revenues less expenses rising from $2.089 million in 2013 to an estimated $3.197 million in 2018. (Thanks to Commissioner Melton for insisting on getting this report.) It would be great for UAC to insist ongetting an updated version of this report. ### The Utilities Quarterly Update for 4Q19 (PDF page 27, Table 5)https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/1/agendas-minutes-reports/reports/uac-informational-reports/2019-informational-reports/december-4-2019/id-10721-mini-packet-12042019.pdfshowed the Fiber Fund rising by $4.318 million in FY 2019. I think since COVID, a lot of companies had either left the City or they have consolidated connection services. This last year was a little bitodd. We did have a couple of disconnections that we didn't had good records of. So, we had to do a back-bill adjustment and credit them forthe respective date that they disconnected. Going forward, we think we should be getting back to the -- about half a million profit everyyear. Close to maybe three-quarter million, I think is what we're forecasting right now. As long as there's no new disconnections. So it'sgoing to -- it's slowly ramping up. But I think we should get back to pre-COVID level probably by 2025. 1:24:26: Chair Segal: And do you think our rates are appropriate? 1:24:32: Dave Yuan: Given the amount of reserves we've been getting, we think it is. We haven't really done a cost-of-service study for a while. So, maybe we'll do it when we do the -- when I guess there's time. Right now, we're all focused on the fiber to the premise, unfortunately. ### Unfortunately? So, we haven't spent too much time on the dark fiber rates. [pause] But expenses have also been going up recently, because of the FTTPproject, with the Magellan contract. ### I think it would be great for UAC to ask staff to report separately a) expenses for running the dark fiber utility and b) expenses forstarting up the FTTP utility. I think it is about half a million to three-quarters million higher than normal. The run rate. Than previous. 1:25:09: Chair Segal: Oh. And those expenses are showing up. And so, it's not just for the dark fiber. It's also Magellan's fees and anything else. Isshowing up. 1:25:16: Dave Yuan: Right. 1:25:17: Chair Segal: OK. 1:25:17: Dave Yuan: I think they're under the contract expenses. 1:25:20: Chair Segal: OK. That makes sense. Any other fiber questions? OK. Then, I think we're moving on -- 1:25:32: Commissioner Forssell: Actually, could I ask one fiber question? 1:25:33: Chair Segai: Yeah. 1:25:33: Commissioner Forssell: Are there -- For many of our utilities, there are regulatory constraints on rate-setting. Are there -- What are the constraints on setting the rates for dark fiber utility? 1:25:50: Dave Yuan: Um. I don't think there is as restrictive as the other utilities, 'cause it's a competitive business. But we can ask Legal to weigh inand follow up with you. ### Even better: follow up with the entire UAC -- and the public. But based on our understanding, there isn't as much regulations on that one. 1:26:06: Commissioner Forssell: When was the last time we raised rates on the dark fiber utility? 1:26:11: Dave Yuan: Dark fiber. The EDF-3 I think was invoked around -- was it 2006 or so? If I have to guess. Or -- 2006 or 2009. It's been a while. ### The EDF-3 rate sheet was updated 07-01-23. Before that, it hadn't been updated since 09-18-06. https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/2/utilities/rates-schedules-for-utilities/commercial-utility-rates/edf-3-effective-2023-07.pdf Here's the 09-18-06 version: https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/1/utilities/rates-schedules-for-utilities/commercial-utility-rates/edf-3-effective-9-18-2006- [8108].pdf As far as I can see, all the rates are the same. Only the formatting is changed. So I don't understand why there are two versions. ### However, EDF-1 rates (for folks who got an especially good deal before 09-18-06) can go up every year by the Consumer Price Index(which was part of the deal).https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/4/utilities/rates-schedules-for-utilities/commercial-utility-rates/edf-1-effective-2023-07.pdf ### EDF-2 (rates for installing a dark fiber drop) can also go up every year by the CPI.https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/1/utilities/rates-schedules-for-utilities/service-calls-connection-fees-and-applicable-discounts/edf-2-effective-2020-07-01-[8084].pdf 1:26:23: Commissioner Forssell: So, rates have been flat for those customers for -- since 2006 -- 2009 -- somewhere in there. 1:26:29: Dave Yuan: Yes. But their fees are based on their mileage. ### It's more complicated than that. See the EDF-3 rate sheet. Footage. To the connection points. So it is a fixed unit amount. But it varies, depending on the size of the connection. 1:26:40: Commissioner Forssell: Got it. Thank you. 1:26:44: Dave Yuan: Um hum. 1:26:48: Chair Segal: OK. Any customer programs questions? Or communications? Let's just put the last few together, because -- programs,communications, or legislative. Regulatory and industry activity. Any questions? 1:27:04: Commissioner Croft: Yeah. I had a couple questions on the -- Well, I guess the first is, in the WaterSmart part of the report, it said that there was a control set of customers who did not have the portal. Do we -- And then, it also said, I think, that we're going to start gettingmailings in July 2023 -- I guess that would have happened. But is there any data on the active versus the control residences, and whetherthe portal has any effect on usage? 1:27:39: Karla Dailey: Um. Ah. For Palo Alto's experiment, I have not seen the results from that yet. I'm not sure when we're expecting that, but Ican get back to you on that. 1:27:52: Commissioner Croft: OK. That would be interesting to see. And then, I did -- I had a question, too, about the employers that have remainedkind of hybrid or remote that we thought would probably come back and -- What kind of usage changes have we seen for those employersthat have not fully come back? Are they using a lot less? Or -- I'm just kind of interested in the efficiencies that they might experience ifpeople aren't here. 1:28:24: [staff huddle] 1:28:36: Karla Dailey: I'm not aware of any data that we have. And being able to match the hybrid work environment to -- You know, knowing who those customers are. I don't think we have that data. We don't have that visibility. 1:28:54: Commissioner Croft: OK. I mean, it seems like if it's enough that it's caused a -- I think it was stated that it -- "a pause in facilitiesreinvestment and upgrading" -- ### Staff report, packet page 40. that totally makes sense. But it does seem like it also SHOULD hopefully reduce energy use. I would think that we would see somethingthere. And just to ask whether any of our programs have any smart building technology in them. Because I know that a lot of buildings are -- Or, there's an effort to implement -- you know, you don't heat a zone of a building unless people are actually in it. Or, you don't have thelights on unless people are in it. And things like this. That I wonder if that's part of any of our efficiency programs? 1:29:43: Director Batchelor: I don't think we do, but we'll have to get back to you on that. That portion of it. I mean, I think it's -- I think we did see, you know, during that timeframe when they went to hybrid, that we saw the commercial and the industrial side, you know, lessen their loads, from electrical as well as from a -- water supply costs. You know, we did see lower usage in those periods of time. And -- But I don't know if we've looked at -- We'd have to go back and look at individually -- if there's some increasing in the polling aspects of it. But we could definitely look at it and see. We'll get back to you. 1:30:25: Commissioner Croft: I don't know what the efficiency savings are. But I have read about this in the past -- and probably too long ago toremember what the efficiency savings are, but they're quite -- I think they're quite substantial savings that you can achieve with this kind ofsmart building. And just even, you know, time of day, when you go through daylight savings. I used to work in a building where I'd show upearly enough in the morning, and like just illuminating -- it's dark outside, and the entire building's illuminated, and nobody is inside. So, it's --for sure, if they're 80 percent of our electricity load -- I don't know. I'd be interested in hearing if anybody learns about it within Palo Altoutilities and decides that it should be part of those programs. 1:31:11: Karla Dailey: We do have -- I mean, we do have a program where we have a contractor go out and do energy assessments for our largecustomers. And so -- I mean, that kind of thing will get daylighted when they go out and do the assessment. But, yeah, I don't think weknow -- especially for smaller businesses -- if they're working hybrid-type schedules for us to target those. But that's an interesting idea. Thank you. 1:31:39: Commissioner Phillips: Is that contractor Enovity? 1:31:41: Karly Dailey: Yes. 1:31:42: Commissioner Phillips: And what's the relationship with Enovity? How does that work? 1:31:46: Karla Dailey: Um. Yeah. Basically, we have a contract with them to go out and do energy assessments for our large customers. They writeup a big report. And then, we have some rebate money available for different energy efficiency and electrification type projects. And Enovitygets paid for bringing it all together. 1:32:09: Commissioner Phillips: So, their goal is to go out and kind of find these opportunities? 1:32:12: Karla Dailey: Yup. 1:32:14: Commissioner Phillips: Um. I guess part of the picture I'm getting is, we don't have very good visibility, from a data point of view, into the commercial side. Which, kind of, overall, I find a little concerning, given the size of it. On the electric. Do we have a segmentation? Likelarge office, retail, data center? Do we have any way of tracking, or getting some visibility? Like, it's mentioned here, that, you know, it's"behind schedule" because of the "higher commercial vacancy" rates "in the market." ### Staff report, packet page 40. But it doesn't sound like we have a quantitative handle on that. We're kind of, I assume, taking anecdotal evidence? Or do we -- Doing it issimply not in the report. 1:32:59: Karla Dailey: Yeah. I don't want to imply we don't have any visibility into our commercial customers. And we did add a second UtilitiesServices Manager position last fall -- I guess it's been about a year ago now -- in order to place more focus on the commercial sector. Andso, she's been really getting her team together and ramping up those commercial-focused programs, and the outreach to those commercial customers. We have a meeting with the business development folks up in the City Manager's office, to try and share information, and get a handle on the best ways to reach out and communicate with these customers. But -- We've also had a key account program for many, many years. With two key account representatives, who know our largest customers quite well. The VA Hospitals. The Teslas. The Stanford Hospital. So, we have a lot of visibility into their business operations. And good strong relationships there. And now we're really looking to how do we dive down the next level and get more going with those customers as well. 12:34:36: Commissioner Phillips: Yeah. I would love, personally, at some point -- and then we have to gen- -- just to get a deeper -- a better view. Because I -- of -- and maybe even a presentation months down the line on, you know, what is the commercial strategy here on electricity? Given, again, that it's 80 percent, and it seems -- you know, 75 percent of what I'm reading is about residential. Which is great. But, youknow, that's 20 percent of the market. And, you know, I'd love to hear more what are the different -- you know, what are the differentsegments here? You know, what can we do for the different segments? You know, we're attracting -- bringing in two big data centers. Maybe there's not much we can do with them. Maybe we don't need to do much, because they're baseload. But just kind of going throughthis and saying, well, there's the, I don't know, the offices, the Googles, and Teslas. You know, we're seeing less usage there, and we planto see less usage. I really feel, I don't know, some blindness around that area, where I feel much -- like I have a much better view of what'sgoing on in residential. 1:35:20: Karla Dailey: Yeah. Now, one of the things we've been really focused on are all the combination -- um -- gas packs on the tops of smallbuildings. So, electric heating that is packaged with -- or, sorry, electric cooling that's packaged with gas heating. And looking at ways to head off replacements of those with heat pumps. And, actually, there's a little ceremony tomorrow out at the Peninsula Conservation Center down on East Bayshore that did exactly that kind of swap out. So, 11:00 o'clock tomorrow morning, I think, that the Mayor will be in attendance at that. And we're trying to figure out how to reach those customers, and how to -- you know, incentivize them to replace those with heat pumps before they go out and replace them with another gas unit. 1:36:18: Commissioner Phillips: Thank you. 1:36:24: Commissioner Forssell: Chair Segal, can I go back to the fiber utility real fast? 1:36:27: Chair Segal: Yea. 1:36:27: Commissioner Forssell: Sorry. I'm aware we've been on this topic for a long time. And, by the way, it's really awesome whoever put likelet's discuss the annual agenda on the report. i want to express appreciation. I don't recall us having done this before. But I think it's great. ### Yes. ### In the old days, each Utilities Quarterly Update was agendized, so commissioners could discuss it. I think it would be great to resume this practice. It would also be great to agendize each Utilities Quarterly Update as an ACTION item, so that if commissioners wanted to voteon how to advise Council, they could. On the fiber utility, my question is, have we ever seen, or could we see -- and maybe I'll ask this at the end of the meeting -- some dataaround our fiber rates and competitive -- you know, neighboring communities, or our competitors within Palo Alto? I would just love tounderstand whether -- how our rates compare for a similar product in this area, given that they haven't changed in a long time, when justabout everything else has gotten more expensive. 1:37:23: Director Batchelor: So, I think -- oh, go ahead, Dave. 1:37:25: Dave Yuan: OK. We have tried -- Sorry. It's Dave Yuan again. We have tried looking for that data. It is very difficult, just because it's such a unique business, what we do. Like, the other AT&Ts and Comcasts offer a managed service. So, it's not really a dark fiber service. So, all we give them is a conduit and some fiber strands, and they have to provide all the equipment, and light it up themselves, and manage it themselves. So, I don't think anyone else is really offering that. Maybe we can reach out to like Santa Monica and some other municipalities that have that same kind of business model. But for the third party private companies, I don't think they're doing that. 1:38:03: Commissioner Forssell: I think it would be super interesting. Like Santa Monica would be a great comparable in many ways. And -- 'Cause we're expanding the dark fiber. Right? ### Chattanooga might be another comparable. They have a dark fiber network, but they also have citywide FTTP, with internet speeds upto 25 Gbps. What do their dark fiber customers want that they can't get from FTTP? Data rates above 25 Gbps? Super-low latency andjitter? Dedicated (not shared) fiber for security? Ability to use protocols other than Ethernet? Quantum services? 1:38:13: Dave Yuan: The backbone. Yes, we are. 1:38:14: Commissioner Forssell: Yeah. Which means there's demand for this product. ### In the Magellan era, staff hasn't done an analysis to show that there's ongoing customer demand for dark fiber services. Magellan said that an analysis of consumer demand for dark fiber services would be difficult. Staff just said, in effect, "we need the dark fiber expansion because we need it." Staff said they polled lots of City departments that said they needed dark fiber, but didn't publish a report of which departments needed dark fiber for which applications. Staff said they needed an expansion of the dark fiber network for smart meters, but then implemented the infrastructure for smart meters using the existing dark fiber network. Staff said they needed an expansion of the dark fiber network for SCADA. (Other utilities use a variety of wired and wireless links.) I'm just wondering if we're sort of pricing to value or if we're pricing to cost. And ... 1:38:22: Dave Yuan: Yeah. 1:30:22: Commissioner Forssell: ... it would be interesting to learn more. I'll leave it at that. 1:38:25: Dave Yuan: Agreed. We have discussed it. Yes. OK. Will do. 1:38:29: Chair Segal: Sorry. And one more, and that is that we did put in a lot of money recently in the downtown upgrade. So, that was expanding the dark fiber. ### I'm not sure what Chair Segal is referring to. On 01-22-18, Council approved deploying conduit for fiber on University Avenue, as part of a larger project to fix water and gas lines there. Council Member DuBois (a FTTP advocate) opposed including fiber in this project because the cost to the Fiber Fund would have been $2,140,404. But rebidding the entire project would have been even more expensive, so Council approved it. On 04-09-18, Council approved reducing the cost to the Fiber Fund to $1,070202. I would be interested in knowing whether this conduit is now officially part of the City's dark fiber network, and whether it's being used. ### Over the years, the City has upgraded the dark fiber network in pieces, and it's been reported in various Utilities Quarterly Updates. Forexample, the 4Q19 Utilities Quarterly Update (PDF page 17) reports on a "Fiber Optic Network Rebuild Project."https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/1/agendas-minutes-reports/reports/uac-informational-reports/2019-informational- reports/december-4-2019/id-10721-mini-packet-12042019.pdf And, yeah, maybe we got more customers online as well. But -- Anyway, I guess, beating a dead horse. But -- it's been a long time. 1:38:50: Dave Yuan: OK. 1:38:53: Chair Segal: OK. Anything else? 1:38:55: Commissioner Croft: I had one -- just a comment on the EV. All of the EV initiatives. Which was that, you know, I think that it would benefitPalo Alto to have copious amounts of EV charging EVERYWHERE, both public, available to people who are driving to Palo Alto, as well as,of course, to multi-family residences that we've been focusing on. And I would hope that we could somehow overcome the barriers to puttingthose in where people want them but also just having more initiative to put them in here in Palo Alto for the public. Because, you know, there was this high-profile -- I think Granholm was, you know, going around on the East Coast, and articles were written about how difficult it was to charge her fleet everywhere she went. And I've experienced that all the time. I want to go to the museum up in the city, and I go into the garage, and there's four chargers, and two are non-functional, and all of them have cars parking at them. You know, sometimes not even plugged in. So, it's very frustrating. And I think, to be a modern city that encourages EVs, and wants to have people feel, you know, not have range anxiety when they're driving here, to come to our nice restaurants or visit anything here, I think we should have, you know, EV capability that matches our residents' interest in EVs. Which is very high, as we know. So, it was just a -- As I read it, I was thinking, wow, it's really hard to get these things in. It seems like there are a lot of barriers to moving the process along in a multiple of the initiatives. But I also just wanted to state that I really think -- Yeah, so I guess there's a goal of 180-360 ports in a technical assistance program, and only 16 -- or 15 ports have gone in. And it just -- These numbers seem like they should be ten times higher. So, it's just a comment. I don't know ifthere -- if you guys want to speak to it, but -- and the challenges. But it's just really a comment, to encourage us to try to move a little bitfaster. 1:41:20: Chair Segal: OK. I think, with that, thank you very much. This was a really productive, robust conversation. We will take -- can we do 7:50 -- and eight-minute break? Thanks. 1:41:33: BREAK ================================================== 2:32:02: Chair Segal: OK. Any future topics for upcoming meetings? 2:33:07: Commissioner Metz: Yes. One thing I'd like to suggest -- sort of a meta topic -- is, getting to a 12-month rolling calendar. That's kind of gotten really short. It would be helpful, at least for me, to be able to plan in advance what we're going to be talking about. So -- And ourbylaws call for it. So, I'd urge that we have a 12-month calendar. In terms of specific topics, grid modernization, I think, is an important one. I don't -- It may be listed here, but I don't see it. So, that's obviously an important one, that we talked a little bit about a few months ago. And, second topic, reliability and resiliency strategic plan update. That's scheduled for December. And I have a question about what'sincluded. Specifically, will that include resilience only when the grid's operating? Or does it also address, you know, major grid failure, andwhat we do in that event? And I think those are the two areas I'd like to request as topics. 2:34:25: Commissioner Forssell: Yeah. Just to mention it at the appropriate time, I think it would be really awesome to have that conversation aboutthe fiber utility -- the dark fiber utility. And rates. And if there are comparisons available. Just to understand those financials better. 2:34:43: Commissioner Phillips: And, going back, I'd like to see something at some point about the commercial electricity segmentation and plans specific to the commercial sector. 2:34:57: Chair Segal: And then the one -- I think I might have mentioned -- I don't know -- about -- I'd love to have another security meeting, both physical security and digital security. Whether that's an additional meeting or a closed-door session, or however it has to be. But I think it's probably time. 2:35:21: Great. And with that, I think we are adjourned. Anyone want to move to adjourn? 2:35:26: Commissioner Phillips: Move to adjourn. 2:35:29: Commissioner Forssell: I second. 2:35:31: Chair Segal: I think we can all say aye. 2:35:33: All: Aye. 2:35:34: Chair Segal: Thank you, everyone. Really good discussion. END ============================================================================================================ From:Doug Kelly To:City Mgr; Council, City Subject:Hybrid Meetings Date:Tuesday, November 14, 2023 3:14:06 PM Some people who received this message don't often get email from dougkelly@costmarin.org. Learn why this isimportant CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor Burke and Council Members, As a Member of the Board of Directors of CO$T we are working hard to ensure transparency and full public participation in public meetings. We just lost a dear friend and long-time board member who had a serious illness and was autoimmune compromised. We know that those with such health issues can’t attend public meetings in person. It’ss also true that low income people may not be able to afford child care to attend meetings, Many older citizens don’t like to drive at night. For these reasons we urge all local public agencies to continue to allow the public to attend meetings virtually via zoom or other apps. We are well aware of the recent “zoom bombing” with hate speech. We also know that the Supreme Court has made it clear that anonymous speech and hate speech are permitted according to the Constitution. We also know that The court has allowed public agencies to limit speech to topics under the jurisdiction of that agency. CO$T Marin has a simple solution and one that we believe is completely legal. If all public comments via zoom are required to use the chat feature, which can be seen only by the Council and selected public servants and if the Clerk of the Board is directed to read all public comments that are under the jurisdiction of the Council then the public is served and racists rants are not part of the discussion. As a side note I too am an elected person and my agency is still offering hybrid meetings. We hope the Palo Alto Council l will ask their council to review this thought and would love to hear back from you. Doug Kelly 415-432-0630Director/Coalition of Sensible Taxpayers From:Friends of the Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo To:Council, City Subject:Our July 2022 - June 2023 Annual Report Date:Tuesday, November 14, 2023 12:30:47 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of openingattachments and clicking on links. Logo_Full_Color_CMYK.jpg Our July 2022 - June 2023 Annual ReportNovember 14, 2023 Dear Friends, It is with gratitude that I share with you our annual report, which you can download here. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, this year the Friends continued to support andenhance the JMZ, most notably with the opening of the new, permanent exhibit, the California Dinosaur Garden. For the first time, we brought the JMZ’s Science Outreachprogram to 216 elementary school children in the Redwood City School District, while continuing to serve children in the Ravenswood City School District and East Palo AltoCharter School. We continued to make the JMZ more inclusive and accessible,collaborating with local organizations like Friendship Circle, CoolineKids and Vista Centerfor the Blind, to introduce and bring new families to the museum and zoo. These are onlya few highlights of our work this year, which you can read more about in our report. Please mark your calendar for GivingTuesday, the day of charitable giving, on November28. I hope you will consider making a donation to The Friends of the JMZ’s Annual Fundat friendsjmz.org/donate. The Annual Fund provides general operating support that allows us to allocate dollars where they are most needed at the JMZ, and to fund important programs, such as Science Outreach. A generous donor has offered to match every dollar donated to the Friends that day, up to $10,000. I know we can inspire a love for science in even more children with your help! Thank you again for your continued support of the Friends, Lauren AngeloPresident, Friends of the Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo Friends of the Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zooinfo@friendsjmz.org | www.friendsjmz.org DONATE NOW Connect with us Friends of the JMZ | 1451 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, CA 94301 Unsubscribe city.council@cityofpaloalto.org Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice Sent by info@friendsjmz.org powered by Try email marketing for free today! From:WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto To:Chuck Jagoda Cc:Linda Jolley; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Wagner, April; Aram James; Binder, Andrew; Bryan Gobin; Cecilia Taylor; Cerise Castle; Cindy Chavez; Council, City; D Martell; Daniel Barton; Dave Price; David S. Norris; Diana Diamond; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; DuJuan Green; EPA Today; Ed Lauing; Emily Mibach; Enberg, Nicholas; GRP-City Council; Gennady Sheyner; Greer Stone; Greg Tanaka; Human Relations Commission; Jeff Moore; Joe Simitian; Joe Simitian; Jose Valle; Josh Becker; Julie Lythcott-Haims; KEVIN JENSEN; Kaloma Smith; Karen Holman; Lewis james; Maelin Aquino; Megan James; Zelkha, Mila; Van Der Zwaag, Minka; Bains, Paul; Paul George @ PPJC; Raj Jayadev; Randy Higgins; Raymond Goins; Reifschneider, James; Representative Eshoo; Richard Konda; Roberta Ahlquist; Salem Ajluni; Sean Allen; Shana Segal; Shikada, Ed; Stump, Molly; Sue Dremann; Supervisor Otto Lee; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Tom DuBois; Vara Ramakrishnan; Perron, Zachary; alisa mallari tu; Barberini, Christopher; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Lee, Craig; cromero@cityofepa.org; dennis burns; districtattorney@sfgov.org; editor@paweekly.com; Figueroa, Eric; Jensen, Eric; friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com; Hornung, Joel; ladoris cordell; rabrica@cityofepa.org; walter wilson; yolanda Subject:Re: Cease-fire now -Daily Post, Nov, 13, 2023 Date:Tuesday, November 14, 2023 8:37:05 AM Attachments:D3F4F574-10D1-4FD1-B693-7982E0B77D4B.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. excellent, as always! Judy A On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 4:30 PM Chuck Jagoda <jagodachuck@gmail.com> wrote:Hi Linda and Aram! I agree with you both. Israel is doing a very good job of imitating the Nazis— inhuman crime by inhuman crime. Linda have you seen Jack? Love to all, Chuck On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 4:25 PM Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com> wrote:Aram - Right after the Hamas attack I began studying the background extensively. It is clear to methat your Post letter is right on target. And I am soproud of you for reaching out to city councils and so many individuals! Let there be anation-wide uprising to put down the bullshit ourgovernment has fed us for 75 years, and stop funding the terrorist nation of Israel! Linda Jolley On Monday, November 13, 2023 at 02:09:34 PM PST, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: From:Aram James To:Angie, Palo Alto Renters Association; Council, City; Diana Diamond; District7@sanjoseca.gov; DuJuan Green;Lauing, Ed; Human Relations Commission; Jack Ajluni; Joe Simitian; Josh Becker; Julie Lythcott-Haims; KEVINJENSEN; Lewis James; Lewis james; Palo Alto Free Press; Reifschneider, James; Rosen, Jeff; Sean Allen; SeanWebby; Shana Segal; Shikada, Ed; Sue Dremann; Supervisor Cindy Chavez; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto;citycouncil@mountainview.gov; dennis burns; supervisor.ellenberg+newsletter@bos.sccgov.org Subject:The Israel as Disneyland myth Date:Tuesday, November 14, 2023 12:16:00 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Raised to see Israel as a ‘Jewish Disneyland’, two US film-makers are telling a different story https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/nov/12/israelism-documentary-american-jewish- israel-palestine-conflict From:Mary Beth Train To:Council, City Subject:Thank you for upzoning for housing on El Camino Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 9:02:55 PM Some people who received this message don't often get email from mbt3305@yahoo.com. Learn why this isimportant CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Thank you for upzoning for housing on El Camino. Thank you also for your careful work on setbacks tonight. -- Mary Beth Mary Beth Train - Home office phone 650-324-7346 *voice only, not text* -mbt3305@yahoo.com From:Harris, Alexandra To:Lindgren, Gary Cc:City Mgr; Council, City Subject:RE: Fiber to the Home (Ticket# 2219) Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 6:19:12 PM Attachments:image001.pngimage003.pngimage004.pngimage007.pngimage008.pngimage009.png Hi Gary, According to market conditions monitored by staff, the City would align our fiber internet services and prices to be competitive with other providers including Sonic, which provides services within Palo Alto. The City will continue to require companies that wish to provide internet services within Palo Alto to follow standard business processes. Regards, Alexandra Harris From: gel@theconnection.com <gel@theconnection.com> Sent: Monday, November 13, 2023 1:45 PM To: Harris, Alexandra <Alexandra.Harris@CityofPaloAlto.org> Cc: City Mgr <CityMgr@cityofpaloalto.org>; Council, City <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org> Subject: RE: Fiber to the Home (Ticket# 2219) CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hello Alexandra, Thank you for the reply. I am familiar with all the items you mentioned. But the problem I see is that it will be several years from now before the first residents are hooked up to the cities fiber network. As you mentioned engineers need to be hired and workers hired and trained and plans need to be put together. And lots of money spent to get this going. Sonic.net is a local company based in Santa Rosa. They have the infrastructure in place. They have the engineering in place. Best of all Sonic has an excellent reputation. Many of us residents in Palo Alto have been Sonic customers for several years. Right now I’ve heard that Sonic is offering 10Gb fiber for $49.99/ month. Will the City be able to match that? My question is: if Sonic wants to come to Palo Alto and offer its services, how would Palo Alto respond? Thank You and Take Care, Gary Lindgren From: Harris, Alexandra <Alexandra.Harris@CityofPaloAlto.org> Sent: Tuesday, November 7, 2023 12:41 PM To: Lindgren, Gary <gel@theconnection.com> Cc: City Mgr <CityMgr@cityofpaloalto.org>; Council, City <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org> Subject: Fiber to the Home (Ticket# 2219) Hello Gary, Thank you for sharing your input about the fiber broadband project. On December 19, 2022, the City Council approved the expansion/rebuild of the existing dark fiber backbone and a phased approach to “build the last mile” to provide municipal broadband internet (see meeting Agenda report ID#14800 and Council’s decision in the Minutes.) Although there are existing internet service providers covering the City of Palo Alto, some areas still lack access to fiber broadband internet. Plus, the community expressed strong interest in having more options, specifically a municipal broadband internet option. Some reasons the City will offer municipal broadband internet include: 1. High speed internet: Fiber broadband has faster speeds and lower latency than traditional cable or DSL networks. 2. Affordable pricing: Community broadband networks provide high-speed, reliable connections at affordable costs. 3. Competition: Public investment in broadband infrastructure creates competition, improving services and keeping costs down for reliable high-speed internet. 4. Locally owned: Whereas large corporations are accountable to their shareholders, the Palo Alto Fiber network is accountable to our community, creating more responsiveness and local control. 5. Service excellence: Improved customer service over existing internet service providers. The decision to provide municipal fiber broadband internet evolved over years of careful deliberation. On May 24, 2021 the City Council was presented with various partnership models during the more recent decision-making process and decided to select the business model with more local ownership and financial control (see meeting Agenda report ID#12117 and Council’s decision in the Minutes). If you would like to share your comments with the City Council, you may do so at their meetings, by emailing them at city.council@cityofpaloalto.org, or mail. Again, thank you for your input and questions. You can stay updated on the project by visiting www.cityofpaloalto.org/PaloAltoFiber or at the Fiber Hub. Best Regards, ALEXANDRA HARRIS Sr. Business Analyst City of Palo Alto Utilities Department (650) 329-2410 | Alexandra.Harris@cityofpaloalto.org www.cityofpaloalto.org From:Rice, Danille To:Council, City; Clerk, City Cc:Executive Leadership Team Subject:City.Council Bundle 10/21 - 11/9 Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 5:26:34 PM Attachments:RE 739 Sutter Avenue Residential Project 21PLN-0022222PLN-00201.msgRE Assistive tech for visually impaired.msgFW Gamble Garden Grievance Letter.msgRE Regarding the Application for Amending of PC2343 - 702 Ellsworth Place and 2901 - 2905 MiddlefieldRoad.msgRe Lets tag them no tags on any of these vehicles .msgFW Additional comments on Historic Resources Inventory process.msgRE Objection to declaring 162 Bryant St on the historic preservation list.msgRE Palo Alto Historical Inventory - Objection Letter for 947 Waverley Street.msgRE No ADU FAR bonus for SB9 project.msgRE Jeffries Home - 975 Hamilton Avenue Remove Our Home From Historic Preservation Consideration.msgRE Palo Alto Historic Inventory - 360 Kellogg Ave Objection Letter.msgRE Palo Alto Historical Inventory - Objection Letter for 317 High Street and 323 High Street.msgRE Objection HRB inclusion - 385 Waverley Street.msgFW_ 48 Hour Power Shut Offs for Low Income Residents Response.msgRE_ A question about UpliftLocal.msgimage001.png Importance:High Good evening Mayor and Councilmembers, On behalf of City Manager Ed Shikada, please see attached staff responses to emails received in the City.Council inbox through November 13, 2023. Respectfully, Danille Danille RiceAdministrative AssistantCity Manager’s Office|Human Resources(650) 329-2229 | danille.rice@cityofpaloalto.orgwww.cityofpaloalto.org From:Alon Saggie To:Kou, Lydia; Council, City Subject:Invitation to join the Run for Their Lives neighborhood walk Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 4:57:15 PM Some people who received this message don't often get email from alon.saggie@gmail.com. Learn why this isimportant CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor Kou and the Palo Alto City Council, My name is Alon Saggie, and I am one of the founders of Run For Their Lives. I'm also acongregant of Etz Chayim here in Palo Alto. I'm writing to invite you to join our local walk happening this Sunday at 12:30pm. Run For Their Lives (https://run4lives.org) is a global grassroots effort advocating for 239civilians held hostage in Gaza. Last week over 40 groups worldwide participated in solidarity walks/runs. This weekend, we expect over 100 groups across 5 continents. As our movementexpands, we would be honored to have Palo Alto's officials walk alongside us. By uniting communities locally while connecting globally, we aim to raise awareness and urge leaders to bring these innocent people home. Our peaceful neighborhood walks demonstratethe power of grassroots action. Families and residents come together wearing red shirts and carrying flags representing the nationalities of the hostages during a short 20 minutes walk. As leaders of Palo Alto's vibrant Jewish and Israeli community, we would be thrilled if youcould join us in solidarity this Sunday afternoon. Please let me know if you are able to attend or need any additional information. Sincerely,Alon Saggie (408) 656-9648 From:Chuck Jagoda To:Linda Jolley Cc:<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Wagner, April; Aram James; Binder, Andrew; Bryan Gobin; Cecilia Taylor; Cerise Castle; Cindy Chavez; Council, City; D Martell; Daniel Barton; Dave Price; David S. Norris; Diana Diamond; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; DuJuan Green; EPA Today; Ed Lauing; Emily Mibach; Enberg, Nicholas; GRP-City Council; Gennady Sheyner; Greer Stone; Greg Tanaka; Human Relations Commission; Jeff Moore; Joe Simitian; Joe Simitian; Jose Valle; Josh Becker; Julie Lythcott-Haims; KEVIN JENSEN; Kaloma Smith; Karen Holman; Lewis james; Maelin Aquino; Megan James; Zelkha, Mila; Van Der Zwaag, Minka; Bains, Paul; Paul George @ PPJC; Raj Jayadev; Randy Higgins; Raymond Goins; Reifschneider, James; Representative Eshoo; Richard Konda; Roberta Ahlquist; Salem Ajluni; Sean Allen; Shana Segal; Shikada, Ed; Stump, Molly; Sue Dremann; Supervisor Otto Lee; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Tom DuBois; Vara Ramakrishnan; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; alisa mallari tu; Barberini, Christopher; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Lee, Craig; cromero@cityofepa.org; dennis burns; districtattorney@sfgov.org; editor@paweekly.com; Figueroa, Eric; Jensen, Eric; friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com; Hornung, Joel; ladoris cordell; rabrica@cityofepa.org; walter wilson; yolanda Subject:Re: Cease-fire now -Daily Post, Nov, 13, 2023 Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 4:30:49 PM Attachments:D3F4F574-10D1-4FD1-B693-7982E0B77D4B.png Some people who received this message don't often get email from jagodachuck@gmail.com. Learn why this isimportant CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hi Linda and Aram! I agree with you both. Israel is doing a very good job of imitating the Nazis— inhuman crime by inhuman crime. Linda have you seen Jack? Love to all, Chuck On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 4:25 PM Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com> wrote:Aram - Right after the Hamas attack I began studying the background extensively. It is clear to me that your Post letter is right on target. And I am soproud of you for reaching out to city councils and so many individuals! Let there be a nation-wide uprising to put down the bullshit ourgovernment has fed us for 75 years, and stop funding the terrorist nation of Israel! Linda Jolley On Monday, November 13, 2023 at 02:09:34 PM PST, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: From:Linda Jolley To:<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Wagner, April; Binder, Andrew; Bryan Gobin; Cecilia Taylor; Cerise Castle;Cindy Chavez; Council, City; D Martell; Daniel Barton; Dave Price; David S. Norris; Diana Diamond; Don Austin;Donna Wallach; DuJuan Green; EPA Today; Ed Lauing; Emily Mibach; Enberg, Nicholas; Jensen, Eric; GRP-CityCouncil; Gennady Sheyner; Greer Stone; Greg Tanaka; Human Relations Commission; Jeff Moore; Joe Simitian;Joe Simitian; Hornung, Joel; Jose Valle; Josh Becker; Julie Lythcott-Haims; KEVIN JENSEN; Kaloma Smith; KarenHolman; Lewis james; Maelin Aquino; Megan James; Zelkha, Mila; Van Der Zwaag, Minka; Bains, Paul; PaulGeorge @ PPJC; Raj Jayadev; Randy Higgins; Raymond Goins; Reifschneider, James; Representative Eshoo;Richard Konda; Roberta Ahlquist; Salem Ajluni; Sean Allen; Shana Segal; Shikada, Ed; Stump, Molly; SueDremann; Supervisor Otto Lee; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Tom DuBois; Vara Ramakrishnan; WILPF PeninsulaPalo Alto; Perron, Zachary; alisa mallari tu; Barberini, Christopher; chuck jagoda; citycouncil@mountainview.gov;Lee, Craig; cromero@cityofepa.org; dennis burns; districtattorney@sfgov.org; editor@paweekly.com; Figueroa,Eric; friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com; ladoris cordell; rabrica@cityofepa.org; walter wilson; yolanda; AramJames Cc:AramJames Subject:Re: Cease-fire now -Daily Post, Nov, 13, 2023 Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 4:25:30 PM Attachments:D3F4F574-10D1-4FD1-B693-7982E0B77D4B.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Aram - Right after the Hamas attack I began studying the background extensively. It is clear to me that your Post letter is right on target. And I am soproud of you for reaching out to city councils and so many individuals! Let there be a nation- wide uprising to put down the bullshit ourgovernment has fed us for 75 years, and stop funding the terrorist nation of Israel! Linda Jolley On Monday, November 13, 2023 at 02:09:34 PM PST, Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: From:Liz Gardner To:Council, City Subject:2000 Units in ROLM COM INDUS is Not Climate Action Friendly Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 4:14:05 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Honorable Mayor Kuo and City Council Members, I am writing to address the housing zoning item on the Council's agenda thisevening Monday, November 13 2023. There is a great need in our community to zone for housing in denser areas of our city where infrastructure already exists and where humans will thrive and grow andbe truly integrated and a part of the whole solution to climate and where we can alltake part in being the best of all us . This is planning for housing near schools, senior centers, libraries,community centers, the art center. Today I write in opposition of the city of plopping down 2000 units of housing to the far edges of a ROLM/COM/IND. An untested area for residential living. As is well established, this outer zone is far from good bike transit, train, bus or playgrounds, schools, civic centers. The very centers and resources that connect, move and employ us, as humans. While at the same time, the city hawks climate as an existential challenge to confront and yet goes the very opposite with identifying the climate unfriendly Bay to justify a housing quotient. So I am not sure why the city does an about face and pushes most of the new housing units where there is no tree canopy, on a major polluted freeway corridor and on top of sea level rise. Away from hospitals, urgent care, public safetyincluding first responders and fire stations. And before settling on this large swath of flood prone bay land for housing, why not disperse housing within the safety of the city where. Distribute housing equitably,evenly throughout and near where there are all the amenities appropriate for humanhabitat and clearly is more climate friendly. As well, look at Lihana (sp) Maui where fires ravaged people and their homes, justa couple of months ago, on the edge of a coast line. Stacking housing in the Bay lands, an area where the environment is made up ofsand, is dry and arid and exposed to the rising Earth's temperatures and our rising sea and bay waters, is not an environmentally sound decision. I look forward to the discussion this evening. Sincerely, Liz Gardner Palo Alto From:Zhenxing Gu Cc:Council, City Subject:Fwd: Objection to Maxar"s proposal of diesel generators (A/N# 32052) Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 4:01:57 PM Some people who received this message don't often get email from zhenxinggu2017@gmail.com. Learn why thisis important CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Sir or Madam, I hope this message finds you well. My name is Yinghua Gu and I am writing this e-mail onbehalf of my father Zhenxing Gu who lives at Alta Torre Apartment on 3895 Fabian Way. We are writing to express our sincere concerns regarding the proposed installation of a dieselgenerator by Maxar near my dad’s apartment. We kindly request that you consider denying this proposal. As an 80-year-old resident who has been a part of this community for many years, he hascome to value the serenity and clean air that the neighborhood provides. The prospect of a diesel generator being installed nearby has raised significant apprehension, not only for myfather but also for numerous fellow senior residents at Alta Torre. Diesel generators are known to emit harmful pollutants, including particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide. These emissions can have a severe impact on the health andwell-being of the community, and they are especially concerning for elderly residents like my father. The health risks associated with such pollutants include exacerbation of respiratoryissues and an increased likelihood of heart problems. Moreover, the noise and vibrations generated by diesel generators could disrupt our peaceful way of life and negatively affect ourquality of life. Given these health and environmental concerns, we earnestly request that you deny the proposal for the diesel generator's installation. Instead, we propose that Maxar should explorecleaner and more sustainable alternatives, with a strong preference for solar power or other clean energy solutions. We firmly believe that the advantages of adopting clean energysources far outweigh the drawbacks of a diesel generator. We kindly request that you take our concerns and the concerns of our community into account and deny the proposal for the diesel generator's installation. Your attention to this matter is greatly appreciated. We hope that we can work together toensure a cleaner and healthier future for our community. Thank you for your understanding and consideration. Sincerely, Zhenxing Gu & Yinghua Gu Tel: 408-218-8766Address: 3895 Fabian Way, Apt 409, Palo Alto, CA 94303 From:Jennifer Gu To:Council, City Subject:Fwd: Objection to Maxar"s proposal of diesel generator (A/N# 32052) Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 4:00:18 PM Some people who received this message don't often get email from jennifergu3@gmail.com. Learn why this isimportant CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Sir or Madam, We received notification of the proposal of Maxar's proposal to install the diesel generators ontheir campus which is right next to my property at Atlaire. I'm strongly opposed to Maxar's proposal for diesel generators, especially given their proximity to our Altaire community. The noise generated by diesel generators is a major concern, particularly for our residentialarea. The constant hum can significantly impact the quality of life for those in close proximity. Moreover, the environmental impact of diesel generators is undeniable. The emissions, including nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, contribute to air pollution with known healthimplications. The distinct odor of diesel exhaust adds another layer of concern, creating a less-than-ideal living or working environment. We have young children dealing with asthma and seniors having sensitive lung issues,adding pollution to their homes is unacceptable. Please do NOT approve this project. They should seek more environmentally friendly solutions i.e. solar panels. Please do NOT approve this proposal. Many thanks,Jennifer Tel: 650-475-6672 From:Linda Jolley To:dmpaloalto@gmail.com; Aram James Cc:<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Wagner, April; Binder, Andrew; Bryan Gobin; Cecilia Taylor; Cerise Castle; Cindy Chavez; Council, City; Daniel Barton; Dave Price; David S. Norris; Diana Diamond; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; DuJuan Green; EPA Today; Ed Lauing; Emily Mibach; Enberg, Nicholas; Jensen, Eric; GRP-City Council; Gennady Sheyner; Greer Stone; Greg Tanaka; Human Relations Commission; Jeff Moore; Joe Simitian; Joe Simitian; Hornung, Joel; Jose Valle; Josh Becker; Julie Lythcott-Haims; KEVIN JENSEN; Kaloma Smith; Karen Holman; Lewis james; Maelin Aquino; Megan James; Zelkha, Mila; Van Der Zwaag, Minka; Bains, Paul; Paul George @ PPJC; Raj Jayadev; Randy Higgins; Raymond Goins; Reifschneider, James; Representative Eshoo; Richard Konda; Roberta Ahlquist; Salem Ajluni; Sean Allen; Shana Segal; Shikada, Ed; Stump, Molly; Sue Dremann; Supervisor Otto Lee; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Tom DuBois; Vara Ramakrishnan; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; alisa mallari tu; Barberini, Christopher; chuck jagoda; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Lee, Craig; cromero@cityofepa.org; dennis burns; districtattorney@sfgov.org; editor@paweekly.com; Figueroa, Eric; friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com; ladoris cordell; rabrica@cityofepa.org; walter wilson; yolanda; Dave Price Subject:Re: Cease-fire now -Daily Post, Nov, 13, 2023 Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 3:56:21 PM Attachments:D3F4F574-10D1-4FD1-B693-7982E0B77D4B.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Your level of perfection leaves me speechless, a r a m. Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 3:46 PM, D Martell <dmpaloalto@gmail.com> wrote: You have made some excellent points; very well put. -Danielle Martell, Palo Alto ---------- Forwarded message ---------From: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> Date: Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 2:09 PMSubject: Cease-fire now -Daily Post, Nov, 13, 2023 To: <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com> <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>, April Wagner<april.wagner@cityofpaloalto.org>, Binder, Andrew <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>, Bryan Gobin <appeal.bryan.gobin@gmail.com>,Cecilia Taylor <cmrstaylor@gmail.com>, Cerise Castle <cerise@knock.la>, Cindy Chavez <cindy.chavez@bos.sccgov.org>, CityCouncil <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>, DMartell <dmpaloalto@gmail.com>, Daniel Barton <dbarton@nbo.law>, Dave Price <price@padailypost.com>, David S. Norris <dsnorris@menlopark.gov>, Diana Diamond<dianaLdiamond@gmail.com>, Don Austin <daustin@pausd.org>, Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>, DuJuan Green <dujuang@sbcglobal.net>, EPA Today<epatoday@epatoday.org>, Ed Lauing <elauing@equitysearchpartners.com>, Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>, Enberg, Nicholas<nicholas.enberg@cityofpaloalto.org>, <Eric.Jensen@cityofpaloalto.org>, GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>, Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>,Greer Stone <gstone22@gmail.com>, Greg Tanaka <greg@gregtanaka.org>, Human Relations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>, Jeff Moore <moore2j@att.net>, JoeSimitian <info@joesimitian.com>, Joe Simitian <joe.simitian@bos.sccgov.org>, <Joel.Hornung@cityofpaloalto.org>, Jose Valle <jvalle1800@gmail.com>, Josh Becker <becker.josh@gmail.com>, Julie Lythcott-Haims <julieforpaloalto@gmail.com>, KEVINJENSEN <KP14him@aol.com>, Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>, Karen Holman <rsvp.paloalto.2022@gmail.com>, Lewis james <alphonse9947@gmail.com>,Linda Jolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>, Maelin Aquino <maquino@asianlawalliance.org>, Megan James <meganjz@juno.com>, Mila Zelkha<mila.zelkha@gmail.com>, Minka Van Der Zwaag, <minka.vanderzwaag@cityofpaloalto.org>, Paul Bains <pbains7@projectwehope.com>,Paul George @ PPJC <peaceandjusticecenter@gmail.com>, Raj Jayadev <raj@siliconvalleydebug.org>, Randy Higgins <randall.higgins@gmail.com>, RaymondGoins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>, Reifschneider, James <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>, Representative Eshoo<ca16aeima@mail.house.gov>, Richard Konda <rkonda@asianlawalliance.org>, Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>, Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>, Sean Allen<sallen6444@yahoo.com>, Shana Segal <voteshanasegal@gmail.com>, Shikada, Ed <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>, Stump, Molly <molly.stump@cityofpaloalto.org>, SueDremann <sdremann@paweekly.com>, Supervisor Otto Lee <supervisor.lee@bos.sccgov.org>, Supervisor Susan Ellenberg<supervisor.ellenberg@bos.sccgov.org>, Tom DuBois <tom.dubois@gmail.com>, Vara Ramakrishnan <vara@acm.org>, WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto<wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>, Zachary.Perron@CityofPaloAlto.org <zachary.perron@cityofpaloalto.org>, alisa mallari tu <alisa@justlikefamily.com>,<christopher.barberini@cityofpaloalto.org>, chuck jagoda <jagodachuck@gmail.com>, <citycouncil@mountainview.gov>, <craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>,<cromero@cityofepa.org>, dennis burns <dennis.r.burns@gmail.com>, <districtattorney@sfgov.org>, <editor@paweekly.com>,<eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org>, <friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com>, ladoris cordell <ladoris@judgecordell.com>, <rabrica@cityofepa.org>, walter wilson<walterlwilson@hotmail.com>, yolanda <yolanda@rocketmail.com> From:D Martell To:Aram James Cc:<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Wagner, April; Binder, Andrew; Bryan Gobin; Cecilia Taylor; Cerise Castle; Cindy Chavez; Council, City; Daniel Barton; Dave Price; David S. Norris; Diana Diamond; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; DuJuan Green; EPA Today; Ed Lauing; Emily Mibach; Enberg, Nicholas; Jensen, Eric; GRP-City Council; Gennady Sheyner; Greer Stone; Greg Tanaka; Human Relations Commission; Jeff Moore; Joe Simitian; Joe Simitian; Hornung, Joel; Jose Valle; Josh Becker; Julie Lythcott-Haims; KEVIN JENSEN; Kaloma Smith; Karen Holman; Lewis james; Linda Jolley; Maelin Aquino; Megan James; Zelkha, Mila; Van Der Zwaag, Minka; Bains, Paul; Paul George @ PPJC; Raj Jayadev; Randy Higgins; Raymond Goins; Reifschneider, James; Representative Eshoo; Richard Konda; Roberta Ahlquist; Salem Ajluni; Sean Allen; Shana Segal; Shikada, Ed; Stump, Molly; Sue Dremann; Supervisor Otto Lee; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Tom DuBois; Vara Ramakrishnan; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; alisa mallari tu; Barberini, Christopher; chuck jagoda; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Lee, Craig; cromero@cityofepa.org; dennis burns; districtattorney@sfgov.org; editor@paweekly.com; Figueroa, Eric; friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com; ladoris cordell; rabrica@cityofepa.org; walter wilson; yolanda; Dave Price Subject:Re: Cease-fire now -Daily Post, Nov, 13, 2023 Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 3:46:53 PM Attachments:D3F4F574-10D1-4FD1-B693-7982E0B77D4B.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. You have made some excellent points; very well put. -Danielle Martell, Palo Alto ---------- Forwarded message ---------From: Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com>Date: Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 2:09 PMSubject: Cease-fire now -Daily Post, Nov, 13, 2023To: <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com> <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>, April Wagner<april.wagner@cityofpaloalto.org>, Binder, Andrew <Andrew.Binder@cityofpaloalto.org>,Bryan Gobin <appeal.bryan.gobin@gmail.com>, Cecilia Taylor <cmrstaylor@gmail.com>,Cerise Castle <cerise@knock.la>, Cindy Chavez <cindy.chavez@bos.sccgov.org>,CityCouncil <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org>, D Martell <dmpaloalto@gmail.com>, DanielBarton <dbarton@nbo.law>, Dave Price <price@padailypost.com>, David S. Norris<dsnorris@menlopark.gov>, Diana Diamond <dianaLdiamond@gmail.com>, Don Austin<daustin@pausd.org>, Donna Wallach <donnaisanactivist@gmail.com>, DuJuan Green<dujuang@sbcglobal.net>, EPA Today <epatoday@epatoday.org>, Ed Lauing<elauing@equitysearchpartners.com>, Emily Mibach <emibach@padailypost.com>, Enberg,Nicholas <nicholas.enberg@cityofpaloalto.org>, <Eric.Jensen@cityofpaloalto.org>, GRP-City Council <council@redwoodcity.org>, Gennady Sheyner <GSheyner@paweekly.com>,Greer Stone <gstone22@gmail.com>, Greg Tanaka <greg@gregtanaka.org>, HumanRelations Commission <hrc@cityofpaloalto.org>, Jeff Moore <moore2j@att.net>, JoeSimitian <info@joesimitian.com>, Joe Simitian <joe.simitian@bos.sccgov.org>,<Joel.Hornung@cityofpaloalto.org>, Jose Valle <jvalle1800@gmail.com>, Josh Becker<becker.josh@gmail.com>, Julie Lythcott-Haims <julieforpaloalto@gmail.com>, KEVINJENSEN <KP14him@aol.com>, Kaloma Smith <pastor@universityamez.com>, KarenHolman <rsvp.paloalto.2022@gmail.com>, Lewis james <alphonse9947@gmail.com>, LindaJolley <lindajolley9@yahoo.com>, Maelin Aquino <maquino@asianlawalliance.org>, MeganJames <meganjz@juno.com>, Mila Zelkha <mila.zelkha@gmail.com>, Minka Van DerZwaag, <minka.vanderzwaag@cityofpaloalto.org>, Paul Bains<pbains7@projectwehope.com>, Paul George @ PPJC <peaceandjusticecenter@gmail.com>,Raj Jayadev <raj@siliconvalleydebug.org>, Randy Higgins <randall.higgins@gmail.com>,Raymond Goins <goinsrayl@gmail.com>, Reifschneider, James <james.reifschneider@cityofpaloalto.org>, Representative Eshoo<ca16aeima@mail.house.gov>, Richard Konda <rkonda@asianlawalliance.org>, Roberta Ahlquist <roberta.ahlquist@sjsu.edu>, Salem Ajluni <ajluni@hotmail.com>, Sean Allen<sallen6444@yahoo.com>, Shana Segal <voteshanasegal@gmail.com>, Shikada, Ed <Ed.Shikada@cityofpaloalto.org>, Stump, Molly <molly.stump@cityofpaloalto.org>, SueDremann <sdremann@paweekly.com>, Supervisor Otto Lee <supervisor.lee@bos.sccgov.org>, Supervisor Susan Ellenberg<supervisor.ellenberg@bos.sccgov.org>, Tom DuBois <tom.dubois@gmail.com>, Vara Ramakrishnan <vara@acm.org>, WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto<wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com>, Zachary.Perron@CityofPaloAlto.org <zachary.perron@cityofpaloalto.org>, alisa mallari tu <alisa@justlikefamily.com>,<christopher.barberini@cityofpaloalto.org>, chuck jagoda <jagodachuck@gmail.com>, <citycouncil@mountainview.gov>, <craig.lee@cityofpaloalto.org>,<cromero@cityofepa.org>, dennis burns <dennis.r.burns@gmail.com>, <districtattorney@sfgov.org>, <editor@paweekly.com>, <eric.figueroa@cityofpaloalto.org>,<friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com>, ladoris cordell <ladoris@judgecordell.com>, <rabrica@cityofepa.org>, walter wilson <walterlwilson@hotmail.com>, yolanda<yolanda@rocketmail.com> From:Jean G. Snider To:Council, City Cc:City Attorney; Lait, Jonathan; Jessica von Borck Subject:November 13, 2023 City Council Public Hearing - Agenda Item #9 Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 3:36:02 PM Attachments:2023-11-13__CPACC Letter_AgendaItem9.pdf Some people who received this message don't often get email from jsnider@stanford.edu. Learn why this isimportant CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor Kou, Vice Mayor Stone, and Honorable Councilmembers, Attached please find a letter from Stanford University relating to Item #9 on tonight’s agenda. Please let us know if you have any questions. Sincerely, Jean Jean Snider Associate Vice President, Stanford Real Estate Land, Buildings, & Real Estate Stanford University 415 Broadway Street, 3rd Floor, Mail Code 8873 Redwood, City, CA 64063 jsnider@stanford.edu Administrative support: Veronica Liew, vliew@stanford.edu November 13, 2023 VIA EMAIL City Council City of Palo Alto 250 Hamilton Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94301 Re: November 13, 2023, Regular Meeting, Item # 9: Adoption of an Ordinance Implementing Program 1.1A and 1.1B of the Housing Element Dear Mayor Kou, Vice Mayor Stone, and Honorable Councilmembers: Stanford University has appreciated the opportunity to be part of collaborative and productive discussions over the past few years to identify potential new Housing Element sites on Stanford- owned land. This evening, the City Council will consider a proposed zoning ordinance to implement the City’s Housing Element Update, including new zoning for the El Camino Real Focus Area. We support the comprehensive planning approach to the El Camino Real Focus Area and appreciate City staff’s efforts to encourage contextually appropriate heights and densities in this location of Palo Alto. The current draft of the zoning ordinance includes some modifications based on recent recommendations by the Planning and Transportation Commission. One new provision would require development within the El Camino Real Focus Area to “Not restrict residency to households with a particular institutional affiliation.” (Item #9, proposed Muni. Code section 18.14.020(c)(5)(C)). The staff report explains that this provision was added to the draft zoning ordinance in response to concerns about the potential loss of property tax revenue from any housing projects affiliated with Stanford. In the event the Council is inclined to consider including this new provision in the zoning ordinance, we would like to share Stanford’s concerns. The university has significant concerns with any regulation that would seek to prohibit Stanford from providing housing to its affiliates on its own land. Stanford affiliate housing offers discounted rents that meet the equivalent of Moderate Income rent levels, the definition of workforce housing. Prohibiting affiliate housing will preclude a key opportunity for the university to build housing for current and future members of the Palo Alto workforce. We also would like Councilmembers to understand why Stanford believes the potential restriction on affiliate housing would be unenforceable. Residential occupancy limitations of this type are not allowed due to constitutional privacy and free association rights, principles of equal protection, and the State’s long-held interest in promoting property tax exemptions for housing provided by nonprofit universities, including Stanford. Such restrictions also may violate fair housing law by discriminating based on source of income and may violate a state law prohibition on regulating development based on the identity of the permit applicant. Considering the numerous policy and legal problems associated with the potential affiliate housing restriction, Stanford respectfully asks the Council not to include the provision in the adopted zoning ordinance. Thank you for your consideration. As always, we are available if you have any questions. Sincerely, Jean Snider Associate Vice President, Real Estate cc: Jonathan Lait, City of Palo Alto Molly Stump, City of Palo Alto Jessica von Borck, Stanford University From:Loran Harding To:Loran Harding; antonia.tinoco@hsr.ca.gov; David Balakian; bballpod; beachrides; bearwithme1016@att.net;Leodies Buchanan; boardmembers; fred beyerlein; Cathy Lewis; cramirez.electriclab133@gmail.com; Council,City; Doug Vagim; dennisbalakian; dallen1212@gmail.com; Daniel Zack; dan.richard@earthlink.net;eappel@stanford.edu; Scott Wilkinson; Gabriel.Ramirez@fresno.gov; George.Rutherford@ucsf.edu;huidentalsanmateo; hennessy; Irv Weissman; Sally Thiessen; jerry ruopoli; Joel Stiner;karkazianjewelers@gmail.com; kfsndesk; Mayor; Mark Standriff; margaret-sasaki@live.com;merazroofinginc@att.net; maverickbruno@sbcglobal.net; MY77FJ@gmail.com; nick yovino;news@fresnobee.com; newsdesk; russ@topperjewelers.com; Steve Wayte; terry; tsheehan; vallesR1969@att.net Subject:Fwd: New steps to support Stanford campus communities Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 3:32:10 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Howard Wolf <alumnipresident@stanford.edu>Date: Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 2:37 PM Subject: New steps to support Stanford campus communitiesTo: <loran.harding@alumni.stanford.edu> Today we are announcing additional steps to respond to the needs of our communities and to support their well-being. View In Browser Dear Alum: Below please find a communication that Stanford President Richard Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez shared with the on-campus community of students, faculty, and staff earlier today. We continue to hear from alumni with thoughts about Stanford’s response to the Israel-Hamas war and its impact on our community. I’m sharing this message so you are aware of the latest steps Stanford is taking in response to the repercussions of the war here on campus. If you have thoughts, comments or concerns to share with the university, the best way to do so is through this link. This will then allow me to provide a summary of alumni feedback and sentiments to Stanford’s president and provost for their consideration. Rest assured that your responses will be kept confidential and will not be shared in any way that would identify you. Thanks in advance for your consideration. Howard E. Wolf, '80 Vice President for Alumni Affairs, Stanford University President, Stanford Alumni Association A message from Stanford President Richard Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez NOVEMBER 13, 2023 Dear Stanford community, The last several weeks have been challenging as our community has witnessed and responded to the Israel-Hamas war. For many it has been a time of anguish, fear, worry, and anger. The two of us, and others on Stanford’s leadership team, have been listening carefully to the members of multiple communities at Stanford to understand their experiences and concerns. We have worked to extend support for immediate needs and to provide for the physical safety of our campus community. Today we are announcing additional steps to respond to the needs of our communities and to support their well-being. Two new groups will be focusing intently on strengthening support in an ongoing manner for our Jewish community and for our Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities. Please open the following page to read more about these initiatives: https://news.stanford.edu/report/2023/11/13/stanford- announces-next-steps-support-campus-communities/ In these difficult times, we hope you’ll join us in supporting one another as members of one Stanford community; in rejecting antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bias, anti-Palestinian bias, anti-Israeli bias, and all forms of hatred and discrimination on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, or national origin; and in fostering the atmosphere of civil, reasoned, deeply informed discussion that advances our mission of learning. Sincerely, Richard Saller, President Jenny Martinez, Provost Stanford Alumni Association alumni.stanford.edu (650) 723-2021 | (800) 786-2586 This message was sent to loran.harding@alumni.stanford.edu. Do we have your most recent contact information? Update it here. If you have received this in error, or if you'd rather not receive further emails of this kind, you canunsubscribe here. If you are encountering difficulties with the above email, contact Customer Service. You may also email alumniwebhelp@stanford.edu or call toll-free, 1-866-543-0243 (International: +1(650) 724-0627). The Stanford Alumni Association abides by the university's privacy policy which can be found here:https://www.stanford.edu/site/privacy/ Stanford University | Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center | 326 Galvez Street, Stanford, CA 94305 From:Roberta Ahlquist To:Jose Valle Cc:Aram James; <michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Wagner, April; Binder, Andrew; Bryan Gobin; Cecilia Taylor; Cerise Castle; Cindy Chavez; Council, City; D Martell; Daniel Barton; Dave Price; David S. Norris; Diana Diamond; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; DuJuan Green; EPA Today; Ed Lauing; Emily Mibach; Enberg, Nicholas; Jensen, Eric; GRP-City Council; Gennady Sheyner; Greer Stone; Greg Tanaka; Human Relations Commission; Jeff Moore; Joe Simitian; Joe Simitian; Hornung, Joel; Josh Becker; Julie Lythcott-Haims; KEVIN JENSEN; Kaloma Smith; Karen Holman; Lewis james; Linda Jolley; Maelin Aquino; Megan James; Zelkha, Mila; Van Der Zwaag, Minka; Bains, Paul; Paul George @ PPJC; Raj Jayadev; Randy Higgins; Raymond Goins; Reifschneider, James; Representative Eshoo; Richard Konda; Salem Ajluni; Sean Allen; Shana Segal; Shikada, Ed; Stump, Molly; Sue Dremann; Supervisor Otto Lee; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Tom DuBois; Vara Ramakrishnan; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; alisa mallari tu; Barberini, Christopher; chuck jagoda; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Lee, Craig; cromero@cityofepa.org; dennis burns; districtattorney@sfgov.org; editor@paweekly.com; Figueroa, Eric; friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com; ladoris cordell; rabrica@cityofepa.org; walter wilson; yolanda Subject:Re: Cease-fire now -Daily Post, Nov, 13, 2023 Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 3:11:24 PM Attachments:D3F4F574-10D1-4FD1-B693-7982E0B77D4B.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Strong piece. Many thanks, Roberta On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 3:08 PM Jose Valle <jvalle1800@gmail.com> wrote:right on! On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 2:09 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: -- Con Safos, Jose Valle Silicon Valley De-Bug (408) 661-2604 "The union's survival, its very existence, sent out a signal to all Hispanics that we were fighting for our dignity. That we were challenging and overcoming injustice, that we were empowering the least educated among us, the poorest among us. The message was clear. If it could happen in the fields, it could happen anywhere" - Cesar E. Chavez, Address to the Commonwealth Club of California, November 9, 1984, San Francisco, CA From:Jose Valle To:Aram James Cc:<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Wagner, April; Binder, Andrew; Bryan Gobin; Cecilia Taylor; Cerise Castle; Cindy Chavez; Council, City; D Martell; Daniel Barton; Dave Price; David S. Norris; Diana Diamond; Don Austin; Donna Wallach; DuJuan Green; EPA Today; Ed Lauing; Emily Mibach; Enberg, Nicholas; Jensen, Eric; GRP-City Council; Gennady Sheyner; Greer Stone; Greg Tanaka; Human Relations Commission; Jeff Moore; Joe Simitian; Joe Simitian; Hornung, Joel; Josh Becker; Julie Lythcott-Haims; KEVIN JENSEN; Kaloma Smith; Karen Holman; Lewis james; Linda Jolley; Maelin Aquino; Megan James; Zelkha, Mila; Van Der Zwaag, Minka; Bains, Paul; Paul George @ PPJC; Raj Jayadev; Randy Higgins; Raymond Goins; Reifschneider, James; Representative Eshoo; Richard Konda; Roberta Ahlquist; Salem Ajluni; Sean Allen; Shana Segal; Shikada, Ed; Stump, Molly; Sue Dremann; Supervisor Otto Lee; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Tom DuBois; Vara Ramakrishnan; WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto; Perron, Zachary; alisa mallari tu; Barberini, Christopher; chuck jagoda; citycouncil@mountainview.gov; Lee, Craig; cromero@cityofepa.org; dennis burns; districtattorney@sfgov.org; editor@paweekly.com; Figueroa, Eric; friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com; ladoris cordell; rabrica@cityofepa.org; walter wilson; yolanda Subject:Re: Cease-fire now -Daily Post, Nov, 13, 2023 Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 3:08:44 PM Attachments:D3F4F574-10D1-4FD1-B693-7982E0B77D4B.png Some people who received this message don't often get email from jvalle1800@gmail.com. Learn why this isimportant CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. right on! On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 2:09 PM Aram James <abjpd1@gmail.com> wrote: -- Con Safos, Jose Valle Silicon Valley De-Bug (408) 661-2604 "The union's survival, its very existence, sent out a signal to all Hispanics that we were fighting for our dignity. That we were challenging and overcoming injustice, that we were empowering the least educated among us, the poorest among us. The message was clear. If it could happen in the fields, it could happen anywhere" - Cesar E. Chavez, Address to the Commonwealth Club of California, November 9, 1984, San Francisco, CA From:Jane Mark To:Kallas, Emily; Council, City Cc:Ana Ruiz; Susanna Chan Subject:21PLN-00196, 575 Los Trancos Road (APN 18246012) City Council Public Hearing Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 2:44:42 PM Attachments:image001.png2023 Midpen Ltr 575 Los Trancos Rd PTC Revised Plans.pdf Some people who received this message don't often get email from jmark@openspace.org. Learn why this isimportant CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. SENT VIA E-MAIL TO: emily.kallas@cityofpaloalto.org and city.council@CityofPaloAlto.org Dear Ms. Emily Kallas and Honorable City Councilmembers, On behalf of Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (Midpen), I am submitting our agency’s comments regarding the development proposal for 575 Los Trancos Road (APN 18246012). Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments. Sincerely, Jane Jane F. Mark, AICP (She/her) Planning Manager Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District 5050 El Camino Real, Los Altos, CA 94022 (650) 625-6563 Direct openspace.org November 13, 2023 City of Palo Alto City Council City Hall 250 Hamilton Ave Palo Alto, CA 94301 SENT VIA E-MAIL TO: emily.kallas@cityofpaloalto.org and city.council@CityofPaloAlto.org Subject: 21PLN-00196, 575 Los Trancos Road (APN 18246012) City Council Public Hearing Dear Ms. Kallas, On behalf of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (Midpen), we respectfully submit the following comments regarding the approval of the 575 Los Trancos Road proposed project in the City of Palo Alto. As the owner of the adjacent parcels (APNs 079-080-050, -080, and -090), Midpen appreciates the changes made thus far to protect wildlife and riparian habitat. Comprised of over 70,000 acres of acquired and protected open space on the San Francisco Peninsula, Midpen is one of the largest regional open space districts in California. Our mission is to acquire and preserve a regional greenbelt of open space land in perpetuity, protect and restore the natural environment, and provide opportunities for ecologically sensitive public enjoyment and education. Midpen owns and manages the nearby Windy Hill Open Space Preserve (Preserve), including the Hawthorns Area, which is located in the Town of Portola Valley and is located within a ¼ mile to the project site. Midpen previously commented on the Draft Initial Study Mitigated Negative Declaration for the project and the revised plans presented to the Planning & Transportation Commission in August 2023. Midpen appreciates these comments being incorporated into the project plans and would like to share additional information on pool wildlife entrapment concerns for the City Council’s consideration. The proposed swimming pool’s placement is still within close proximity of the creek and could result in entrapment of semiaquatic species such as California Giant Salamander, Santa Cruz Black 2 Salamander, Western Pond Turtle, California Red Legged Frog (CRLF), and San Francisco Garter Snake (SFGS) that may travel across the landscape. We understand that an automated safety pool cover was added to the pool design, and the staff report states it meets the requirements for the Swimming Pool Safety Act. However, these requirements are to prevent entrapment by humans, not wildlife which may still access the pool by passing underneath the cover. Midpen has observed smaller reptile and amphibian’s ability to gain access underneath and become entrapped by tarps, plastic, wood, metal and other materials similar to pool covers in wetland and creek adjacent areas. It is an unfortunate event that should be avoided to ensure protection of special status species that may occur in the area. In addition to the pool cover, Midpen recommends the installation of an 18’’- 24” height fence with an overhanging lip facing the creek (to prevent climbing by newts, scaling by snakes or hopping over by most frogs) to separate the pool from the adjacent creek/riparian corridor. However, installing a fence barrier around the pool’s current proposed location would result in permanent construction within the 50’ setback of top of bank. Ideally the pool would be modified in shape and/or size and be relocated entirely outside of a 50’ setback along with a permanent wildlife barrier fence completely enclosing it. We appreciate the City Council’s request to eliminate fencing that could impede wildlife movement along the creek. However, Midpen recommends retention of the proposed pool fencing to serve as a protective barrier running parallel to the creek, which should not impede larger wildlife from moving through the area. In fact, if tall enough (24” height is preferred) the fencing would direct smaller animals to safe passage around the proposed pool and home. Retaining the pool cover in addition to a wildlife fence/barrier would continue to prevent human entrapment per the Swimming Pool Safety Act, and possibly prevent medium to large sized wildlife from entering the pool if they were to gain access by crossing over a low fence. We appreciate the opportunity to comment on this project. Should you have any questions about this letter, please contact me at (650) 625-6563 or via email at jmark@openspace.org. Sincerely, Jane F. Mark, AICP Planning Manager CC: Ana Ruiz, AICP, General Manager Susanna Chan, Assistant General Manager From:will Agramonte To:Council, City Subject:El Camino Real Housing Focus Area Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 2:33:12 PM Some people who received this message don't often get email from willjagramonte@gmail.com. Learn why this isimportant CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear City Council Members, I am writing regarding the El Camino Real Housing Focus Area to be addressed in the Palo Alto City Council Meeting Agenda Item 9 on 11/13/23. In order for Palo Alto to meet their regional housing needs, Palo Alto should be supportive of high-density development along El Camino Real (ECR), the majortransit corridor of the City and Peninsula, similar to other neighboring cities. Putting new apartments near downtown centers/transit will promote workforce housing (doctors/nurses, teachers, students, entry level tech positions) and minimize environmental impacts of having housing developed on the outskirts of town. This willalso increase the property tax basis, building permit fee/impact fee basis to support the City of Palo Alto’s budget as well as support local businesses in downtown. I would like to make two requests of the City Council, as a commercial property owner @2951 ECR, a site which is included in the Housing Element and within the Transit Corridor, located on the Eastside of ECR, across from the current proposed ECR Housing Focus Area: Consistent with notes and recommendations in the Planning Staff Report p. 69 and p. 71: 1) Please DIRECT Planning Staff to further study the Eastside of El Camino Real in order to include it in the El Camino Real Housing Focus Area. 2) Please approve the original Planning Staff recommendations for the El Camino Real Housing Focus Area, as they were based on experienced consultantswho recommended a 10' setback from R1, with a 75' transitional setback for 35' heights and 75'-100' transitional setback for 45' heights. Anything more, (such as the current 100' setback for 35' height) would make multifamily residential development unfeasible, in an otherwise ideal location on ECR, located within the transit corridor. Thank you, Will J Agramonte From:Aram James To:<michael.gennaco@oirgroup.com>; Wagner, April; Binder, Andrew; Bryan Gobin; Cecilia Taylor; Cerise Castle;Cindy Chavez; Council, City; D Martell; Daniel Barton; Dave Price; David S. Norris; Diana Diamond; Don Austin;Donna Wallach; DuJuan Green; EPA Today; Ed Lauing; Emily Mibach; Enberg, Nicholas; Jensen, Eric; GRP-CityCouncil; Gennady Sheyner; Greer Stone; Greg Tanaka; Human Relations Commission; Jeff Moore; Joe Simitian;Joe Simitian; Hornung, Joel; Jose Valle; Josh Becker; Julie Lythcott-Haims; KEVIN JENSEN; Kaloma Smith; KarenHolman; Lewis james; Linda Jolley; Maelin Aquino; Megan James; Zelkha, Mila; Van Der Zwaag, Minka; Bains,Paul; Paul George @ PPJC; Raj Jayadev; Randy Higgins; Raymond Goins; Reifschneider, James; RepresentativeEshoo; Richard Konda; Roberta Ahlquist; Salem Ajluni; Sean Allen; Shana Segal; Shikada, Ed; Stump, Molly; SueDremann; Supervisor Otto Lee; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Tom DuBois; Vara Ramakrishnan; WILPF PeninsulaPalo Alto; Perron, Zachary; alisa mallari tu; Barberini, Christopher; chuck jagoda; citycouncil@mountainview.gov;Lee, Craig; cromero@cityofepa.org; dennis burns; districtattorney@sfgov.org; editor@paweekly.com; Figueroa,Eric; friendsofcubberley94303@gmail.com; ladoris cordell; rabrica@cityofepa.org; walter wilson; yolanda Subject:Cease-fire now -Daily Post, Nov, 13, 2023 Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 2:09:39 PM Attachments:D3F4F574-10D1-4FD1-B693-7982E0B77D4B.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. From:gel@theconnection.com To:Harris, Alexandra Cc:City Mgr; Council, City Subject:RE: Fiber to the Home (Ticket# 2219) Date:Monday, November 13, 2023 1:46:40 PM Attachments:image001.pngimage003.pngimage004.pngimage007.pngimage008.pngimage009.png CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hello Alexandra, Thank you for the reply. I am familiar with all the items you mentioned. But the problem I see is that it will be several years from now before the first residents are hooked up to the cities fiber network. As you mentioned engineers need to be hired and workers hired and trained and plans need to be put together. And lots of money spent to get this going. Sonic.net is a local company based in Santa Rosa. They have the infrastructure in place. They have the engineering in place. Best of all Sonic has an excellent reputation. Many of us residents in Palo Alto have been Sonic customers for several years. Right now I’ve heard that Sonic is offering 10Gb fiber for $49.99/ month. Will the City be able to match that? My question is: if Sonic wants to come to Palo Alto and offer its services, how would Palo Alto respond? Thank You and Take Care, Gary Lindgren From: Harris, Alexandra <Alexandra.Harris@CityofPaloAlto.org> Sent: Tuesday, November 7, 2023 12:41 PM To: Lindgren, Gary <gel@theconnection.com> Cc: City Mgr <CityMgr@cityofpaloalto.org>; Council, City <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org> Subject: Fiber to the Home (Ticket# 2219) Hello Gary, Thank you for sharing your input about the fiber broadband project. On December 19, 2022, the City Council approved the expansion/rebuild of the existing dark fiber backbone and a phased approach to “build the last mile” to provide municipal broadband internet (see meeting Agenda report ID#14800 and Council’s decision in the Minutes.) Although there are existing internet service providers covering the City of Palo Alto, some areas still lack access to fiber broadband internet. Plus, the community expressed strong interest in having more options, specifically a municipal broadband internet option. Some reasons the City will offer municipal broadband internet include: 1. High speed internet: Fiber broadband has faster speeds and lower latency than traditional cable or DSL networks. 2. Affordable pricing: Community broadband networks provide high-speed, reliable connections at affordable costs. 3. Competition: Public investment in broadband infrastructure creates competition, improving services and keeping costs down for reliable high-speed internet. 4. Locally owned: Whereas large corporations are accountable to their shareholders, the Palo Alto Fiber network is accountable to our community, creating more responsiveness and local control. 5. Service excellence: Improved customer service over existing internet service providers. The decision to provide municipal fiber broadband internet evolved over years of careful deliberation. On May 24, 2021 the City Council was presented with various partnership models during the more recent decision-making process and decided to select the business model with more local ownership and financial control (see meeting Agenda report ID#12117 and Council’s decision in the Minutes). If you would like to share your comments with the City Council, you may do so at their meetings, by emailing them at city.council@cityofpaloalto.org, or mail. Again, thank you for your input and questions. You can stay updated on the project by visiting www.cityofpaloalto.org/PaloAltoFiber or at the Fiber Hub. Best Regards, ALEXANDRA HARRIS Sr. Business Analyst City of Palo Alto Utilities Department (650) 329-2410 | Alexandra.Harris@cityofpaloalto.org www.cityofpaloalto.org