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HomeMy Public PortalAbout2020-03-10 Item 3MILLBRAE CITY COUNCIL MINUTES - DRAFT 1 February 25, 2020 CALL TO ORDER MILLBRAE CITY COUNCIL Mayor Holober called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. ROLL CALL: Mayor Reuben D. Holober, Vice Mayor Ann Schneider and Councilmembers Anne Oliva, Gina Papan and Wayne J. Lee. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE U.S. FLAG 1. CEREMONIAL/PRESENTATION  Proclamation Proclaiming April 1, 2020 as Census Day Mayor Holober read the proclamation. 2. AGENDA OVERVIEW/STAFF BRIEFING  Calendar of Events  Report of Bills and Claims City Manager Williams provided the agenda overview and updated the City Council on the following items:  Burglary prevention tips;  Millbrae Fix-it Clinic on March 21;  Millbrae Art Show and Contest is accepting art entries until March 20;  Presidential Primary Election on March 3;  Millbrae Public Portal;  Introduced new Interim Finance Director Emily Boyd.  Report out from City Attorney from Closed Session of February 25, 2020 Assistant City Attorney Conneran reported that the City Council met in closed session this evening regarding two items. For the first item on City-owned parcels at the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Station there was no reportable action taken. On the second item on City-owned Parcel APN No. 024- 174-330 (City corporation yard near Aviador Avenue) the City Council gave instructions to its negotiators. 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES  Regular Meeting of January 28, 2020  Regular Meeting of February 11, 2020 Upon a motion/second by Lee/Papan the minutes from the meetings of January 28, 2020 and February 11, 2020 passed unanimously. 4. ORAL REPORT FROM CITY COMMITTEE/COMMISSION CHAIRS NONE CITY COUNCIL February 25, 2020 2 PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Ron Raquel, Millbrae resident, spoke on how the intersection of Millbrae Avenue and Magnolia Avenue is unsafe for pedestrians and a controlled turn light is needed. CONSENT CALENDAR 5. Resolution No. 20-15 Ratifying Contract Change Order No. 4 to the Agreement with Interstate Grading & Paving, Inc. for a Total Contract Cost of $545,233; Accepting the Taylor Middle School Safe Route to School and Green Infrastructure Pilot Project as Complete and Filing of Notice of Completion Upon a motion/second by Papan/Schneider Item 5 passed unanimously. PUBLIC HEARING NONE EXISTING BUSINESS 6. Informational Update on Millbrae Recreation Center Restoration Project Interim Public Works Director Kao presented the report. Vice Mayor Schneider asked when will ground-breaking happen? Interim Public Works Director Kao responded that ground-breaking will happen in late summer. Vice Mayor Schneider asked if we can start identifying the Furniture, Fixtures and Equipment (FF&E) cost so that the community groups can start fund-raising. Mayor Holober thanked staff for presenting the report. Council received the report. NEW BUSINESS 7. Informational Report on the Draft Climate Action Plan (CAP) Environmental Programs Manager Reider presented the report. Mayor Holober thanked staff and said obviously a ton of work went into this document. He asked about the 2017 inventory that is currently underway. Environmental Programs Manager Reider responded that it should be done soon. Mayor Holober asked will that take into account the Peninsula Clean Energy (PCE) impacts? It would be significant at this point to see where we are now with PCE fully implemented countywide and how that impacts our emissions. Environmental Programs Manager Reider responded yes, PCE does impact our numbers and that is part of the reason why we will be somewhere around 20% reduced in 2017 comparing to our base year of 2005. PCE is a large part of it. Impacts are partly experienced in the 2016 inventory. 2017 will be more fully realized and reductions are also contributed to reduced energy consumption and transportation. Environmental Programs Manager Reider said she is hoping that we can include that at least as an appendix and include that in our final numbers so I am working with the County on that and they are working with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to work out some of the natural gas numbers. Mayor Holober asked will we have some CITY COUNCIL February 25, 2020 3 amendments as to the amount of greenhouse gas reductions needed to meet the target assuming we have already made some progress there in 2015? Environmental Programs Manager Reider responded yes, we should be able to do that. There should be enough time to include it because it does make a difference. Mayor Holober said it would be great if we could apply again to the Beacon program this year. We were honored in the past with a Beacon Award and it would be great to get that award again. Vice Mayor Schneider asked is the plan on public outreach to bring this to our committees and commissions first before full public outreach? Environmental Programs Manager Reider responded that notifications to all the committees and commissions will go out on Monday. We welcome any comments. The first workshop will be in April. Vice Mayor Schneider asked why schools are not included. Environmental Programs Manager Reider responded that the measures are overall in all the different categories. Some will touch upon the schools and some are really focused on residential and commercial. We do have the opportunity to work with the schools. Schools being under the State have some of their plans as well. Vice Mayor Schneider asked how do we know that the education is actually working? I do not have the data. I would like to see institutions on here even if we have no control. We need to bring the schools in on this. Vice Mayor Schneider asked if Millbrae is credited negatively with the generation of carbon for everybody who drives to the Millbrae train station. Environmental Programs Manager Reider responded that what we have within the CAP are all the emissions that are within our boundaries which does include the two freeways. Vice Mayor Schneider said that somewhere this is going to come down to us as a monetary line. We are going to have to come up with City money to implement real programs to truly reduce carbon and yet these are really not ours. They are just passing through us. Is there anything we can do to at least beef that up in the plan? I would like to see the actions broken down by education and by actual real things such as planting trees. How detailed are we prepared to go tonight because this might not be the best forum for that. Councilmember Papan said that her understanding is that we are just supposed to have an initial plan here to build on. A lot of the programs Vice Mayor Schneider has presented here are at the State level. We might be over-burdening staff by asking for more data. By having this plan and doing some of these programs, we then get County funding. I do not think the City of Millbrae actually has that kind of funding set aside because we deal with the Sustainable County rograms which benefit us. City Manager Williams responded that Table 25 is a good table for the Council to look at and suggest any additions that we can include in the plan. Councilmember Papan said regarding upgrading electric technologies such as solar panels, does the City have a joint partnership program with another agency to help with this? Are we headed in that direction to assist residents? Environmental Programs Manager Reider responded that is a program that PCE will be offering. Councilmember Lee thanked staff and said this report is very thorough and a good roadmap to start off with. I like the incentive programs. Rather than requiring a lot of reductions, we incentivize people to make changes. I just heard on National Public Radio (NPR) News this morning a forum on children experiencing anxiety on how to deal with climate change. Children are very much aware of what is happening to the planet and worried about their own future. We want to show that we have a plan and they can participate. I really appreciate this plan. Councilmember Oliva said she wants to compliment staff on the plan as well. This was a ton of work. I would like to comment on what the Mayor and Vice Mayor said. We need to look at both the helicopter CITY COUNCIL February 25, 2020 4 vision and also at the things we can do. We can do things like Safe Routes to Schools, electric vehicle charging and shuttles. We may not make a huge dent to get where we need to be, but these things are still important. We also need to look to the County and the State for incentives. I think that together both visions should be part of this plan. Vice Mayor Schneider said that she is concerned that we are not moving right now to require solar panels on all new construction. Mayor Holober said that the Transit Oriented Developments TOD#1 and TOD#2 in their current iterations do not have solar panels. These projects have not yet been built. They do not yet have building permits. It is worth at least reaching out to those developers to ask if they can incorporate solar panels in some way into their projects. If they don’t, they will be looked at as the ones who are continuing to increase emissions rather than reduce them. Just because it was not required at the time when the developments were approved does not mean that they do not have to do it. Councilmember Lee asked are Reach Codes a part of this plan? Environmental Programs Manager Reider responded that the Reach Codes are something that other cities in the county are looking at. Right now the plan includes the CALGreen Code. Looking at the Reach Codes is a decision that will have to be made. Mayor Holober said we should be moving forward with Reach Codes. The only problem is that they are for new construction and do not take into account a city that is already built out. The challeng e is going to be how to convert existing buildings to all electric. PCE has some incentives for panel upgrades. Mayor Holober said it is only a matter of time before the Reach Code becomes the base code. It is going to be State law pretty soon. Begin public comment. Nathan Chan, Millbrae resident, said that the CAP is something Millbrae should be proud of. There is a project at the University of California Berkeley called cool climate. I encourage you to check this out. End of public comment. Mayor Holober said this is just an informational report. Council has provided plenty of input. We are looking forward to this coming back. Council received the report. COUNCIL COMMENTS Mayor Holober:  We welcomed a delegation from Japan a couple of weeks ago. The three member panel from Japan discussed: 1) fixing the gender gap in Japan, 2) using biowaste to improve drought tolerance, and 3) cancer research. Thanked Kathleen Kimura for her help organizing the visit.  Attended Commute.org board meeting where we discussed the U.S. 101 Deck Replacement at San Francisco Alemany Circle which will cause significant delays on U.S. Highway 101 in July.  Attended Sister Cities Commission meeting last night. The Commission voted to move forward with a Friendship City relationship with Ramallah, Palestine. Vice Mayor Schneider:  Thanked Public Works staff for digging all the holes in Monterey Park. They will be re-planting the Magnolia trees from the BART parking lot.  This weekend I am attending the UC Davis Airplane Noise conference in San Diego. I am being sent as the representative from the San Francisco Airport Noise Roundtable committee. CITY COUNCIL February 25, 2020 5  Community Enhancement Advisory committee met yesterday to work on the concept of Adopt- A-Spot.  Met with the City Manager and Public Works staff last week where we discussed a potential activity for the Fourth of July and the possibility of a Fourth of July parade.  Thanked Sustainability staff for planning the Arbor and Earth Day event on Saturday, May 2nd.  Requested an update on Business Improvement District (BID) and traffic calming.  Reported that the Cultural Arts Advisory Committee would like a better presence on the website. Councilmember Oliva:  Announced Green Hills Country Club will sponsor the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Activities League (SAL) and youth to play on their private golf course. This was a successful program last year. Thanked City Manager Williams for helping out.  Attended Senior Advisory Committee meeting. They were very interested in hearing about the Council Goal Setting meeting. The committee wants to know when the City will start working on the General Plan and how can they participate.  Stated that eighty percent of calls to the City Council from the public are about parking issues. As I was leaving to go to work a young couple with suitcases parked in front of my neighbor’s house and an uber driver drove up. They were going to park their car there and go to the airport. I know that the City is working on this issue, but we really need to do something.  Wished Councilmember Papan happy birthday. Councilmember Papan:  We were briefed on the San Mateo County Safe Routes to School program. They have been doing some amazing programs. Regrettably the schools in Millbrae did not participate in the questionnaire, but we do have some local results that I will share with the City. The City/County Association of Governments (C/CAG) is assisting us in working with the school district.  The Plan Bay Area 2050 blueprint is in the works, but still a work in progress. Our city voted to support the principles of Seamless Bay Area. Alameda and Santa Clara counties joined in. I have spoken with Assemblymembers Chiu and Mullin about putting some teeth into those seamless aspects. We have 27 transportation agencies and none of them seem to be working for the overall benefit of the riders. Making them achieve accountability is important.  Congestion Management and Environmental Quality (CMEQ) and City/County Association of Governments (C/CAG) are proposing various projects which they will have on their website. The County has been given three billion dollars to divide up for projects.  On February 19 at 2:40 am someone was cruising our street looking for cars that have been left open. Thankfully no cars were left open. Talk to your neighbors and alert them. We have to watch out for one another. Get to know your neighbors and watch out for one another.  It is the flu season. Everyone should get a flu shot. Councilmember Lee:  Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) are working on Plan Bay Area 2050 which is a blueprint on how to plan the future of the San Francisco Bay Area. Seamless Transportation is one of the issues cities are tr ying to get on board.  At the Congestion Management and Environmental Quality (CMEQ) meeting we discussed approving a project to gather all transportation data on car movement in San Mateo County to track how cars are moving through cities.  A lot of cities are working on submitting applications for Priority Development Areas (PDA). Millbrae has one of the largest PDAs. Thanked staff for working very hard on this. CITY COUNCIL February 25, 2020 6  We are working on a video on Census 2020. Our goal is to explain the importance of the Census and get people involved.  The Presidential Primary Election is on March 3rd. You can drop off ballots at City Hall or in the mail. Everyone should participate.  Regarding the Coronavirus, there is no epidemic at this moment. Risk is minimal right now. Everyone should wash their hands frequently. CLOSED SESSION NONE ADJOURN CITY COUNCIL MEETING The meeting was closed in memory of Antonio Gonzalez (father of Millbrae Accounting Technician Amalia Pena). There being no further business to discuss, the City Council adjourned at 8:39 p.m. The video recording of the meeting is available on the Millbrae Community Television Youtube website. You can click on the link below to view the recording of the entire meeting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeNQQMQX9Gg By: Approved: Elena Suazo Reuben D. Holober City Clerk Mayor