PRESENT:

Mayor Anthony Spitaleri

Vice Mayor Melinda Hamilton

Councilmember John Howe

Councilmember Otto Lee

Councilmember Ron Swegles

Councilmember Christopher Moylan

Councilmember David Whittum

ABSENT:

None

STAFF PRESENT:

City Manager Amy Chan

Assistant City Manager Robert Walker

City Attorney David Kahn

Director of Community Development Hanson Hom

Principal Planner Andrew Miner

Director of Human Resources Erwin Young

Senior Management Analyst Connie Verceles

Revenue Systems Supervisor Tim Kirby

Solid Waste Program Manager Mark Bowers

Director of Finance Mary Bradley

Interim Public Works Director Mark Rogge

City Clerk Gail Borkowski

1.A.

Approval of Revised Draft Minutes of June 24, 2008

Councilmember Moylan: Yes, I’m sorry to slow the meeting down but it has been pointed out to me by staff that, that I spoke imprecisely at this - when I was making this motion that we all voted for - and so we need to clarify that for the record because apparently I was on the tape as saying it two different ways and staff knows that they understood what I meant, but we need to make sure it is recorded here. So, if we take the - you know - the minutes that are before us are the ones that have already been corrected - we have some on the dais and this is a separate correction. Go to page sixteen and there is an amended motion and the second bullet in it, A.3., the deadline for Councilmember proposed study issues. The issue was I was using the terms public hearing and workshop in the wrong order. We have a public hearing first and then we have a workshop, and at the workshop we make the call, okay. And the intent of this was that the deadline would be three weeks before we do the ranking at least, in other words by the public hearing, that would enable a newly elected councilmember to participate in the public hearing if they were already there. There had been some discussion earlier in the meeting that it would actually be a six week deadline, there was - you know - three weeks before the public hearing, and then - and I said no, that is not what I want, I think three weeks should be enough time considering our previous deadline has been zero. Moving it up to three weeks would probably be enough to fix the problem and that is what was intended. Apparently, I said it both ways during the meeting so I’d like to make that correction and that was requested by staff that I clarify that.

Mayor Spitaleri: City clerk.

City Clerk Gail Borkowski: So, Councilmember Moylan, can you actually - in looking at that motion - how would, how should that be restated.

Councilmember Moylan: In the second bullet.

City Clerk Gail Borkowski: Uh hum.

Councilmember Moylan: Where it says - you know - deadlines for councilmembers proposed study issues, establish a deadline for new Council proposed study issues three weeks in advance of the workshop. I shouldn’t have said public hearing, I should have said workshop.  I was thinking of them in the reverse order in which they actually occur.

City Clerk Gail Borkowski: And the rest of it is fine as it reads?

Councilmember Moylan: As far as I know, no other blunders have yet been discovered and I apologize for the confusion. You might remember me saying during the meeting I didn’t want a six week deadline, which I thought was being proposed, I wanted a three, but then I didn’t - the words I chose did not match the three, so it was the three week deadline that was intended.

Mayor Spitaleri: Okay, any other questions? You want to open the public hearing on that and there’s no cards on that, anyone want to speak on that? Seeing none, I close the public hearing. Councilmember Moylan. 

Councilmember Moylan: And I’ll move this correction to the minutes along with previous one that we had on the dais.

Mayor Spitaleri:  And a second.

Vice Mayor Hamilton: I’ll second.

Mayor Spitaleri:  To the second, any further discussions, questions? Seeing none, please vote.

City Clerk Gail Borkowski: Motion passes seven, zero. Thank you.

1.B.

Approval of Information/Action Items – Council Directions to Staff

1.C.

RTC 08-228

List of Claims and Bills Approved for Payment by the City Manager – List No. 410

Staff Recommendation: Council reviews the attached lists of bills.

1.D.

RTC 08-226

Council Approval by Resolution to Submit Two Applications for Transportation Fund for Clean Air (TFCA) Grant Funding

Staff Recommendation: Council approves Resolutions authorizing the two grant applications for Transportation Fund for Clean Air (TFCA) funding and authorizes the city manager to execute funding agreements for these two projects if the grants are awarded.

1.E.

RTC 08-227

Transmittal of the Youth, Family, and Child Care Resources (Program 526) Performance Results Audit for FY 2006/2007

Staff Recommendation: Council receives the audit report and concurs with management’s acceptance of recommendations.

1.F.

RTC 08-210

Commitment of $1.2 million in HOME funds toward the ground lease for the development of up to 125 units of affordable senior housing at 660 S. Fair Oaks and approval of Budget Modification No. 1

Staff Recommendation: Council authorizes the city manager to enter into a HOME Agreement to commit $1.2 million towards an upfront ground lease payment with the County of Santa Clara for the development of an affordable senior housing project of up to 125 units at the County Clinic site at 660 S. Fair Oaks Avenue.

1.G.

RTC 08-229

Award of Bid No. F0705-95 for Asphaltic Materials for the Department of Public Works Pavement Operations Program

Staff Recommendation: Council awards a one year contract for asphaltic materials on an “as needed” basis to Reed and Graham, Incorporated, of San Jose in substantially the same form as the attached draft Purchase Order and in a total amount not to exceed $610,000.

1.H.

RTC 08-230

Award of Bid No. F0608-20 for Four Fire Engines

Staff Recommendation: Council awards a contract, in substantially the same form as the attached draft Purchase Order and in the amount of $1,808,459 to Ferrara Fire Apparatus Incorporated, for four Ferrara Fire Engines.

1.I.

RTC 08-232

Authorization to Modify an Existing Contract for Environmental Consulting Services for the Sunnyvale Town Center Redevelopment Project (F0807-01)

Staff Recommendation: Council increases authorized expenditures under an existing two year contract with URS Corporation, and extends by one year, in substantially the same form as the attached draft amendment, for “on-call” environmental consulting services, making a three year contract amount not to exceed $300,000.

1.J.

RTC 08-215

Adoption of a Resolution Accepting an Amendment version of the Grand Boulevard Initiative’s Guiding Principles In Providing Direction in the Development of Property Along El Camino Real in the City of Sunnyvale

Mayor Spitaleri: Councilmember Moylan

Councilmember Moylan: Okay, now we move to the Grand Boulevard which as the mayor and vice-mayor know because they have served as our representatives on that task force, I have been their alternates, explain for the purpose of the public. The idea here is every city through which El Camino Real passes has a different zoning plan, a different design for what El Camino should look like and the cities have gotten together and agreed that it would be better for all of us if we could have more - a unified design for that that large corridor. And so over the last couple of years, dozens of city councilmembers from all different cities have been gathering together to try to come up with general principles that all of us should use in doing our land use along El Camino Real, to make it more uniform. And so, what the group finally came up with was ten Grand Boulevard Guiding Principles which appear in the binders under
1.J - I guess its Attachment A. The hope - the request from the task force was that all the cities along El Camino would adopt these and what we have before us tonight is Sunnyvale is saying, “Well, we don’t want to adopt the version everyone is adopting, we are going to make changes to half of them.” And the reason I pulled this is because on, on a basic reading of this, none of those changes seem to be - to represent substantive conflicts between our own El Camino, precise plan for El Camino and what the guiding principles should be. They sort of seem to be quibbles and every time we say we are not going to adopt what everyone else has agreed to, we have our own version, we’re undercutting the whole point of the Grand Boulevard Task Force. You know, to the extent that we possibly can, we should try to adopt the same ones that everyone did. And based on this reading here, I have no problems with any of them. In particular, let me - I want to highlight one. Here’s the one that the task force full of councilmembers recommended; number four: Develop a balanced multi-modal corridor to maintain and improve mobility of people and vehicles along the corridor. Here is the proposed Sunnyvale version: Develop a balanced multi-modal corridor that maintains and improves the mobility of people and vehicles along the corridor. I tried diagramming those sentences and for the life of me, I can not see any difference. There, we really, really, really should not change any of this unless there’s like a real conflict with what the City of Sunnyvale wants for El Camino Real and what other people do. Here’s another good example. Number two, they recommended: Encourage compact mixed-use development and high quality urban design and construction. Sunnyvale has a stricter standard: Require high quality urban design and construction along the corridor. That’s great, that’s certainly - if requiring is certainly a way of encouraging it - to me it is not inconsistent at all and what I’m hoping is that we’ll just adopt the straight ten, but even though this is a consent calendar item and staff shouldn’t have to come - you know - with a report, I did give them a heads up about this so they may have some, other side of the issue for you, but this is why I have pulled this. 

Mayor Spitaleri: Councilmember Whittum. Before I go to staff, I want to get to any questions and maybe staff can respond to.

Councilmember Whittum: Okay, thanks. I just had a question for staff, but also interested in other peoples opinion. I spoke to members of the public actually from BPAC but for yesterday and one of the interesting comments or suggestions was on item nine which is on, on the left side of the column, the strength and pedestrian and bicycle connections with the corridor, what about proposing the following language where we say no change, extends Sunnyvale’s street space allocation policy to El Camino where permitted. So in other words, I think what, what that addresses is where staff later in the future wonder as they are working with Caltrans to - you know - state highway. What is our interest there? Well our interest would be to improve - improve conditions for bikes according to the same way we do on our own streets. So, that’s a question. I wonder what staff would make of that and also clearly I have at least one colleague who might have an opinion on that so I’m just curious to hear peoples’ thoughts. So, the question is on item nine, adding to, to what is already there, which says strength in pedestrian and bicycle connections with the corridor - add extend Sunnyvale’s streetscape allocation policy to El Camino where permitted. Thanks.

Mayor Spitaleri: Okay, Vice Mayor Hamilton.

Vice Mayor Hamilton: I think first I’m going to address Chris’s comments and I agree, I understand what your saying, but to me the nuances of the changes to meet the devils in the details, I would frankly much rather require high quality urban design and, some of the things that we’re talking about, but also there are references in two of these, in numbers one and two, to these nodes, which is a concept that we have in our El Camino Precise Plan that no one else has, and even in our own plan, its sort of a, carves out a little exception to what else we have in terms of doing (unintelligible) development and higher density and I think that - I think staff is probably going to say that there are other cities that have made small tweaks to this and I think this is really our opportunity to say - you know - we agree overall with what the, what the general goals are but we have some things that are important to us and we want to bring those out here. And I think that, although I don’t understand number four except maybe that we’re assuming that we already have, we’re trying to, we already have a (unintelligible) modal corridor and we’re trying to maintain that rather than try to attain it, which is what the first one says but. And on Dave’s, I think that’s a good, a good thing to add if we have, if that’s allowed, considering that’s a county highway and not a City street, but I think staff is probably going to respond to that one, I hope.

Mayor Spitaleri: Thank you, Chris I’m going, Councilmember Moylan, I’m gonna have staff respond to some of the points you made, if that’s okay, staff.

Principal Planner Andrew Miner: Thank you, my name is Andy Miner and I’m the principal planner for the Planning Division and to kind of address some of the concerns that Councilmember Moylan has brought up. The Grand Boulevard Initiative is made up of, of cities that extend from Daly City to San Jose and as you can imagine the conditions that apply along El Camino Real between all those cities and two counties are very different. The conditions you find in Daly City are quite different than what you find in Sunnyvale and Santa Clara and San Jose. Particularly what you find in those cities is you have the railroad - the Caltrain runs directly parallel to El Camino Real - so a lot of the conditions that apply in the San Mateo County cities are very different where the train is a half a mile from El Camino in our situation. As you go further south along El Camino Real, the street really becomes more of a auto-orientated street where you have three lanes either direction. In Menlo Park you narrow down to two lanes, the buildings are much closer to the street, ours are set further back. It’s a very different feel and when we prepared the precise plan, which was adopted in 2007 by the Council, it was - the intent was to make this - which actually we pre-dated the Grand Boulevard Initiatives Guiding Principles - was to establish a condition that really helped promote and encourage the commercial development along El Camino Real and provided mixed-use housing opportunities in those where you would find the greatest amount of transit opportunities and also in the largest and busiest intersections to where you could really - they become a draw and it would really kind of encourage life and some vibrancy in those locations. As a result, if you look at the first - number one - was the difference, and we’ve had these discussions with the Grand Boulevard, all the difference cities and the folks at the Grand Boulevard Initiative, is that Sunnyvale really isn’t targeting housing along El Camino Real.  We are, as Councilmember Hamilton stated, we are targeting in the nodes. We are one of the few cities, probably the only city that has that concept in this area, where we want to have the housing located at nodes, we don’t want to have it targeted along the stretch of the street because it’s a very important commercial corridor for the City. So, that’s why we recommend that change - it makes it consistent with the precise plan - cause right now the precise plan actually discourages residential, it states discourage residential except at the nodes. So we just wanted to make that to be a little more clear. Again, the second one was just we are pretty clear, we are requiring high quality design, so we just took the word encourage and said require. Number four was just to see if you guys were paying attention, no there actually is, it says rather than - alright, I’ll give you that one. Develop balance multi-modal corridor to maintain and improve versus that maintains and improves. That’s the change there, do with it as you wish. Number six is just saying that it doesn’t appear that El Camino Real is a appropriate location for public park, public parks, public meeting spaces. There is really no City owned property, nor probably will there be, so what we state is that to really encourage the developers and the property owners to provide space for the public on their property as a part of their developments. Regarding number nine, I really don’t have a problem with the wording as stated. There is constant battle between those that want to have bike lanes on El Camino Real and the businesses that want to have no bike lanes and be able to park on El Camino Real - so having accepting that as a guiding principle could have some conflict in perceived values along the stretch of the street. But, there isn’t really a unified - it’s not a unified stretch of roadway. The guiding principles are expected to be - the key thing is that we support and we sponsor these guiding principles. And the - Mike Garvey from the Grand Boulevard Initiative has stated he understands that there will be those that will be fine-tuned as long as you really are accepting both the concept and spirit of what the Grand Boulevard Initiative is all about. 

Director of Community Development Hanson Hom: And if I may just add, that - you know - as Andy Miner mentioned - you know - Sunnyvale is unique in that we did adopt the precise plan for El Camino Real ahead of what most cities have done. So, when we discuss with the executive director about the fact that we do have policies in place and the fact that they may have a slight emphasis versus the over-arching guiding principles. He did not express a concern with the City modifying the policy slightly to better reflect El Camino Real Precise Plan that Sunnyvale has adopted.  And in fact, as you know, the Grand Boulevard Initiative task was actually - gave the cities, El Camino Precise Plan, a visionary plan and encouraging other cities to go the same direction as we have, realizing that each city may have slightly different policies related to what they would like to achieve along their portion of the corridor, but as long as hopefully their policies will fall within these ten guiding principles.

Mayor Spitaleri: Thank you, Councilmember Moylan.

Councilmember Moylan: Okay, yes, I’m glad that Director of Community Development brought up the award we got from the Grand Boulevard Task Force. It was for our precise plan for El Camino Real because it already does embody these principles. There are no conflicts between our precise plan and the ten principles they ask us to adopt. Number one, target housing and job growth in strategic areas along the corridor. Sunnyvale has chosen the nodes as this strategic area that it would chose to focus its housing on. That is completely consistent, there is no conflict. The guiding principles they are asking us to adopt are all very broad, recognizing that - you know - each city does have a different piece of El Camino and we’ll have our own more specific version of it, that’s okay. It doesn’t mean the guiding principle doesn’t apply to our City or that we don’t have a more specific version of it. You know, there is no conflict there and what we are doing in our precise plan exactly fits all of these things. Okay, with regard to the question about let’s change another one, change number nine, well you know, A, I don’t think we should, but B we don’t need to. Because if the request is referring to our new policy of giving mobility modes priority over stationary modes along city streets. I think that’s probably what the member of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) was asking about, well that’s covered in number four, that’s the whole point, that’s the mobility one. To say that we should really emphasize the El Camino for mobility purposes rather than - than the other stuff so that’s already in there and number nine just points out and we meant bikes too. Okay, so number four doesn’t say bikes, number nine says bikes, but number four says all mobility.

Councilmember Whittum: So, you won’t object to adding bikes to number four.

Councilmember Moylan: I object to any change in this at all. I think it is ridiculous. I think we are quibbling, I think our existing precise plan is exactly what they want and I think if they come back and we have thirty-five different versions of these ten principles, every city is going no, no, no, I want my version, then the whole point of what we’ve been doing for two years is a big waste of time. That’s what I think. And let me respond to the one about - oh I did, okay the bikes, the nodes, it’s all taken care of. We should just endorse these things as they are, our precise plan exactly fits it, and it, its not worthy of us to go back to them and go oh but everyone else should have to change it to match Sunnyvale or Sunnyvale’s not going to sign on because we do it a slightly different way. What we’re doing is completely within these principles, let’s just adopt them.

Mayor Spitaleri: Councilmember Whittum

Councilmember Whittum: Oh, thanks. So, I mean I appreciate the discussion, that’s kinda what I wanted to hear some discussion. I actually disagree, I think that there was some value to the discussion, whether it’s addition of the one word, bikes to number four or to the other and the value is to just express what we, how we prioritize bike, bike transit, and I think that was, that really was the question and that is not obvious as you heard the staff say well there are conflicts and so the question of priority is, is one that were not really resolving with this, this document as it is. But anyway, I appreciate the discussion and maybe the discussion will continue on after this, thanks.

Mayor Spitaleri: Anyone in the public that would like to discuss this issue with us? Seeing none, I’ll close the public hearing. Oh Art, alright, you just made it under the gun. 

Member of the Public, Arthur Schwartz: Mayor and Council, I apologize, we walked downtown for dinner with my granddaughter from Portland, so we are a little late. I have to agree with Councilmember Moylan. I would like to see you adopt the contract as it is written and not try and alter, change it for these few minor points. Any delay in adopting this on the part of the cities is just gonna foul things up in getting the street improved the whole length and I think that there is no conflict, I agree, between the language of the (unintelligible) and the language that Sunnyvale is proposing. One is inclusive, the other is exclusive and I think we ought to make ours inclusive with the rest of the cities. Thank you.

Mayor Spitaleri: Thank you and would you give your card to the City Clerk. Anyone else in the public? Seeing none, I’ll close the public hearing. Okay, what’s the wishes of the Council?  Councilmember Moylan.

Councilmember Moylan: Okay, I move alternative two, adopt a resolution to endorse the original ten guiding principles of the Grand Boulevard Initiative.

Mayor Spitaleri: Councilmember Swegles.

Councilmember Swegles: I’ll second.

Mayor Spitaleri: Okay, any other questions, discussions? Seeing none, please vote.

City Clerk Gail Borkowski: Motion passes five to two with Vice Mayor Hamilton and Councilmember Whittum dissenting.

1.K.

RTC 08-216

Adoption of a Resolution to Participate in the FOCUS Priority Development Area (PDA) Program in Order to be Awarded a Grant for Efforts to Encourage More Housing and to Improve the Community Area Adjacent to Transit

Staff Recommendation: Council adopts a Resolution to allow staff to make an application for the FOCUS PDA designation.