A regular meeting of the City Council of the City of San Ramon was called to order on November 12, 2002 at 7:00 p.m. at the San Ramon Community Center, 12501 Alcosta Boulevard, Mayor Tatarka presiding.

PRESENT: Councilmembers Cambra, Dickey, Hudson, Wilson and Mayor Tatarka

ABSENT: None

STAFF PRESENT: City Manager Jim Randall, City Attorney Tom Curry, Police Chief Brian Lindblom, Development Services Director Joye Fukuda, Senior Engineer John Harper and City Clerk Judy Macfarlane

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PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

Junior Girl Scout Troop 2449, Twin Creeks Elementary School, led Council, staff and those present in the audience in the pledge of allegiance.

Mayor Tatarka: With that like in the past our meeting is officially opened. I would like to thank Girl Scout Troop 2449 from Twin Creek School and for all the work that they did in giving us the pledge and I would like to give them a round of applause and I would like you to join me in that please.

Mayor Tatarka: Okay we are moving on to announcements. All meetings are held in City Hall unless otherwise noted. City Manager any corrections, additions, deletions.

Mr. Randall: No Madam Mayor.

Mayor Tatarka: I just want to bring attention to the public. There is a special City Council meeting at 4:30 p.m. on November 15 and that is a closed session pursuant to Government Code 54957 for the purpose of interviewing City Manager candidates. Also bring to your attention on Wednesday, November 20 at 7:00 p.m. there will be another special City Council public hearing on the proposed Civic/City Center Master Plan. So bring those items to your attention. Okay, now we are on to Special Presentations, item 4.1

Cm. Hudson: As a point of procedure Mayor we have an emergency item. Do we need a motion ahead of time. Weren’t we supposed to do this.

City Attorney: The Council could add an item to the agenda, could do so where it is appropriate on the agenda. You could do it at any time that you want. But you are right Councilmember Hudson you a vote to add it.

Mayor Tatarka: We will put it under New Business Dave because I consulted with the City Attorney and City Manager regarding it. Okay, Special Presentations, excuse me. Introduction of new employees, Michael Allphin, Maintenance Assistant, Ted Figueira, Maintenance Technician I and Kevin Weere, Maintenance Technician II, by Doug Udell, Interim Public Services Director.

Mr. Udell introduced Michael Allphin and Ted Figueira and spoke their background and past professional experience. He said Mr. Weere was not able to attend the meeting and would be introduced at a later date.

Mayor Tatarka welcomed the new employees and gave them a City pin.

Mayor Tatarka introduced the next item, a special presentation by Lynne Leach, State Assembly Woman.

Assembly Woman Leach: Good evening. I am delighted to be with you. It is sort of a bitter sweet presentation though because this is part of my farewell tour. You know movie stars and rock stars have them and I thought legislators ought to have then also. But it giving me an opportunity to go to each one of the communities in the 15^th Assembly District and to thank them. Thank them for the cooperation and good working atmosphere that we had, not only with the Council but some of your predecessors. And I am very, very pleased with that as well as this wonderful community and all of the great community spirit that you have. I know I have enjoyed your Holiday Parade, your Chamber activities and your recognition of your citizens and the cooperation we received especially from this community on the equalization battle, the fairness in education funding for our young people. And of course, you in the San Ramon Valley are particularly short changed and have been for the last three decades. But we had marvelous support from the schools down here and the parents and I really value that. As well as issues of transportation and traffic, which we all suffered through and there was a great of interest and participation and cooperation. And I know anytime I came to this community or this Council or the members of the City itself, we had a lot of backup and a lot of support. And so, with all of that in mind, I just wanted to say to this community and to your leadership I am grateful and honored to have been given the opportunity to serve as the representative for the 15^th Assembly District over the last six years. God bless you and may you continue to grow and enjoy this wonderful, wonderful community.

Mayor Tatarka: Thank you very much. Alright now we are moving on to City Council Appointments. We do not have any. We are moving on now to Public Comment.

Christy Winter: I am Chairman of the Board of the San Ramon Chamber of Commerce. And I wanted to give you an update of what we have going on for the rest of this year. Next Wednesday at 7:00 a.m., 7:00 in the morning, we are going to have the third in our professional development lecture series. It is entitled "Employer Liability, You Can’t Count the Ways that You Can Get Yourself in Trouble". This is presented by a local law firm .............. They are well respected business attorneys in the San Ramon Valley. It is also sponsored by office depot. This is held at the Chamber of Commerce offices and it is a good opportunity to brush up your knowledge about employer liability. And then on a happier note, the next day will be our monthly mixer and it will be our open house. During the last year there have been many, many changes at the Chamber of Commerce, not the least of which we moved. We have absolutely new digs and we would like to invite everyone to come over and see what we have got and get to know the staff a little bit, see the programs that we have. The address is 12667 Alcosta Boulevard, Suite 160. We are asking you to call the Chamber and make reservations by the 15^th, that is this Friday. Call Jennifer at 242-0600 and let us know that you are going to be there. It will also be an opportunity for us that will be when we will be unveiling our new web site. And so there is much to show off. And last but not least, SCORE, which stands for the Service Core of Retired Executives Association, the non-profit organization of retired executives who are in the business of business counseling and coaching. And beginning on December 4 we will have a SCORE counselor at the Chamber offices to meet with people for free. So if you want some business coaching, this is a good place to get it. But between now and the end of the year is also the holiday season, the spending season. And I would encourage you to take a look at the businesses here in San Ramon as your are looking to spend your money. We have some tremendous shops with great gift giving potential and we also have some tremendous businesses, actually some of the best talent you can buy in the whole United States in terms of business consulting, financial planning. Regardless of your shopping needs between now and the end of the year we encourage you to shop San Ramon,

Del Nagel: My husband and I have three grown children and they will tell you that we get excited about the weirdest things. But I am here tonight to tell you that the green waste containers are back at Crow Canyon Gardens. And like you see on television when people come up to receive an award, I have a few people to thank. Jeff Eorio and Jim Randall, for countless phone calls and call backs, Carol Rowley and Melody Lundgren from Parks who met with us and toured the gardens and cared about our issue. John Gelf for sitting through meetings and taking lots of notes. The Sunday morning crew who show up at Crow Canyon Gardens and our conscientious about the appearance of the park. Thank you to the electrical crew who were there one day when we told them that the fan in the preschool building needed fixing they did it right on the spot. To Mary Ann Durkey who will head a committee of gardeners who hope to work directly with the City. To Dorn Driggs who has promised us that green waste containers and recycle containers will be available and handy at Crow Canyon Gardens. And a special thank you to H. Abram Wilson who shares our passion for the gardens. Thank you.

Sam Lemon: I am here this evening to direct a couple of comments and questions to Mr. Randall. A couple of weeks ago I discovered almost by accident that there is a requirement now Jim for the City Clerk to take minutes verbatim for these kinds of meetings. Is that so.

Mayor Tatarka: Please continue public comment.

Mr. Lemon: I will assume that it was. I really had a hard time believing that was the case so I went by the City Hall and got a copy of the minutes of August 27 and discovered that they indeed were verbatim minutes, 44 pages long. I have had the privilege of chairing a number of organizations where minutes were required and the watch word was always brief, concise and accurate. And 44 pages doesn’t meet that test. I think that is a waste of taxpayers dollars by way of time, effort and money. Now the lady involved works for you and if you have the latitude to issue those instructions, you have the latitude to reverse them and end this policy. I think it is ridiculous for an organization like this to have City Council meetings have minutes that are held verbatim. That is just nonsense. I think you know it and I think you should stop it now.

Diane Schinnerer: I too would like to comment on the minutes. I picked up my packet and spent a couple of hours just reading through a full meeting. And I would like to suggest that this is not a policy of the Council, it is a request by one Councilmember and I think you need to deal with this. The other issue I would like to bring up is the fact that citizens were promised that the Forest Home Farms issue would be on the agenda tonight. It has been four months since that committee has met. Why is the issue not on the agenda tonight?

Pat Boom: Forest Home Farms Advisory Committee has been cancelled to my knowledge for the past five months and I have a concern and I know the public has a concern as to what the status is. Why it is not on the agenda this evening. I think we just need an explanation. It would be helpful for us to know as a community, as residents and as volunteers who work at Forest Home Farms. In spite of the cancellation of the advisory committee I would like you all to know that there have been 32 very, very active volunteers who have been working at Forest Home Farms, setting up displays, doing docent tours and now tomorrow we are going to have our first test school program for the first time from a third grade class from Country Club School. And we are doing that with volunteers in spite of the fact that the advisory committee has not been functioning. I think it would be helpful if it could start functioning and if information could be given to the public as to why there is nothing on the agenda tonight.

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Mayor Tatarka: Okay, I don’t have any other public comment cards. We are moving on to item 7.1 that approval of minutes from September 24. Anybody have any corrections or anything that they on the minutes.

Mayor Tatarka: I do have a couple of things on the minutes and I see that have done it by line item so it is easy for us to tell you what line the correction is Judy, so I appreciate that very much. It is where it begins the part Acting City Manager and I am going to get you that page. It starts on page 10, line 37 and it is Acting City Manager throughout. I am not sure that any of the comments were Acting City Manager. I just want to get that clarification, I don’t remember anybody saying Acting City Manager. And it was throughout. So if that could be corrected that would be great.

Vice Mayor Wilson: Why should it be corrected.

Mayor Tatarka: Because no comment was ever made of Acting City Manager.

Vice Mayor Wilson: On 32 it says Cm. Wilson

Mayor Tatarka: What page are you on.

Vice Mayor Wilson: Page 10, Councilmember Wilson said.

Mayor Tatarka: What line.

Vice Mayor Wilson: Line 27 and 32. Fourteen said Cm. Hudson, 10 said Cm. Cambra. 37 what should it say

Mayor Tatarka: Okay, on page 12, line 2, the Acting City Manager said the RFP process that we used is one that we typically use for all maintenance contracts. I am not sure who said that, Acting City Manager

Vice Mayor Wilson:

Mayor Tatarka: And then it was Mr. Cambra said Acting City Manager said that is correct, no recommendations came from the Finance Committee meeting. That is on 12, line 41. It also stated where there was no one commenting on it. So I wanted clarification in that it was Acting City Manager even when it was after Mr. Wilson had made the comment. So that like continued throughout the minutes. You said Acting City Manager. This is her verbatim minutes that is what you had said, Acting. But the rest of them were other comments were made by Councilmembers did not say Acting City Manager.

Vice Mayor Wilson: Whoever said the statement should be quoted, if it is Acting City Manager then

Mayor Tatarka: But it continued on with other Councilmembers. So that is the clarification.

Vice Mayor Wilson: Alright, so noted.

Mayor Tatarka: That is the only correction I have. Anyone else.

Cm. Dickey: I was at a conference. I wasn’t here.

Mayor Tatarka: Alright, so with that amendment beyond the other Councilmember comments where it says City Manager and Acting that Acting.

Cm. Hudson: What you are asking for is the Acting City Manager to be changed to City Manager.

Vice Mayor Wilson: No, I didn’t say City Manager.

Mayor Tatarka: Abram said Acting, none of the other Councilmembers said Acting. So if they are verbatim minutes that is incorrect.

Cm. Hudson: Is there a specific you want Interim or just the City Manager because it starts on the first page under Special Presentations we have Acting City Manager. Lets call it one thing one time get it over with, Interim or City Manager

Mayor Tatarka: It says staff present: Acting City Manager and nobody made a comment there. It should be Interim City Manager

Cm. Hudson: You want it to be Interim City Manager is that the motion.

Mayor Tatarka: That is what we have been using in the past.

Vice Mayor Wilson: That is fine.

Cm. Hudson: Okay, I will second that and we will move on with the minutes.

Mr. Randall: If I might note that the Acting City Manager is identified as Mr. Estep.

Mayor Tatarka: Yes

Cm. Hudson: So what you want is Interim City Manager

Mr. Randall: He is Acting Interim.

Cm. Hudson Okay, we leave it the way it is. Acting City Manager and the motion still stands and I second it.

Mayor Tatarka: Right, who made the motion.

Cm. Hudson: I will move approval of the minutes for September 24.

Vice Mayor Wilson: I second it.

Mayor Tatarka: With the change.

Vice Mayor Wilson: What changes, there are no changes.

Mayor Tatarka: Judy do you understand there are no changes now, for the clarification.

Mayor Tatarka: All those in favor say aye.

The motion passed 4-0-1 (Cm. Dickey abstained, she was not present at the meeting).

Mayor Tatarka: Okay, now we are moving on to the Consent Calendar. I have no cards for anyone removing an item from the Consent Calendar, anyone on the Council

Cm. Dickey: Move approval of the Consent Calendar.

Cm. Hudson: Second

Mayor Tatarka: All those in favor say aye.

The motion passed 5-0.

Mayor Tatarka: We are moving on to written communication. I don’t have anything at the moment. City Advisory Committee Report – Senior Citizen Advisory Committee Report presented by Phil Reed, Senior Advisory Committee Member. Is Mr. Reed here.

Pat York: Since Phil is not here maybe he could report at the next meeting.

Mr. Randall: If we could make that for the meeting in December, we are trying to keep the agenda for the 26^th very brief.

Mayor Tatarka: We are trying to keep the 26^th agenda minimal so can we do it in December. Does the Council concur with that, great. We will accommodate the Senior Advisory Committee. Now we are moving on to Unfinished Business 11.1, Presentation of Civic/City Master Plan. Staff report by Joye Fukuda, Development Services Director

Mr. Randall: Madam Mayor, if I might, since this is basically just the introduction I told Joye that she could sort of relax. This is really Mr. Friedman and Mr. Howard, their show. This is the architects show and so I would turn it over to the Design Team to make their presentation. Dan are you ready.

Mayor Tatarka: Mr. Howard is it going to necessitate us sitting down here for us to see or

Mr. Howard: It would be preferable.

Mr. Howard: While we are getting our last little bit of a set up here I would like to introduce the members of the design team that here. Rodney Friedman from Fisher Friedman, Jim Lee, SWA Group, our landscape architect, Jim Freko, from Elery Beckett our consulting architect, our associate architect, David Tripp from Fisher Friedman, Dane Anderson, Fisher Friedman. My name is Dan Howard and our facilitator is the same one that was here the other day for our workshop, Sharon Bennett from the New Active Learning System. Our presentation tonight will be three parts. Sharon will bring you up to date on what she heard at the workshop. We will talk about our analysis of the results of the workshop and Rodney and Jim will talk about our recommendations for the placement of the components and how they link together. We have a series of boards. The Council I believe has 11x17" handouts of the boards to follow along with. You may want to get those. And I believe some members of the audience, I don’t know how many may have smaller versions, black and white versions, again 11x17" of the images that are on the board. While we are getting our act together, Sharon why don’t you entertain the troops.

Sharon Bennett: I was actually with you, many of you perhaps on the 15^th of October here in the same room. How many of you were with us that evening. Raise your hand. We had 100 people I think altogether, with round tables, 10 of them, 10 teams working together. Our purpose was to give the citizens of San Ramon an opportunity to get some hands on experience with thinking about the opportunity to create a design for the civic and city center. It is was exciting in that they were given a chance to actually work with a base map of the site. To have the components of the five of them to work with, the center for the arts, the library, the city offices and city hall, a stage for parking requirements and the children’s museum. Each of those was a foam shape that they began playing with to see how it might fit together into an attractive whole. And in the process, what we wanted to do was give each person a chance an opportunity to kind of rearrange this according to their own vision of what might be possible or desirable. And I want to take you on a little tour here of the summary that we put together in this starburst shape which I later learned is part of the logo for the City. So let me just give you a high light of themes that came out of each of the team reports. Because as we finished we had them come up and actually show the plan that they developed and these are key words from their presentation. So the first team said what we are looking for is a gathering place, a San Ramon Town Square, a sense that all sides are really attractive to the public. That there is perhaps a fountain, reflecting pool, roses, trees and still have space for fire works too. So we can continue to enjoy the night views on the 4^th of July. The second team said well, I won’t do these in order by number, but their theme was Inspiring Life Long Learning, a welcoming environment. They said yes a water fountain might be at the center of it but we also need parking underneath the buildings. We want those cars to disappear as much as possible. Can we afford that. We would like the focal point to be the Center for the Arts and City Hall but we also want it to be easy to drop off our children when they come to the Children’s Museum or when they need to stop at the Library. And the third theme,……. Particularly a scenic entrance and a beautiful Center for the Arts, a bridge that crosses the street and connects with the Iron Horse Trail. We want to separate the traffic and have compatible activities grouped together. And the fourth group said a City Plaza is what we have in mind. With a traditional style that actually blends in with the community, but pedestrian friendly. We would like to see that the trail links into this, that there are entrances off of Bollinger. That retail draws people into the area all times of day. That there is perhaps a wide bridge like a park that actually crosses the street and that the open area in this space links to the larger city park area. We would like to have a water attraction as well. The next group said this is about Active Space. We are looking for underground parking but above ground as well. We want to have a viable retail base with a small number of shops but people active in the area, going to the Library, visiting City Hall, getting the help they need there. They chose not to make the Aquatic Center part of their plan. They did see a plaza space with flowing water, the Performing Arts as the focus of it and land bridges across the local streets. And the next group said it is a place with a Cultural Feel. Most of the parking would be underground. It looks good from all angles. But the pool, if there is going to be one, probably would be on the seven acre adjacent to this one. They didn’t see that happening in the 11 acre region. The next group said A Classic Presence with a View. We want to maintain the views of Mt. Diablo. We want the theater as the main focal point. Have a safe route for children, access from all directions, a central plaza. A classic theme, maybe four quadrants around a central plaza with a fountain and parking underneath. You start to get a feel for the themes that are emerging here. The common thread. The next group was looking at the Avenue of the Arts. The theater is the focal point, access from all directions. Families come down the Iron Horse Trail. A swimming pool perhaps on the seven acre, underground parking and City Hall less central to the overall development. Two more themes, Entertainment, Enrichment and Education for the Community. In this case the focal point is again the Cultural Arts Center, view of Mt. Diablo from the upper stories, parking under the Library, a central water feature. And as people put the pieces together they thought maybe the City building could be on the seven acres. And this group actually put the buildings at a diagonal, kind of an innovative approach. The last group was "On the Green", continuing the theme from the Community Center with water flowing connecting the Bollinger/Camino Ramon treated as a landmark corner. Not a lot of interest in the Aquatic Center or City Hall meeting space. So they felt that that intersection where you see the side of the whole as a particularly important place to identify the first impression of the City. Other comments were, we would like to be able to walk through the space, have it open and visually interesting. To link it to the existing park areas and have it accessible from the Trail. So each of these inputs from the teams then became pieces of the puzzle for the architectural design group to begin working with and trying to fit them together in optimal kind of combinations. So we put the puzzle pieces to the test to build attractive relationships between those and you will see tonight the set of combinations, first looking at the unanimous features that seem to come up in each of the team recommendations. And I will hand it off to you Dan to go over that list of 10 things that seem to be common threads in each of the team reports.

Mr. Howard: We also brought in with us when we came this evening some small cards. They have been updated from last time indicating what is going to happen over the course of the next two or three weeks. I think the Mayor alluded to it this evening that on November 20 we are going to be at the City Council Chambers to receive public comment. The boards and the model will be there as well as the members of the design team should you come and wish to make comments on an individual and a more personal basis, we will be there to take notes. So feel free to grab some of these, there is probably 150 of them at the front. Pass them out to your neighbors so we get as much input as we can. Sharon, thank you very much for going through the sunshine array of ideas here. We have some team photos for those of you that were members of the team and don’t forget these are also on the City’s web site. When we took the models apart and really had a look at them, we found that there were a number of interesting ideas that came through. But in fact there were a number of unanimous things that we felt every team had embraced. And I would like to go down. Some of you may have them in the handout but I would really like to go through them individually. Unanimous features, at least in our interpretation and feeling, there should be large landscaped areas. That the landscaped areas for the most part were aggregated toward the middle of the parcel. That view opportunities of Mt. Diablo were important. The focus seemed on culture with every team including the Center for the Arts and the Children’s Museum on the 11 acre parcel. Number five, retail should be included on the 11 acre parcel. Number six, parking should be concealed by being structured with either buildings or landscape treatment on top. Number 7, linkages to adjacent sites and urban fabric is important specifically all teams embraced the idea of a significant connection to Central Park. Number 8, Individual buildings rather than mega blocks all pushed together into one large shape and form. No. 9. Buildings placed corner to the streets rather than closer to the middle of the site. That sounds very much like No. 2 and it is really the quality of number 2. If the park is in the middle then the buildings are on the side or vice versa. And then No. 10, water in one form or another played a large part in the definition of the open space usage. When I put this list together with the members of the team, it was just set down in order as we sort of remembered it and interpreted it. There is no priority to this and this is not less important than what is at the top of the list. They are all what we felt were unanimous positions embraced by the various teams. The next we did was we photographed each of the models that the ten teams had done and then we actually located where the various components were placed and I am just going to move this a second. The brown color represents the Children’s Museum. As you can see the Children’s Museum primarily placed here and here, with one of them in the bottom right corner of the seven acre parcel. The Library was primarily placed either here or here. The Center for the Arts was placed either here or here and that worked with idea of No. 4, the focus seems to be on the culture. The City Hall was primarily placed here or here and we are going to come back to that in a moment. The Aquatics Center was often placed here but then when the seven acre parcel became available, people quickly slid it over here and then the Retail Component was placed both in these two quadrants and up here. The reason why there are more green squares than the other colors is that if you remember the retail were broken into smaller blocks. There is really only 10 of these but there are multiple numbers of the actual retail component themselves. So in looking at that what we realized that there was probably some information that we didn’t tell you and it was because of the time. It was also in terms of priority. There was other information that we had to get out to you. And we think that one of the things that we neglected or omitted to tell you was the fact the City Offices and City Council Chambers have a significant public component. We believe that a lot of you felt that the City Hall and City Council Chambers was really a place where you would go and get your passport or the City officials were working. But there really a large program component within the document that was given to us that is the provision of public meeting rooms which is, there is such a shortage of currently in the City of San Ramon. So given that that gave us some further information on how we were to interpret your thoughts relative to the site. The next thing we did was we had you foam blocks that suggest a certain floor plan or a certain footprint and those have been worked out in our office. Then we spent a little bit more time on them and actually as you can see here we have floor plans of the City Hall, of the Library and the various levels that they occur at. We have floor plans and some sections to the Center for the Arts and some plans of the Aquatic Center and the Children’s Museum. So that allowed us to take those foam blocks that we had given you and massage them a little bit. They are ostensibly the same size. The configuration varies just only a little bit from what you had worked with in your workshop. And then what we did was we took all of that information and we came up with a site diagram that reinforced what we knew about the site. That there wanted to be a linkage to the park, there was Mt. Diablo here, linkages down this way to shopping, linkages this way to shopping, connections on Iron Horse Trail. That the Performing Arts or the Center for the Arts wanted to be on this 11 acre parcel, primarily on this side of the site. That the Library wanted to be here or here. So using this criteria we then developed a matrix of where we felt the components might go. And diagrammatically we felt that the Center for the Arts should primarily be located on this corner. The Children’s Museum could link between either the Library or the Center for the Arts. And Rodney and Jim will talk a little bit later about where it was ultimately located. And we felt that the City Hall should be located in this corner leaving either this parcel here or this parcel here available for the Aquatic Center depending on the nature of the Aquatic Center. Whether it is an open one or an enclosed one will have an impact on where we would ultimately be recommending the location on the site. Given that what I would like to do now is have Rodney Friedman and Jim Lee come up and using the board that I am about to unveil and the model that will be constructed in front of you walk through the process more from an architectural and a site planning point of view than an analytical point of view.

Rodney Friedman, Fisher Friedman & Associates,: and I want to thank everybody who showed. Just give me a show of hands, how many are here from Team 1, are there any members here from Team 1 or Table 1. Table 2, Table 3, Table 4, Table 5, Table 6, Table 7, Table 8, Table 9 and Table 10. Thank you very much. You really helped us a lot. And what we are going to try doing is evening is sort of shaping what you guys did as a collective body and what we want to know from you is whether we heard you properly and whether we are passing this information back. And with that much I want to tell you so. David are you going to start. One of the first criteria that came out and helped us to establish a design relates to the ground plane and almost a unanimous desire to hide the parking or structure the parking and do it underneath the building. While it is fair to say that we don’t have to dig any holes in the site to take care of the parking because if we want to join this site to the adjoining we can park at grade and we build a platform over the top of it and then put the buildings on top of those and then we can adjoin the other site. So that part of the criteria is easily fulfilled and I know it is hard for you to see at an incline, this large rectangle represents existing and if you want to get closer I think you can kind of move up and gather around and it won’t bother Jimmy or I so I invite you up here. This large rectangle was indicated on this scheme, this is the existing parking garage on the other part of the site. And if you look at this, this is Camino Ramon and then this is Bollinger Canyon, Central Park and the Iron Horse Trail and this is the seven acre parcel. So to take the components one by one, the first issue was treat the parking discretely and it is very , very easy for us to put in a grade and build a garage, a deck over the top of it and put the buildings on top. But there are some exceptions; the program for the theater has a lot of support facilities that require loading docks, delivery of things so that we don’t park under the theater. But one of the things that came out of the survey was that virtually everybody puts the theater on the western part of the site however we think the most prime location would be the intersection of Bollinger Canyon and Camino Ramon and that is the easiest way to gain access. So we proposing that the theater is on this corner.

Mr. Lee: One thing that is interesting to see on this plan is just how much parking that we need to accommodate for a given program. And you see that about three-quarters of the site, if it wasn’t covered would be totally parked. This is in addition to the parking that is available on weekends, on week nights available at the parking garage. So that is an interesting observation. The second point is how we need to get access onto the project. There are given lighted intersections that are existing within the city. And there is one here adjacent to the Iron Horse Trail. There is obviously one at Camino Ramon and Bollinger Canyon and then there is one at Bishop Drive. So those three points are already in place. We can’t really provide a lighted intersection in the middle of this condition here. So what we have done is actually build on the fact that there are these existing intersections and access is coming directly in to the parking situation, in this location and also off of Bishop Drive. In addition to that we have provided an ability to come in and drop off in a very comfortable situation and be able to come in and turn out, if you are coming sort of westward on Bollinger Canyon. And then along Camino Ramon, given that we have a full intersection, the community from the east and the community from the west can really comfortably make the turn here and do a very generous drop off in front of the Performing Arts Center and other facilities on the project. So that gives you a bit of the background.

Mr. Howard: Why don’t you describe that access.

Mr. Lee: Okay, this access, this is Bishop Drive and Camino Ramon, again this is a lighted intersection and there is access here that would allow us to move into the parking in several directions. So the main thing is that when we have events here we want multiple ways that people can come in and out of parking configuration..

Mr. Friedman: We are going to cover this up but let me give you an idea of what is going on. This big dotted area is totally unused because we are keeping this either, this can be the blending of the existing park which comes up over the top of, and we will show you, onto the plaza and continues the park down onto the top of the site. So that fully 70% of the site is used for park and recreation and not for building. In this location because we have some ……. we decided to combine some things because there are some things we think that we could some structures, so some of the indications that we got is that the Library and its facilities should relate to the park and the children’s activities and that we should be allowed drop off from the street. So this is a good location for a Library. The possibility of putting a library over here also exists but if you put the Library here then you have this site available for the Town Hall and other the meeting rooms and all those community buildings there and the theater there. So we have kind of a, in the corners, the buildings, the structures that are in the corners, it lets the park and all the open spaces blend together and then we will get the next layer. Now one of the things that we have been talking about and that is one of the things that everybody on is the buildings because they four sides exposed should be attractive on all four sides and that the park is the primary issues. So we thought that the buildings should blend into the landscape and the park and if you remember our presentation we talked about hanging gardens of Babylon and the Oakland Museum, that kind of thing that are about 4,000 years old as opposed to the ones that are coming out of Lockheed and Bowing. So that we are talking about trading this palace area every place you see you are kind of in this nice lush situation of terraced gardens. So if you can’t distinguish buildings then we think that is a plus. Jimmy and I are sure of it. So now that when you look at the site you see very little parking because that is what you guys decided to do, concealed parking. But there are a few occasions where we come out of the site in this location where there will be some on grade parking and that is at the existing garage. And Jimmy you can point to the parking in that location that would serve ........ Now overwhelmingly everybody seems to be the most enthusiastic about the performing arts building and the cultural center. We thought we would include as many facilities in the performing arts theater so that if it were the only building standing on the site it could really be a vibrant viable thing. So we took the retail in the coffee shops and restaurants and attached it and we took the children’s museum and attached because we get these three outside walls and we don’t want three sides of the building to be ugly. So we are able to layer these things on the building and then we have a ............... thing as an amphitheater that we can kind of put of the backside so we can now have outdoor performances or jazz festivals or high school graduations or song recitals or the Mayor can make a dedication there and everybody can stand there and applaud and you can have a lot going on. But the building becomes a backdrop for a lot of things to happen to it as we sort of cascade down this building and then you can see that the green is an idea sort of creating this terrace garden that goes all the way up. Now if you remember some of those pictures of the hanging gardens of Babylon are probably about this tall, that this might be called the gardens of San Ramon. And what will happen it could have a very , very important street presence. That part of the …….great glowing and reception so that everybody knows what is going on. The top of the building is about 100 feet because that is where the stage house has to be and for those of you on special occasions that may want to ride in a stretch limo we have a place to be dropped off and all the television stations can watch all the people arrive.

Mr. Howard: Rodney I would kind of maybe go back to some unanimous features that were described. One of the things that was described on all of the schemes was the desire for a fairly significant amount of open space. Just how the open space is used needs to be determined. But that there is a desire for generous amounts of open space and in doing this quick study one of the things that we discovered by covering up the parking, having the parking below grade, is that taking just the footprints and not considering that there is landscaping on the building, just taking all the public pedestrian areas. It accounts for about 60 to 65% of the entire 11 acre site. So which is about two-thirds of the site is actually dedicated to open space and that is a significant amount of open space. So I think we can determine how it is configured and shaped and allocated through the goals and aspirations.

Mr. Friedman: I am going to hand Jimmy one football field and I am to hold on to the other football field. So we could have the 49ers and the Raiders both here at the same time. That gives you an idea of how large of spaces that you have that are completely devoid of buildings. And you can either put in creeks and ponds and trees and landscape and fountains and civic …… that won’t have anything to do with the buildings.

Mr. Howard: Rodney, one of the things in looking at this list, I think that while it enumerates a number of things, one of the things I find most inspiring on the community board here is some of the statements. I mean they are all inspiring but the ones I kind of found particular interest in is this comment about entertainment, enrichment, education of the community. Inspiring life long learning, welcoming environment, city of trees. They are all great statements but that led me to the question with all this open space that we have, what are we doing here. What do we need to do with this resource. And the question came up, what is this cultural space. The emphasis seems to be on the cultural orientation of this. We are not trying to replicate Central Park. Central Park is fabulous. It has got all sports fields, a lot of those kinds of things. But I think what is our concern, I think there should be a set of landscape that is married with the art and culture aspects of the site. Then one thing that struck us about that in following up with that statement was that really we wanted a landscape that enabled future generations to do a myriad of things. This is plenty of space that can accommodate all kinds of large groups, small groups. And that we should have very tailored beautifully proportioned spaces. Very animated with fountains and a place where local sculptures and pieces that you want to invite people to produce can be incorporated, can be rotated perhaps. That is a place where a children’s museum is not an internal function but really engages the environment. That there is an enchanted forest. Central Park is a lot of strips of trees and big fields. But where is there sort of this enchanted forest where native habitats can be exhibited. You know we have when we look on the east side of the valley versus the west side, they are very different landscapes. The east side is intensely heated by the sun and its grass line as a result. On the west side we have the beautiful oak riparian corridor as the entire hillside is studded with magnificent trees. This aspect here because we are on top of parking, we are able to slope up and get handicap access throughout this thing. We are able to……. Because it easterly exposure there is more moisture on the aspect of the terrain that we could have wonderful oaks and sycamores and bay trees. That we should be forward looking in terms of the landscape. You know how do we, do we take all of the runoff and just dump it out into a storm drain system or is there some way of allowing it to actually, there is plenty of land to percolate and recharge our water table and have that whole experience be an education attribute to the museum, to the library, to cost programs. So we think that there is a lot and we are just touching the surface of this. Obviously as we get into it with a lot more of your specific input and as everybody’s ideas come along we could develop this significantly. But I think the potential is there and that there is just a large array of opportunities that we are just extremely excited about.

Mr. Friedman: When Jimmy has been describing this enchanted forest. All of this comes from you, the audience here really we are just sort of capitalizing on these comments. And it becomes very, very logical to put the library here because it relates to the enchanted forest and the children’s museum and these ecosystems become part of the learning experience in the library. And if you look at the site, instead of taking the government center and office building and those community rooms and putting it on the seven acre site you realize that we have such a surplus of land on the 11 acre site that we can take those community rooms and in the design of whatever the City Hall may be, all of the community rooms would be on the ground floor with the lobbies and the exhibit spaces and the adult exhibit spaces and have them relate to the more formalized outdoor gardens. So we have the very, very natural landscape which is more associated with the library and the transition to the central part and the more formalized gardens that work off the cultural center and the City Hall. And then the idea of again preserving as much footprint and grass space as possible we are suggesting that the Council Chamber is put on the top most part of that building and with some kind of an outdoor terrace so you can look at Mt. Diablo and the sunset to the west all at the same time and that could be special function rooms. So that fully 30% of the program in the City Hall is resident serving as opposed to the office processes, you know the city staff and what have you. So it becomes a reinforcement and it helps put the capital C onto Center. Because if we only have two buildings we have a hard time creating a center.

Mr. Howard: Rodney, I think the other thing is that we thought that we really need to acknowledge the adjacencies and importance of not isolating this facility but really creating a bridge to the adjoining uses and the adjoining future uses. But one thing I want to use this drawing for is really to show the fact that we really, these are very large streets, and that we really need to create significant crosswalks that link where we have light signals which are potentially safe for kids to walk across. So we have done that for all the intersections. The way they exist now the sidewalks are not that significant. They are narrow little things that you are kind of crossing amongst these huge volumes of traffic. In addition to that there was noted on all the schemes the intent to try to create above grade, above street connections when it became feasible. When there was development here that warrants that. So we recognize that and sort of identify those as sort of place holders that we should recognize and when that opportunity is appropriate to implement them the community should try to do that. So we have shown that here across Camino Ramon, a potential here across between the seven and eleven acre parcels. As well as many of the groups talk about have a bridge over where the Iron Horse Trail is.

Mr. Friedman: Now Dan hold up the bridge over the Iron Horse Trail.

Mr. Howard: The Iron Horse Trail is very important for people to go jogging, bicycling, families and it a linkage that over crosses the road. So in order to get there and not interrupt your flow we felt a large ramp would probably ……. Another way to do would be through an elevator. However at the Transportation Advisory Committee they said what about the equestrian. And I have not figured how to get the horse in the elevator. So I think address that and see whether the equestrian need is important because that’s the length combined …… to create a bridge and you can see that is an extension overpass Central Park. That creates a barrier between the museum and the park. It is something we need to sort of work through that. Place, place where people can gather. I think one of the things that we wanted to do for a place like that is have, basically first of all recognize the climate that we are in. That there are extremely warm summers and dapple shade is a beautiful thing to have and that to have a space that is unencumbered except for this filter shade that allows for art festivals that occur, farmers market. I don’t know about the farmers market but various things. Outdoor performances obviously, school bands. Something that really just enable that function to occur. And not prescribing what it would have to be but just creating that flexibility is wonderful. I think that on the edges of the City Hall there is a thought that at the main level related to the gardens is a series of, aside from the lobby, is a series of meeting rooms and offices would be above that. So basically everything that is touching the gardens is public in nature. And that these areas that are immediately adjacent to those could be wisteria trellises or whatever but outdoor areas are natural extensions of meetings and things that can flow in and out of spaces. That this area is also a place where sculpture could be placed by community artists or however you want to use that. And the other too was that because we were parking structure, and this part is really on grade, it creates sort of two basic fundamental characteristics in terms of the kinds of conditions that the landscape has to address. And in so doing we have kind of thought of this as a series of possibilities that are more tailored because it over structure. It is constructed. Tailored, more groomed types of landscaped places. Where here on the natural earth, mother earth, we do things that are much more organic and natural in nature and that those two kind of create a vividness between things. We don’t have a uniform kind of palette of spaces or characteristics but a rich matrix of spaces. One last thing before Rodney… The reason why we actually proposed the forest and this great meadow here is that we wanted to acknowledge from the central part of this entire development where Mt. Diablo is and when we have the celebration, 4^th of July, there is this great meadow. People could come out with their picnic blankets and people could sit on all these upper terraces and look at over the city park and the fireworks with Mt. Diablo in the background. And then so the forest created a foil that emphasizes that view shed and secondly it also offered a sort of a soft screening of this parking structure at this end.

Mr. Friedman: Not wanting to leave anybody out because there were some advocates here for a swim center. So we built the model of a swim center. Some people elected to put the swim center on the 11 acre site. So we thought well could you put the swim center on the 11 acre…....... Well suppose somebody shows up with $30 million and they say well you can have a swim center but the only place is here. And those are the people that put the swim center on this site. So we say well that is a legitimate question and we should address ourselves of that question. So because we can articulate this great change, we can actually have the swim center in sort of two fashions. It is recessed so that it doesn’t interfere with any of the landscape up on the decks and can be an open air swim center with the surrounding stands and changing rooms and then be addressed by the library and all that or even, remember we have got a benefactor here and they say if you put a glass roof on it then they could kind of sit in here and address itself in that sort of way. So that it is possible now that might occur 10 years from now, it could occur 20 years from now but the site is adequate enough to take care of these things. Now if somebody said now we are only going to give, the same benefactor said the swim center can be on the seven acre site and you can virtually take the same facility because that basically is the program. Those are the pools that were required. Incidentally that is the same program that MIT just installed for their aquatic center. My son was on the water polo team there 15 years ago and had to go back and play and then. To give you an idea of scale that is about how much of the seven acre site it would consume. And it could be the same relationship and the same program. So in this study which you guys initiated, we are just trying to summarize all this stuff, gives you an idea of how you take these facilities that we gave you. These are the same colors of the blocks that you had and we have kind of shaped them a little bit more to get the terraces and things, how all of these can exist and exist very happily together in this wonderful landscaped natural environment and hopefully fulfill the dreams that you guys have all put together. So I will turn it back over to the Mayor or Dan and what the next step is.

Mr. Howard: I will ask Sharon to come up and just summarize a little bit. I would like to offer the invitation but since this is a public meeting and public comments happen at the beginning you probably will not have an opportunity to speak this evening. So a week from tomorrow night in the Council Chambers the design team, the model and the boards will be there to hear you individually or collectively with your particular thoughts. We will take thorough and comprehensive notes. I won’t say we will take verbatim notes. But we will take thorough and comprehensive and when we come back with the staff report and the actual plan on December 3, we will be making reference to the comments that we received at that time much like we did this evening.

Ms. Bennett: Well as I said when we started much of this is an exercise in listening to you and we can already begin to see that some of the dreams that you laid out, things like burying the parking are beginning to be a reality here in the model. As it vanishes it opens up tremendous opportunities for green space in relation to the building component. But I think there is also a sense that you can begin to imagine what it would be like to come to this place and to move through it. To bring your family or to have your children involved in these locations or to participate in a meeting. And beginning to see the potential for the buildings positioning in relation to one another actually reinforcing so that all the performing arts, while it might be on a corner, you might have visual arts activities as well that could be occurring in the public spaces of City Hall in that public room and lobby area underneath. You can also see when you look more closely at the program that the age specific clustering of activities is present in this particular design. I think we are beginning to see the linkage between the surrounding areas. Some attention to the sense of active space, with not just having separate buildings but actually imbedding the retail areas in the larger structure or linking the children’s museum rather than having it as a stand alone setting so that all sides of the facility are attractive to the whole. My sense is that many of the themes that we identified in the 10 are beginning to be addressed and there are still some challenges. Things that have to be sorted out like the equestrian traffic issue. I would encourage you if you feel like there are important things that didn’t quite get articulated clearly in the plans so far to come and be part of the dialogue that is happening next week is it.

Mr. Howard: Yes Wednesday the 20^th.

Ms. Bennett: Wednesday the 20^th you can sit down and have a more personal conversation about these things. Take a closer look at the model and if you have other ideas, be sure that those get heard. So that dialogue continues and then it comes formally back to the City Council on the 3^rd of December.

Mr. Howard: And don’t forget there is a link on the San Ramon home page and we will be providing a ............ of images to Dee Steinbrenner of the Planning Department tomorrow. Hopefully to get uploaded onto the web site as quickly as possible. So those of you that have handouts, please if you want to refer to the handouts. Otherwise we hope to up and running on the web site in a day or so. These are on the front desk where you picked up the agenda. Madame Mayor. There is no reason for the models not to be on display in this building. I see a lot of nodding of heads. I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t leave this here this evening on easels.

Ms. Bennett: We could maybe leave a comment card box or something and when people came and pick up the invitation and also could submit their comments.

Mr. Howard: Sure we are happy to do that. I will speak with the Community Center people right now. Thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening and I look forward to hearing from all of you either individually or collectively. Thank you

Mayor Tatarka: Mr. Friedman has a couple of comments or Mr. Howard, excuse me, has a couple of comments to make regarding the plans and moving forward.

Mr. Howard: Yes, we have set a display in the lobby, in the foray outside in the Community Center. All the boards will remain including the landscape boards and the model. The City or our office will make up some comment cards. I expect they will be here by the end of the day tomorrow since I am coming back out by 4:00 o’clock tomorrow. I will either bring them or they will have them here. And there will be a container to put the comments in that we will collect those I’m sorry. The handout that went this evening indicating the get together next week or the opportunity for us to do some more listening indicated the City Council November 20, the time is omitted. Not that we didn’t want you there. We just omitted it. It is 7:00 o’clock. I will be there early just in case and I will stay late just in case. But 7:00 o’clock is the time, November 20^th. And thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening.

Mayor Tatarka: Very good. Thank you very much. It has been brought to my attention that Mr. Reed is now here and would like to give the Senior Advisory Committee report and I would like concurrence of Council that he can proceed so we don’t put him off any further. So with that Mr. Reed.

Phil Reed: Thank you for the opportunity to present this. I am here with egg on my face. As a long time resident of San Ramon I am used to coming to these meetings at 7:30 and somehow the change had just slipped my mind. I will note I was here at exactly 7:30 anyway. I am here tonight as a member and past Chairman of the Senior Citizen Advisory Committee to present our annual report to the City Council. Our current Chairman is Pat York who is here tonight and being a little nervous at public speaking but being an excellent delegator, Pat has asked me to come up here. That explains my presence. By the way you have a report in your packets. I am not going to follow the report to the letter so I will try to abbreviate and go very quickly through the highlights of our report here. The Senior Citizen Advisory Committee is an advisory body to the City Council and it is under purview of the Parks and Community Services Commission. It is a group of eleven people although currently we have only nine members. The committee’s main objectives are to advise the Parks staff of the City, Parks and Community Services Commission and the City Council on the delivery of various senior citizen issues. Recreation and community service activities and those things that provide recreational, social and educational health services to the San Ramon Senior Center participants. We also provide recommendations to the staff, the Commission and the City Council on senior citizen programs and the activities at the San Ramon Senior Center. We receive input from the senior citizen community at our monthly meetings. We act as a liaison to various government bodies and private organizations for the senior citizens and in addition we advocate senior citizens’ issues within the entire community. We also rather than just being reactive we provide input to the staff on current and future needs of the senior citizen community so that the program can keep up with what is happening in the community. I would like now to review our accomplishments and actions over the past year. One of the things we do at the Senior Center is largely volunteer run. We have over 300 active volunteers to take care of the Senior Center along with staff. And keeping the volunteers happy and going is a big part of our committee efforts. We do recognize the volunteer of the month and spend a lot of time recruiting volunteers. The committee also encourages seniors to give back to the community by sharing their expertise with other generations. You are aware I am sure of the award winning Senior Scholar Program. It has been going on for several years now. And we have provided free tutoring to students of San Ramon, approximately 175 students over the past seven years or so. The committee, one of things we tried to do in this past year was develop more ways in which seniors could give back to the community. We held a couple of meetings in which we showed people the various opportunities such as senior scholars and various other things. But particularly we would like to compliment Esther Lucas for picking up the ball and introducing a series called The Master Series in which people who are seniors and have special skills are now teaching classes and giving instruction in such things as ballroom dancing, crocheting, knitting, bridge, Italian. Many of these are volunteer teachers and these people are to be congratulated on donating their time to the Senior Center and providing classes at very minimal costs to the community. In addition we work very closely with the San Ramon Senior Foundation which is the fundraising arm of seniors in San Ramon for the Senior Center. We assist them at the Wind Festival where they have a booth and in their annual rummage sale and various other activities. We have continued to look at the programs at the Senior Center and support new offerings. And the particular one I would like to mention tonight is the Care Management Program that we have started over the past year with Jan Friseur who is a gerontologist and nurse and just is terrific in filling in the gap between all the government programs there are for care management and case management. One of the things you may know that is very difficult to get people to report is when they have been a victim of fraud or anything. And that goes for the general public as well as seniors. Jan is particularly adept at ferreting out problems in the care for a given senior and she has become a touchstone for people to approach with their own individual problems or report to her informally problems that they think are going on with another senior. In order to get input we also develop a questionnaire and attached to your handout is a compellation of questions over the last two years. Not a lot has changed over the years as we gather input you will see that we provide services to people in the surrounding community not just in San Ramon. And we certainly dedicate ourselves to keeping the Senior Center in San Ramon as one of the preeminent senior centers in this area. We set goals for 2002 and 2003 as follows; the first one is to work more closely with the Senior Center Foundation. In addition to their fundraising activities the Foundation also has two activities of their own. And we would like to work more closely with them on that and incorporate those into the Senior Center program. One of our big projects is the continued involvement with the Senior Center expansion program. Over the past year we have spent a lot of time in meetings with the architect in developing the conceptual design that the City Council has reviewed and approved in the past year. And we want to keep that expansion on track. We really need the space. We need a lot of the amenities that are promised in the expansion. We will continue to assist the staff by looking at the existing programs at the Senior Center and also this year we are going to try to encourage relationships with community based organizations. This is both marketing and trying to find sources of support. The Rotary has been a big supporter of our Senior Scholar program, financial supporter. And we think there may be other relationships that can be developed. At the Viva Las Vegas Day you may have noticed the Mothers and Daughters organization is becoming very involved. We particularly welcome this kind intergenerational contact. We have a number of subcommittees. I am not going to go into those. Our subcommittees are under discussion as you may be aware through city committees. And with that I think that kind of summarizes the report for this year. Thank you very much and again I hope you been able to ignore the egg on my face and that it didn’t impact on the Senior Center.

Mayor Tatarka: Thank you Mr. Reed. Any questions of Mr. Reed at all. Just a couple just to get a sense of kind of where you are going. When you talk about, and I am trying to find the specific area, you talk about trying to work with getting back to the community with the younger generations. Can you kind of expand on maybe what programs or what you are looking at to do that when you say that. What you had in mind or were there any samples of it in your discussion.

Mr. Reed: The basis is that in our mobile society many people are removed from their grandparents. They don’t get to see them and associate with them all the time. A lot of younger people that have no concept of what aging is. The experience that an aging person can bring to the table. The Senior Scholar program is our preeminent program for intergenerational contacts. In addition in the gardens we have hosted a number of volunteer groups that have come up, the boy scouts and various things that come up and have a chance to do their volunteer projects but at the same time interact with seniors. I mentioned this mothers and daughters thing for Viva Las Vegas Day and they also wish to get more involved in volunteering and helping us with activities at the San Ramon Senior Center.

Mayor Tatarka: I am just wondering if there is maybe an opportunity you know we have a Teen Council that is pretty active as well. Have you given any thought of maybe interacting with them in any way within our community.

Mr. Reed: I don’t know that we have approached this. It is an excellent suggestion. We do have a lot of teens from Cal High that come there Sunday morning for the Foundation Breakfast.

Mr. Reed: So maybe there is an opportunity. That would be the only suggestion I would have. That there would be something you could connect with them because I do know a lot of young people do volunteer at the Senior Center and have a lot of connection for events that you do have, the various things that we do have. So maybe there is a connection there. Just kind of a suggestion I would have. Is there anyone else.

Vice Mayor Wilson: Yes I believe one thing we have spoken about in the past . Seniors are a wealth of knowledge and we were discussing and I think we did it last year when Cal High was talking World War II. Some of the veterans from World War II went up to Cal High and gave a presentation about what it was actually like to be in Normandy. And that was very successful. We were talking prohibition and there were some who remember when women gained the right to vote. There are all these programs that the seniors are doing now. But I think more than anything else it is actually living history. To not to read it but hear someone who was actually there and that is a program that you started also that I think is not that well known in the Valley but the response has been unbelievable.

Mr. Reed: Thank you. Yes we missed that this year for Veterans Day but we will continue with a program we do in the Spring. One of the high school history teachers, Ralph Fong, has a junior class that one of their projects is to write a I search paper in which they must interview three or four people concerning a topic and learn history first hand from somebody that has been there at the time. So we compile lists of people that have topics that are of interest to the high school kids and they come up and interview our seniors. We will continue that program.

Mayor Tatarka: That is a great program. My son actually partook of that and interviewed a senior and actually did it on tape just to let you know. And he passed away and my son gave that to his widow. So he was part of that program and its very, very successful. I hope that. That is a great program.

Mr. Reed: Fantastic.

Mayor Tatarka: Any other comments. None. Great. Thank you to the Senior Advisory Committee and all the members. Thank you very, very much for your hard work. And we accept this report. Do I hear a motion to accept it Dave.

Cm. Hudson: So moved

Mayor Tatarka: Great second.

Cm. Dickey: Second.

Mayor Tatarka: All those in favor say aye.

The motion passed 5-0.

Mayor Tatarka: We are moving on. I think Mr. Harper is anxious to get moving here so lets move forward for him. Okay we are moving on to new business. As we are beginning this new business the item that you talked about Dave was the emergency item that I would like to put at 12.3. The concurrence of Mr. Randall and Mr. Curry said that would be an appropriate place to put it as well. So we need a vote on adding this emergency item as item 12.3.

Cm. Dickey’s motion to add the emergency item to the agenda was seconded by Cm. Hudson and passed 5-0.

Mayor Tatarka: Great, we have got it as an emergency item. Okay, now we are on to new business 12.1. This is a public hearing. It is Resolution 2002-123 Approving the Mitigation Negative Declaration of the Environmental Impact Report for the Crow Canyon Corridor Improvement Project CIP 7114, 7116, 7117, 7127, 7129, 7130, 8125 and 8168. And instead of Joye Fukuda it is John Harper.

Mr. Harper: You have a public hearing tonight for a negative declaration for the projects that you listed there commonly known as the Crow Canyon Corridor Projects. We sent out notices to over 300 property owners within 300 feet of the project areas. The public comment period was from October 1 to November 1. We published the notice in the newspaper twice and we put it on the City web site and we sent it to the State Clearing House and informed all the affected state agencies. First I would like to talk a little bit about the project scope for this project. Beginning on the easterly end, we will be improving parts of the intersection up at Alcosta, landscaping along the east side of Alcosta with a single row of trees, landscaping the median along the whole length of the project up to the freeway. We will be doing bits and pieces of widening on both sides to add left turn lanes and right turn lanes and straightening out the lanes through some of the intersections. The City Council previously approved the southerly alignment for this about a year and a half ago. The blue areas on this map indicate areas that are being widened. You can see there is a small sliver of widening along the north side of Crow Canyon Road and a wider widening along the south side of Crow Canyon Road and up towards the freeway in this area. In addition we will be widening on Camino Ramon so this piece here and you may notice there is a kink in the roadway right here at the north end of the Kinko’s property. We will be landscaping the median at Camino Ramon from Crow Canyon to the City Hall driveway. And in addition we will be adding a lane for both of the south bound and north bound off-ramps on the freeway. One other aspect of the project will be undergrounding of the overhead wires that go from the easterly corner of Max’s Diner to the Iron Horse Trail. During the comment period we received a total of three comments. One was from the California Environmental Protection Agency Department of Toxic Substances Control and that is noted in the staff report. And a response letter has been sent to them. Their comment concerned an investigation of aerially deposited lead along the freeway off-ramps and it is included in the project design phase to test for that and sample for that. If remediation measures are needed it will be included in the design. So the Negative Declaration includes that already and it was described in the initial study. The other two comments were received from Caltrans. The first one was on the same subject of the aerially deposited lead which we have already covered and the second one was simply that an encroachment is required to do any work within the Caltrans right of way. That was always our intent. In fact we have been working with Caltrans for the past year or so to develop that encroachment permit. The process tonight is you will hold the public hearing and if you receive no comments or if you receive no comments that require a response then you can close the public hearing and consider approval of the Mitigated Negative Declaration. If comments are received tonight that require a response then we ask that you put off consideration until the next meeting until we can develop adequate responses for those comments. In addition to me we have two consultants here tonight that can answer any questions Mark Boucher, Mark Thomas & Company is our Civil Engineering Consultant and Private Development Consultant and Mary Bean from Pacific Affairs Management for any environmental questions. With that I would be happy to answer any questions or open the public hearing.

Cm. Hudson: Alright John one more time, where would the power lines be taken down from Max’s to where.

Mr. Harper: To the Iron Horse Trail.

Mayor Tatarka: Any other questions. Okay, just for clarification, this is the CIP project that was approved in 1998-99 is that correct.

Mr. Harper: Yes

Mayor Tatarka: Would you clarify again where the funding for this project is coming from.

Mr. Harper: There are two sources of funding for this project. Dougherty Valley mitigation fees is one and the City Transportation Improvement Fund is the other.

Mayor Tatarka: Can you give us a timeline and schedule on the project itself.

Mr. Harper: Yes. There are several phases to the project development. Preliminary engineering is the first phase and when the City Council approved the alignment that completed approximately 25% of the preliminary engineering phase. Mark Thomas has completed up to about the 35% level which is the complete preliminary engineering phase. Along with that is the environmental review phase which we are nearing the completion of tonight or the next Council meeting. After that we enter the right of way acquisition phase. There are approximately 15 properties that we need to acquire, either fee title property, or easements, public utility easements or temporary construction easements. The schedule for that varies depending on the right of way acquisition process. It could be as little as three to four months. It could be longer. If we have to go into the eminent domain process it can take longer. The next phase after that is the construction phase and we have split that into three pieces. The first construction phase will be the undergrounding. We want to do that first in order to get that out of the way so that we can then do the construction on Crow Canyon Road unhindered by any potential delays as a result of the utility undergrounding, removing the poles. We don’t want them in the way of the construction when our contractor is out there so that they potential delays or claims therefore. The third phase is the construction on the state right of way and we split that out just because of the Caltrans process and encroachment permit process. We have to 100% plans ready to Caltrans to apply for the encroachment permit and then Caltrans begins their review in this case. There is a split in processes to use with Caltrans encroachment permit is generally used for under $1 million worth of construction work on the state right of way. Over that they use what they call the project development process. The project development process you work hand in hand along the way and it takes a while. With the encroachment process you complete all of the plans for the 100% stage and then you submit it to them and it takes a while. And that would complete the project, the final construction would complete the project.

Cm. Dickey: On the California EPA, the Department of Toxic Substances Control, their voluntary clean up program. We have made application for that, is that what I am understanding.

Mr. Harper: What we have to do on that is test and sample to see if there are any toxic materials there that need to be cleaned up. Whenever and you have or discover toxic materials on your site you need to remediate them according to state law. So the plan at this point is we took is if we find it then we will include it as part of the project and have to clean it up. In this particular case we are testing for aerially deposited lead which is a result of the old leaded gasoline from the exhaust in cars and the remediation measures are generally pretty tame and we can just include that in the construction portion of the project.

Mayor Tatarka: Okay that is good. Are there any other questions. None, good. We have got the public hearing so if we have any comments. Okay. I am going to open the public hearing. I do not have any speaker cards to this item so I will close the public hearing and John you will be happy to know that we had no comment cards. So it is before the Council now.

Cm. Hudson: Would John like us to continue it for two or three more meetings. If not I will move Resolution No. 2002-123 Approving the Mitigated Negative Declaration of Environment Impact for the Crow Canyon Corridor Improvement Project CIP No. 7114, 7116, 7117, 7127, 7129, 7130, 8125 and 8168. Is there a second.

Cm. Dickey: I second it.

Mayor Tatarka: All those in favor say aye. Opposed.

The motion passed 5-0.

Mayor Tatarka: Okay John you can proceed. Great. Thank you very much. Okay we moving on to item 12.2 and this is the Resolution No. 2002-125 Authorizing the Mayor to execute a contract with Management Partners, Inc. to prepare a Multi-year Business Plan for the City of San Ramon. This is a staff report by Jim Randall.

Mr. Randall: One of the things that has become increasingly apparent at the staff level over the past several months is that there a number of very significant major issues that will be facing the City of San Ramon over the next several years and that we believe that these issues will require a significant multi-year planning effort. The recommendation before you this evening is to adopt a resolution to enter into a contract with a consulting firm to assist the City with that multi-year planning effort. But I would like to give some background that has led us to the conclusion that we need to move with this and to move forward with it now. The major issues that I am referring to are several; fiscal pressures are something that the City of San Ramon has not had to deal with for a number of years but certainly we are dealing with them now for a variety of reasons. But these pressures suggest very strongly the need for a multi-year financial plan to respond to the revenue impact of the current and the projected economic conditions in the City of San Ramon. To deal with the financing costs for the City/Civic Center project that was presented to the Council and the community this evening. The very strong potential that in next years state budget actions there will be some actions that will impact the City adversely and we need to be preparing for that. And then further the construction and operation of numerous new public facilities, particularly in the Dougherty Valley but also elsewhere. We had Alta Mesa Park opening and there will be other facilities in the City as they currently exist. A second major issue is just the public service demands that we are going to be facing. Again, this response to the growing service requirements in Dougherty Valley. This will respond to the operating costs for the Civic and City Center. Up to this point there has been limited discussion of those operating costs. Most of the discussion around the financial issues on the City Center relates to the construction costs but operating costs which will be on-going will be equally significant if not more so. The implementation of the new General Plan. Just this evening the Council approved a contract for $492,000 to contract with a consulting team to help us with the new specific plan for the Crow Canyon Redevelopment area. And there will be other specific plans that will be proceeding over the next several months as we implement the new General Plan. And of equal importance in this community is the continuing maintenance of the high quality of current City services. This City enjoys a very high level of services, the citizens have come to expect this and the employees take great pride in being able to deliver the high quality of services. And we would like to be able to do the planning necessary to be able to maintain those high quality services. The significant population growth the City will experience over the next several years suggests, to use the term the need for a multi-year social plan. Some people have taken issue with that term. What I see as a multi-year social plan relates to Dougherty Valley. We are going to have a new community center out there. We are going to have a new library out there. We are going to have schools out there. We are going to have upwards of 30,000 new residents out there. And it concerns me that because of the physical barrier, you go up the hill to get to Dougherty Valley that we are going to end up with the City of San Ramon and a City of Dougherty Valley. Because they are going to have their amenities and we are going to have ours. And I am concerned that that type of a situation would evolve. And I think that in order for the City to be planning to integrate this community, and I say socially, but I am integrating the population of this community into a single City of San Ramon. I think we need to be looking at those issues now and deciding how we can try to accomplish to the best of our ability that integration of these new residents into the social fabric of this community as they move into that area out there and become residents of our city. The challenge of a growing and more sophisticated city government suggests the need for a multi-year management plan. And that is really what we are talking about here this evening. In response to the maturing of the City organization and the need to establish essential management tools for the measurement and evaluation of city services, evaluating options, setting priorities, making recommendations to the City Council on policy issues. These areas of endeavor are all going to become more complex, more demanding as the city expands and the issues that we deal with in the city become more numerous and more complex and we need to be preparing now how to deal with these issues so that we are not suddenly confronted with them as the city continues to grow. I recognize that the city is in a period of transition in terms of its administrative leadership but these issues that I have identified are neither going to go away nor wait for the new City Manager to arrive. They are here. They are moving forward and I think that we need to proceed to address them. We have had a number of discussions at the staff level regarding these issues particularly those relating to Dougherty Valley and the impact of its emerging presence in the city. The public infrastructure that is being built and turned over to the city, the streets, the signals, the street lights, the fountains, landscaping, parks, etc. as well as the new public facilities that I mentioned before, the Community Center, the Senior Center, Library, Service Center, Aquatic Center with the new high school, parks that will be with the new schools, the new gymnasium that the city will participate in the funding of at the new middle school. These will create extraordinary new demands on the city for staffing programming and managing. And some of these new facilities are expected on line as early as 2004/2005 and that may sound like a long ways away but 2003 is less than 60 days from now. So they are not that far in the distance and we need to be preparing now how we are going to address those issues. It is important to begin this process I believe as soon as possible. The Parks and Community Services Department is initiating the update of its Master Plan, Multi Five Year Master Plan. The Administrative Services Department initiating its update of the Five Year Financial Forecast. And as we saw this evening the Civic/City Center Project is moving forward as well as the implementation of the new General Plan. Those are at key stages of approval and implementation. So all of these issues come together and I believe that initiating the Multi Year Business Plan concurrent with these activities will ensure consistency of the final product with the overall goals and policies of the city as established by the City Council. The timing of the project should sit very well in my opinion with the arrival of the new City Manager in that he or she will b e on-board for the final several weeks for the development and will be able to provide critical input during these latter stages of the project. I believe timing is also important as we move into the annual budget process later on this spring. If we delay too much longer the conclusion of this project will not be able to be incorporated into the budget preparations for the coming fiscal year. The initial discussions around this project occurred at the staff level. I had an appointment with a professional colleague that I have known a number, a gentleman by the name of Jerry Newfarmer, and in the course of that conversation I asked him about assisting the city with the integration of the new Development Services Department. The multiple functions of four divisions that were folded into the new Development Services Department to try and assist the city in that process as I mentioned when that reorganization was announced. In the conversation with Jerry we both came to realize there was a lot more going on here than just that piece and went back and talked further with staff and it was at that point that Community Services was becoming increasingly concerned about the coming on line of the new facilities in Dougherty Valley and the need to be prepared for that. And I went back and discussed with Jerry what he could provide for us in the way of a multi faceted approach to a management plan addressing all of these issues. And over the course of several discussions he prepared a proposal, we reviewed it, sent it back, redid it a couple three times. I did solicit a second proposal from a local firm that was recommended to me because I wanted to test the availability of somebody as well as the cost parameters that were being proposed by Mr. Newfarmer’s firm Management Partners Inc. The cost proposal of the second firm is almost twice what Mr. Newfarmer is proposing to do this work for. Mr. Newfarmer has extensive experience in local government as the former City Manager of the Cities of Fresno and San Jose in California and Cincinnati in Ohio. He has conducted projects of this nature in cities all over the country. He is here this evening to be able to respond to questions that Council may have of him with respect to his approach to this process. In an amount not to exceed $125,000 to prepare a multi year business plan for the city. I would also add that this issue was discussed at the Finance Committee meeting on October 14. The committee did not concur in terms of, or did not agree in terms of a recommendation and simply forwarded it to the Council for consideration without a recommendation. I would be glad to answer any questions.

Mayor Tatarka: Okay, Mr. Newfarmer is here just to answer questions or is he to make a presentation.

Mr. Randall: Primarily to answer questions. Once you get him started he will probably make a presentation but..

Mayor Tatarka: Okay great, questions of Mr. Randall.

Vice Mayor Wilson: I will start and then at the conclusion I might have one or two further questions for Mr. Randall. To begin Mr. Randall I do agree with you that, the concerns that you have are my concerns also. The timing is my greatest concern. We have a major difference of opinion on that. One question though why don’t you feel that we have staff that can adequately accomplish this same project versus hiring an outside consultant to this. What part of this project don’t you feel that the present staff can accomplish.

Mr. Randall: The most important component of that is time. This is a significant undertaking in the same way that the Planning Department could not have handled the General Plan update on its own because there simply wasn’t the time available on the existing staff. There is not the time available for the current staff to lead this project. Staff will be involved in this project. As you read the proposal there are any numbers of areas of the project that staff will be involved with and the staff will be involved in carrying out the other responsibilities that I address; the multi year Parks and Community Services plan, the multi year financial plan. This is a management plan and the other elements will relate to it but are not an integral part of it.

Vice Mayor Wilson: So when you are talking about these projects, every single one that you were talking to, to me were the normal basic jobs of staff members. When you are talking about Dougherty Valley, ever since I have been a resident of San Ramon and active in this community we have been talking about Dougherty Valley. We have been talking about the components that make up Dougherty Valley. We have been talking about this, the schools, the new parks. Dougherty Valley is nothing that we have not addressed in building this City. There is an article called the Dougherty Valley agreement that basically addresses everything that you were talking about that we have been working on for the last six or seven years. It is nothing new. It is not like invention of the wheel. I think that, I know that the staff has been working on this. And it is imperative that we give staff an opportunity to do this. You spoke about at the beginning, this is not a new vision. We don’t have to invent the wheel on any of these proposals. We built the Community Center. We know what it is to have these facilities here, what it takes to run a facility. We have parks. Dougherty Valley is no different from San Ramon. There are certain aspects of it, of course it is going to be different. But we know there are facilities. We know how to fund it. We know what it takes to run parks. There is nothing new here. Staff can do this. I have no doubt in my mind staff can do this and we have adequate staff to do this. They are being paid to do this. We don’t need an outside consultant right now. And I think there is adequate time. We have gone through a budget every single year. We know how to address the financial needs of San Ramon. There is where we have a staff. I think a staff would have more input on this and an understanding what we really need than an outside consultant. And I would be very disappointed if the city staff of San Ramon could not do a better job than an outside consultant who has really no vested interested in this. And I don’t think that it is a time element. In a month and one half we are going to have a new City Manager. If that person decides to do this at that time if they want to consider this, and I doubt very seriously whether they would, they should be the one, not anyone else. A couple more months is not going to make that much difference one way or the other. And after being very active in this city this is no way that I think this holds any credibility at all.

Cm. Cambra: Jim let me ask the question regarding staff. Obviously you have talked with them about this in several meetings. What is their impression of it in terms of department heads.

Mr. Randall: I think it is something they believe it needs to be done. In response to the comments about it ought to be done by staff, I think that if I or the new City Manager were to suggest that staff undertake this project they would gasp. There simply is not time available for them to take on the project as it is proposed and as I envision it in preparing a multi year plan for the city. If it was to be done at the staff level I would recommend it not be done. Their staff is fully burdened with their tasks that they are currently assigned.

Cm. Cambra: Did anyone on our existing staff in terms of department heads make any suggestions that their department could do it, would do it, would prefer to do it.

Mr. Randall: No

Cm. Cambra: Thank you

Vice Mayor Wilson: I have another comment. Mr. Randall, you came to staff and said we needed to do this. As my boss, if I were staff, I am not going to tell you no.

Mr. Randall: Mr. Wilson I did not come to staff and say we needed to do this.

Vice Mayor Wilson: You went to Mr. Newfarmer and you stated that after speaking with him that the two of you decided after going to a different proposal that this is what the city needed. You went to one other person, correct. And evidentially that was $240,000 or something I can’t remember.

Mr. Randall: Right $245,000.

Vice Mayor Wilson: $255,000. You didn’t follow the normal procedure. Why didn’t you. Why wouldn’t this go out like any RFP and say okay we are looking at this. Why did we skip that and went to one rather than putting it out to someone coming in saying this is what we can do. I have never heard of pursuing this before.

Mr. Randall: The city is not required to go out for bids for professional services Mr. Wilson.

Mayor Tatarka: Any other questions because I do have some speaker cards. So I do want to get to them. I just wanted questions for Mr. Randall or Mr. Newfarmer. I do have some questions and comments but I want to hear from the public. Sam Lemon

Mr. Lemon: I want to commend you in taking the approach to have a five year business plan, a financial plan for the city. I have been fortunate to be involved with two different organizations that went the route of a five year plan, and I might add they were five year rolling plans. Meaning that if you drop the year off the front end you can add another one on the tail end. It makes an awful lot of sense. But we part company when it comes to spending $125,000 to do that. When you think about the responsibilities of the city management and staff, this falls clearly within their bailiwick and responsibility to do it. And it is not impossible to do. There are model plans available from other cities, the California League of Cities, Shaping Our Future, or other organizations to which we belong and really all you need is a format and proceed from there. I think they are fully capable of doing that. And as a matter of fact when you think about it between Mr. Estep and Mr. Randall, we are paying them $300,000 a year and I think for that we have a right to be entitled to more than a recommendation to hire a consultant. I think they can do it and I were in your shoes I think I would turn around to Mr. Randall and say yes, we would like to have a five year plan. We would like a draft on our desk in 90 days. And I think you would get one. We have all of this financial information, we know all that we need to know about Dougherty Valley and the rest of the city. All of that was accumulated in Parks General Plan and is readily available to the entire staff. There isn’t any reason why they can’t approach this by simply finding a model, emulating it, filling in the blanks and getting it back to you. We don’t have to spend $125,000. That is not warranted. Thank you.

Mayor Tatarka: Thank you. Donna Kerger

Ms. Kerger: While my card says that I am opposed to it or against the resolution actually what I would like to say is I would recommend that the City Council postpone this decision. A couple of speakers before me, including Vice Mayor Wilson and Mr. Lemon, kind of said exactly what some of my notes say about postponing it because the new City Manager, he is coming on board real soon and I would hope.

Mr. Randall: He or she

Ms. Kerger: He or she, I have that too. He or she will come from probably a similar economic and growth space as we have here in San Ramon. Hopefully he or she will come with experience to assist us with our future growth. I belong to a public agency that in the last 13 years we have had four different district managers and each came to the district with their own way of working and their own management style. I would really hope that we would give the same opportunity to our new City Manager. We don’t know that he might not have or she might not have solutions for us. In summary what I really believe is that we have had a reorganization, now we are asking for a business plan. And for me that is like putting the cart before horse. We should have had the business plan and then perhaps maybe the reorganization. Also I think that we need to continue down this path so that the new City Manager’s ability to effectively do his job is available to him. I also believe that he should be giving an opportunity to be in charge of his own management destiny.

Mayor Tatarka: Thank you. Diane Schinnerer

Ms. Schinnerer: I have four very short points. No. 1; There is an obvious need to wait one short month until our next City Manager aboard. No. 2; For a contract of this magnitude an RFP should be issued just as part of a good business practice even if it is not necessary. The General Plan did issue RFPs as you remember. No. 3; It is inappropriate to hand a $125,000 contract to a personal friend without a competitive bidding process. No. 4; I urge you to postpone this item until the new City Manager is aboard.

Mayor Tatarka: Okay, Rosalind Rogoff

Ms. Rogoff: In the first place I don’t see any urgency for this. I think that Mr. Randall’s urgency is primarily based on the fact that he wants to get this done before he retires. I don’t think there is so much urgency that you can’t wait for the new City Manager. The other thing is that this really should go out for bids. I notice on the City web site which you have a request for proposal for a consultant to do the EIR for the City Center. You have a request for proposal when you were looking for a search firm for the City Manager. You had a request for proposal when you were looking for a design firm for the City Center, a request for proposal when you were looking for a project manager for the City Center. This is a $125,000 contract. It is not peanuts. It is not that $20,000 audit program that Jim Randall could say he found a company that could it. Even that probably should have gone out for proposals. But for $125,000, as far as the second bidder goes, I looked at the presentation the second bidder made and it is like a completely different proposal. It is like whatever information they were given in the one hour meeting with Mr. Randall wasn’t as comprehensive as the information Mr. Newfarmer was given or maybe it is the other way around. Maybe Mr. Newfarmer is writing his own proposal and saying this is what should be done and telling the city how they should do it and what you should do. And I think that is something the City Council should be deciding, not Mr. Newfarmer. I think that the City Council decide is this even something that we need to have. Do we want to spend up to $125,000 on this even if we think we money in the budget for it when we know revenues are dropping like a stone. Do we need to hire an outside person to do this or do we want to have a staff do it. Either assigned to it and hire a staff person specifically for this purpose. And then once you make that decision of how much you are going to spend and who is going to it and what kind of contract you are going to have, then you direct to write an RFP to get proposals from a number of companies so the City Council can make a decision on the right way to go. That is what you should be doing.

Mayor Tatarka: Paul Mitchell

Mr. Mitchell: I have been running back and forth getting my daughter to and from dance so I am afraid I did not see the presentation so I really can’t comment with much detail. My concern that I will express is from information that I have been able to gather, from the paper and talking to other people, I don’t understand the timing of this proposal, what the rush is to get this started. It seems from my own experience in a Fortune 50 corporation with 27, some of them in management experience, that to bring, not only do we bring outside consultants to help us but we bring people from other parts of the country with our own company to facilitate and it has never really worked that well to begin with but to bring somebody in prior to the hiring of a City Manager, to have a disjointed schedule between those two activities just on the surface of it I don’t understand why it is being brought forward tonight. It just seems out of phase. As I noted on the comment card, my recommendation is to table this motion until the new City Manager is hired and on board and get that activity in sync with the regular budget cycle for the coming year. Because I have sat through past budget discussions and talk has included how are we going to absorb Dougherty Valley, how are we going to plan for all of those activities. It is not like it is a brand new sudden topic to be concerned about. I thought it would start picking up speed during the next budget cycle and into the next two to three or four years perhaps. But this just came out of the blue so I hold my comments for further time to study and understand just what the merits of the proposal are. Thank you.

Mayor Tatarka: Carol Rowley

Ms. Rowley: I have been a resident here for over 30 years and when we first moved here it was a tiny, tiny city. And things have just evolved. I think we have a wonderful history and we have a wonderful partnership with our businesses. There are a lot of businesses that can really give input into this. At the school site level we always pull in other parents that have the knowledge to help us. We don’t pay them, they volunteer their time to help. I see this as a cooperative effort with our business people and the City working together. We have had the Dougherty plan in motion for years. We have plans for the library, where the high school is going to go, where the park is going to go. We have thought about all of those things. So this isn’t something that just came up. So I think there is a lot of planning that the City staff, which I really believe can do a fine job. And if you need to bring in other people for expert advice, that is one thing. But to pay $125,000 when we are going into our reserve really is a concern to me. And I really feel that we need to table this, wait on this, and really get more input when we have our new City Manager on board, whether it be a he or a she. Thank you.

Mayor Tatarka: Okay, I have no other speaker cards but I do have a statement that, an email that we received that they want read into the record. "I would like the following statement read into the record at tonight’s City Council meeting regarding item 12.2. I would like to personally give the message but I am unable to find a baby sitter for my children. Thank you." This is from Paul McCleary in San Ramon. "I would like to urge the Council not to adopt Resolution 2002-125. The Business Plan was not of the Council’s work plan for the adopted budget for fiscal year 2002/2003. I expect the question of why it is so important to enter into a new agreement now. The savings the City gained from combining the Administrative Services Director and Assistant City Manager positions should be put aside for future economic uncertainties or used to offset the former City Manager’s severance package. Although a consultant is being hired to complete the project it will take additional staff time to manage and facilitate a project of this size which is not part of the original work plan for the year. This may divert staff time from other high priority goals and project. Although the City’s purchasing ordinance exempts consulting services from competitive bidding, the way this has been handled leaves a lot of unanswered questions in the residents’ minds. After doing some research about the firm selected to complete the plan I am not confident in their abilities. The Council may also want to do some more investigation before acting on this resolution. It would be more prudent for the Council to consider this project as part of the development of 2003/2004 budget. At that time the City will have more detailed information about San Ramon’s economic future and be able to compare the pros and cons, benefits of the project with other competing priorities in the City".

Mayor Tatarka: I have no other speaker cards.

Mr. Randall: Madam Mayor, if I might ask at this point if Mr. Newfarmer would like to make comments.

Mayor Tatarka: I will ask Mr. Newfarmer to come up to explain his proposal.

Mr. Newfarmer: Thank you for the opportunity to comment. We were asked to submit a proposal to do business planning for the City of San Ramon. We are a professional management consulting firm that specializes in local government. We have done a lot of work for hundreds of cities and counties throughout the United States and particularly here in California. And as the manager indicated my professional background prior to forming Management Partners in 1994 was in city management and I served in the cities of Oakland, Fresno and San Jose in California and Navy in this area and am really familiar with it. The proposal that way it was made for you represents both sound management and business planning that any city should be doing. And the approach and methodology that we have included in our proposal is a work plan that we have executed for a number of jurisdictions in a number of places. There are two reasons for using a consultant. One is that the consultant brings a special expertise to the table that is not available on your staff. The second reason is that the consultant offers extra capacity to get a certain amount of work done in a certain time frame. And I think in this particular instance that both of those reasons are applicable. You know I can not comment on what your staff does on their own because I don’t know. I know what other staffs have done that I have worked with in public service and they are generally fully busy all the time. It is not like they have a lot of discretionary time to do things. Yours is a city that has been maturing over the number of years. And faces further and development with the coming on line of the Dougherty Valley. In deed many of the steps that are contained in our proposal we will execute for you are good business or good management planning steps that any jurisdiction should take or in your case should have taken. They are the kinds of things that are good management, that ought to be built in, into the system and institutionalized. I would just like to make one other comment and that is; Jim very graciously said that we are friends. That is nice Jim and I thank you. We are not personal friends. And I think it is a misimpression that people feel that that is the case. We are professional acquaintances. Management Partners prides itself in doing first rate high quality staff work. I have the good pleasure of meeting with the Council’s planning committee in talking about this project and this proposal and answering their questions over a period of time and was happy to do that and would be pleased to respond to any additional questions that you have this evening. There is no doubt in my mind that our proposal is; A – good business, B –good management for the City of San Ramon and without a doubt financially competitive. And we stand behind it. I appreciate the fact that you are going through or about to go through an administrative transition. Our work plan is the kind of work plan that any professional manager, including anyone that this City Council might select or want to have done by way of support for him or her. I would be perfectly willing to proceed on the basis that once this Council had made its decision about who its professional manager will be going forward. If that person, subsequent to the Council’s decision, says I don’t want to do the approach that is laid out in our work plan, I am perfectly happy to back away and not pursue it. I feel that confident that any professional city manager would want to do this. And in fact the work plan and sequencing if a work plan that has been designed specifically so as to facilitate a smooth transition in of the administrative profession in a leadership role. Having served as a city manager I think I have a capacity to assist in that kind of a transition. In fact I see the work that we will be doing as enormously supportive, not only for the new City Manager but for your entire management team. They have got a lot of work on their plate and it would be our job to support them with the planning tools that they need going forward and I think we have the capacity to do that.

Mayor Tatarka: I figured there might some questions for Mr. Newfarmer. Just a moment, Mr. Hudson.

Cm. Hudson: Actually quick questions and for reference Mr. Newfarmer, my first question will be on Activity 3, Prepare a Business Plan, the last sentence of the last paragraph and it reads "Although the work of Activity 5, Installation of Performance Measures, will be added later the draft can be discussed with members of the Council as part of the continuing discussion of our progress". Is this an additional cost that we would be looking for or is that included.

Mr. Newfarmer: That is included.

Cm. Hudson: The wording on it had me a little.. It looked like it would be something we added later. The other question I have has to do with the staff but since it would fall on you if you get this contract obviously it is going to apply to you and that is on the second page of our staff report, the top paragraph that starts with public service demands and in parenthesis at the bottom. I am sorry I think it is the, well I will just read it. "Public service demands suggest the need for a multi year service plan in response to the growing service requirements in Dougherty Valley, the operating costs of the Civic/City Center and the implementation of the new General Plan". The operating costs of the new City Center weren’t given to us tonight. We just saw this plan for the first time. This thing could be all over the place. We were given a staff report last week of $875,000 negative a year. We don’t know anything about the library. The people that we just paid for haven’t even given us the costs. The way I read it you study would be finished before they even came back with the numbers. Doesn’t this seem like we are just a little bit ahead of where we should be on this.

Mr. Newfarmer: I can’t comment on the City Center elements of the work. What clearly seems to me is that this is doable and should be done is to project out the financial plan for basis city services for the City of San Ramon going forward for five to ten years. That has not been done. Cities that are well managed do this. For example the City of Sunnyvale. It is especially important when you are bringing on line a major area of the City like the Dougherty Valley which has a huge impact on the City’s capacity to provide those services. I think your point is well taken. I mean I don’t know the details of the City Center element of the impact on the City’s budget. I do know with respect to basic city services that a long term financial projection is a good thing to do and it…..

Mayor Tatarka: Any other questions of Mr. Newfarmer.

Vice Mayor Wilson: Yes, one. The expertise that you gleaned from being a city manager, you are going to bring that to this project. Are you just going to do this project or are you going to have staff work with you.

Mr. Newfarmer: I am not going to do the whole project personally. I will have staff of my company doing the work, that is correct.

Vice Mayor Wilson: And you are bringing your expertise of being a city manager and were you a city manager in San Jose and Cincinnati and that is the part of your professional background that you feel you can bring to this project.

Mr. Newfarmer: Yes

Vice Mayor Wilson: Are you still president of the Charter Committee.

Mr. Newfarmer: No I have resigned.

Vice Mayor Wilson: You resigned from the Charter Committee.

Mr. Newfarmer: Yes

Vice Mayor Wilson: One thing that concerns me when you were at the Finance Committee. I mentioned to you that I was going to check your references.

Mr. Newfarmer: Yes, and I encouraged you to do that.

Vice Mayor Wilson: Do you remember your comment, your initial comment.

Mr. Newfarmer: I don’t remember the details of the exchange but..

Vice Mayor Wilson: I remember the details of the exchange. The details of the exchange were, and I was taken back..

Mr. Newfarmer: Didn’t you ask me if we had done work for the City of Springdale, Ohio, is that what you were referring to.

Vice Mayor Wilson: No. No. That too but

Mr. Newfarmer: Had I ever served on the City Council.

Vice Mayor Wilson: Yes, but I said I would like to check your references and you stated to me "whatever". Do you remember that.

Mr. Newfarmer: No I don’t

Vice Mayor Wilson: I remember that because it just took me aback. I couldn’t believe that you said that. The second thing, you worked for the City of Cincinnati for 27 months, correct.

Mr. Newfarmer: Yes approximately three years.

Vice Mayor Wilson: And this is from. Normally I don’t check references. I just let staff do it. Because I think as a professional I trust staff. That comment made me and this concerns me more than anything else. This is from the Cin