City Manager's Blog

Council Meeting Date: October 18, 2017
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/user/TownOfAtherton/featured

Details of each item can be found via the links to Staff Reports within the narrative. 

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The City Council met for the October Regular Council meeting on Wednesday, October 18 beginning at 7 pm. Following the Pledge of Allegiance, the Council moved to Public Comment and heard comments from two presenters asking the Town to consider support for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District Regulation 11, Rule 18; and a local resident expressing concern about the appearance and safety of bicycle improvements and Town expenditures related thereto.

Following Public Comment, the Council moved to the City Manager's Report. The City Manager's Report is prepared monthly as part of the City Council's Regular Agenda. In addition to current reports from the City Manager, it includes departmental updates on the various happenings around Town such as reports from Administration, Community Services, Planning, Police, and Public Works. 

After the City Manager's Report, the Council moved to the Consent Agenda consisting of Items 8 through 13. Items on the Consent Agenda are considered routine in nature and are generally considered in one motion and adopted by a single vote of the Council. Included in this month's Consent Agenda were minutes, bills, Atherton Arts Foundation Budget Request, and two Resolutions addressing Legislative Reforms for Public Safety. Items 11 and 12 - Legislative Reforms, were pulled from the Consent Agenda and modified to be a Letter of Support to the Town of Whittier versus Town Resolutions.
Following discussion and changes to Items 11 and 12, the Council approved the Consent Agenda.

Next up was the Regular Agenda. The first item was Item No. 14, Authorization to Issue a Request for Proposal for Local Traffic Flow/Long Range Planning Solutions. The Council heard the staff report and discussed issues related to the establishment of traffic volume benchmarks at existing intersections, the need to move proactively to address town-wide cut through traffic and speeding through the use of traffic calming measures, the use of technology for data collection, negotiating with regional developers to push mitigation measures, inclusion of recent data and studies in the RFP, and minor modifications to the RFP itself. Following discussion and the opportunity for public comment, the Council approved issuance of the RFP. 

The last item for discussion was Item No. 15, an update on the Civic Center Project with approval of a Scope of Work for the project architect and direction to staff on several project-related issues. Following a staff report and opportunities for public comment, the Council took each item individually. The first item was approval of a Scope of Work for the Project Architect, WRNS, for LEED certifications for City Hall/PD portions of the project. After discussion of issues related to grants, recognition, timing, and incentives, the Council opted not to approve the scope of work for LEED certification for the CIty Hall/PD portions of the Project. 

Next up was consideration of pursuit of a number of smaller scopes of work related to utility easement design (water, power, sewer) and tentative parcel map and lot line adjustments. The Council opined that while these were necessary scopes of work, staff still needs to negotiate with the utility purveyors for shared costs. Following discussion and public comment, the Council approved the remaining scopes of work.