Recommendation to Review, Comment and Provide Direction on Preliminary Needs Assessment and Recommendations for Development of Smart City Master Plan. (Information Technology 60626070) [Continued from September 21, 2021]
A Yes. It's a recommendation to review, comment and provide direction on preliminary needs, assessment and recommendations for development of Smart City Master Plan. And we do have staff and consultants here and they will be giving a presentation. We are promoting them now. All right. I see our I.T. director, Carolyn Hogg, is here, and I know there's some consultants joining her. Hello? Hello. Hello. Are we ready? Good evening, Madam Mayor. Vice Mayor. Council members. I'm Carolyn, Director of Information Technology. Here to present the draft Alameda Smart City Master Plan and recommendations along with David Hoon and Monique Furman, our consultants from AI Terrace. This draft was developed in partnership with multiple departments and many community members and stakeholders. Next slide, please. Recognizing that there's a ten minute time frame for presentations. We're going to do a deeper dove into three or four of the more critical topic areas, but we will be available for questions from the Needs Assessment Recommendations memo. We're bringing this draft plan to you tonight as the city recognizes there's many opportunities to improve the digital experience or lack of digital inclusion in our city that we are now keenly aware of as we continue to live through the pandemic with much funding available for broadband infrastructure, the timing seems right to develop a plan. A smart city can be a vague concept, and each city may have different smart city plans. But this plan lays out the foundational pieces that we are considering considering with smart cities work that enable future decision making about policies and practices in a variety of areas, and on how to use data and technology to improve our community members lives. Next slide, please. So these are the objectives I identified from the stakeholder meetings that we held, and it also ties to a number of things that Council has expressed interest in recently. I'm going to focus on the equitable internet objective, which was a council referral in addressing equity, priority populations and local business community needs. So right now, a good example of the city's digital divide is out at Alameda Point, which is considered a dark area for Internet fiber, but where a large equity priority community population resides. It's also an essential area for emergency response and the location of the future veterans hospital. Because of the Stark area, the city's gym and club. They don't have wi fi in those buildings because it doesn't have fiber to those locations. And we costed it out with the local telecommunication carrier. It would cost the city $230,000 in construction costs alone just to bring fiber to the one building at the gym to offer free public Wi-Fi. The city would basically be investing city funds in a private companies fiber network rather than being used for public investments in city owned core fiber network. And David, our consultant, is going to go into further detail. Dale, on the core fiber ring, but this is one of the reasons why we were considering looking into some of the ARPA funding and the concept of equitable Internet isn't just tied to physical infrastructure, as you can see in the report, to offer free, affordable wi fi. But it's also the soft infrastructure, such as possibly establishing service learning programs in partnership with our educational institutions and other training programs for ongoing community technology training needs so that we don't repeat the unpreparedness that the city institutions did experience when we were thrown into the distance learning and remote work and telemedicine. I do want to point out, though, that with the equity priority community members right now, they typically rely on more temporary and somewhat unreliable technology, such as using things like hotspots. And that's connected through cellular service and with sporadic cellular service here on the island. That solution can be disadvantageous in certain locations compared to connecting to the Internet through fiber for distance learning and remote work and telemedicine. David's going to discuss the initial fiber runs throughout the city. That does include Webster Street to City Hall, West to Santa Clara Park Street, Broadway to the golf course with a potential link to San Leandro Lit San Leandro Fiber Network for Smart Traffic Corridor. Next slide, please. So to date the existing conditions have been evaluated, which helped us draft this needs assessment with at least 11 stakeholder organizations participating. This helped us get a very good, broad range of input from community members that represent their interest groups. Next slide, please. So these are the the stakeholders that we did meet with and for the business groups we met with the Chamber of Commerce, West, Alameda Business Association, downtown Alameda Business Association, College of Alameda, Alameda Unified School District. And for the Equity Priority Community Member Stakeholder Meetings, we met with Alameda Educational Foundation Paratransit, Alameda Family Services, Alameda Senior Center through Rec and Park and Alameda Point Collaborative and Alameda Housing Authority. So the city also presented this draft to Chamber of Commerce on September 1st. And by working with these focus groups, we feel we have a really good representation of our community in this plan. As I mentioned last week in Alameda Economic Forecast town hall meeting, which I was thrilled to hear. Alameda City will shine in the wake of the pandemic by focusing on telecommuting and lots of green shoots that community development is championing, which is has direct ties to this plan. But so noting that investments made in broadband has a direct tie to economic vitality. There was a recent Purdue University study that estimated that every dollar invested in broadband brings back $4 in economic benefits to that location. So next slide, please. So David is going to take this presentation over now and then hand it back to me at the end. Thank you. Thanks, Karen. So my colleague Monique and I well we think over the recommendations that are in the report and I slightly. So we'll start with what is a smart city since the term is generally very broad. As Carolyn mentioned, there's lots of different definitions for it. But we like the way that the National League of Cities described describes a smart city as one that has developed some technological infrastructure that enables it to collect, aggregate and analyze real time data, and has made a concerted effort to use that data to improve the lives of its residents. Next slide, please. So so in that context, with a number of recommendations that are summarized in this table, for each recommendation, we have an associated timeframe as well as a high level cost estimate for each year. Not that in the time frame for some of the recommendations, it's a range. And that's because we expect these improvements to be implemented in phases over time, just due to the scale and cost that would be that would make it unlikely to happen all at once. Next slide, please. So we'll start with recommendation number one, which is to build out the city's communications network. And we really see this as the foundation and the core of all smart city initiatives, primarily because it is a required and key element to support other smart city initiatives that are built upon it. For Alameda, we envision the communications network to be primarily fiber optic with some wireless connections, and we envision that it'll connect most, if not all, city facilities and systems, and that the network will be resilient and redundant so that if there's a break somewhere in the network, there are redundant paths to keep the system up and running. Next slide, please. So we've developed this map that shows a proposed layout for the Connections Network. And we can go into more detail on this during Q&A if needed. Next slide, please. So recommendation number two is to develop public Wi-Fi. And we really see this as a way to enhance Internet availability and decrease the digital divide in Alameda. There's also an element of supporting economic development by attracting business and commerce to key business districts. Proposed Wi-Fi locations will be centered around public gathering places such as public service facilities, parks, commercial and business district areas. Next slide, please. So this map shows the proposed locations for the way high deployment locations are shown with the orange wireless symbol. And Pink Zones represents the commercial areas along Park Street and Webster Street. So at this point, I'm going to turn over the presentation to Monique, who will go over the rest of the recommendations. All right. You can advance to the next time. So I'll quickly go over the remaining ones as they're all basically supported by recommendation number one, which is the fiber communications network. But recommendation number three is to deploy citywide emergency vehicle preemption, which is technology that provides emergency vehicles priority during an emergency. I mean, it just means it aims to enhance public safety by reducing response times and therefore enhancing the service that public safety is able to provide. Next slide, please. Recommendation for is to deploy transit signal priority a similar technology to emergency vehicle preemption which provides priority to transport transit busses to be able. Yeah this transformation is firming of the ten minute limit for a staff presentation has been exceeded. But this report has been a long time coming. So let me see if I can get a motion from my city council colleagues here to add a little more time. It does take four votes. Can you give me a sense of how many more minutes you think you need? I would say maybe three. I will go as fast as possible. All right. Council Motion Councilmember Knox Way. I'll make a motion to extend the presentation time by 5 minutes. All right. And that was vice mayor. Okay. A motion by Councilmember Knox White to extend by 5 minutes, seconded by Vice Mayor Vella. And any discussion thing. Then we have a roll call vote, please. Rotation. Yes, sir. Spencer, I knocked. Not quite. Hi. Vella. You were on your muted tie. Mayor Ashcroft, I. That carries by five eyes. Okay, so take it away quickly. Thank you. That's from me. Thank you. As I was saying, the TSP actually provides priority to busses, which helps to enhance bus service, making it more reliable, and obviously incentivizing transit to expand service on the island. Next slide, please. So this map actually shows where we already have TSP, which is in the green corridor on Webster, and we're proposing to expand it out to some of the other main corridors on the island, which do have some traffic from AC transit busses. Next slide, please. Our recommendation number five is to partner with ISPs. As you probably already know, the city is already partnering with Internet service providers to enhance existing Internet service opportunities and increase broadband availability on the island. So the city can further partner with ISPs to focus on lowering Internet costs for residents and mitigating predatory pricing. Next slide, please. Recommendation number six is to develop a dog once an installation and a dog once policy and installation standards. And this is this is a a bit of a plan to make sure that we're. Proactively building out planned infrastructure when we're already doing other improvements in the same areas. And the city has actually already begun making moves to implement this policy within public works. Next slide, please. Recommendation number seven is to implement centralized transportation management, and this recommendation includes the deployment of a centralized management system, which enables the city to remotely operated signal assets and provides key information for dealing with transportation issues in Alameda. The system has the capability to ultimately reduce person hours needed for maintenance and enables the city to fully utilize the technology that's already in place at their signals. Next slide, please. Recommendation number eight is to interconnect the EOC and city facilities, and interconnection of these facilities is an important element of the Smart City concept in that it provides centralized locations for management of city business and assets. And this is especially important in the case of an emergency when the EOC would be activated. Next slide, please. Recommendation number nine is to implement transportation, data analytics and the implementation of analytics is another opportunity for the city to utilize their existing assets to collect transportation network data . Better understanding how multimodal traffic utilizes the city's transportation network will help to inform decisions for future improvements. This data collection would, of course, abide by the city's data privacy policies. Next slide, please. And the final recommendation is to deploy traffic, a traffic monitoring camera network. And this centers on the deployment of a network of closed circuit television or CCTV located at commercial areas and Key Island access points. And these cameras would be used for improved incident management and emergency response and would not be placed in residential areas. The management of this CCTV system would also closely abide by the city's data privacy policies. And with that, I will turn it over or actually go to the next slide, please. And this this one shows a map of where we're proposing for these CCTV to actually be placed. You'll notice that they're at key points where there are chunks in the transportation network that can affect things like emergency response time or even traffic incidents and cause backups in two neighboring cities and on to the island. Next slide, please. With that, I'll turn it back over to Carolyn. All right. Thank you. So just quickly, this project is estimated at $6 million to build out that fiber network needed to begin to implement the top ten recommendations. Broadband has been identified as being eligible to use some of the city's ARPA funding, which must be spent by the end of calendar year 2026. And some other potential funding that we're looking into is the Federal Infrastructure Bill and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration opportunities. But we want to leverage those resources and look for those funding opportunities. So with this week, our next steps are to finalize these recommendations, complete the plan, and come back to council for approval. As you can see, these foundational pieces do present some ties to a number of things that Council has expressed interest in, as well as many community benefits. So as always, before proceeding with any purchase, we will come back to council with the actual cost. So this concludes our presentation and we are here to answer any questions. Thank you. Well done, all of you. That was a lot of information to put into less than 15 minutes. So thank you for that network. I'm assuming we have public comment on this, correct? We do. We have one speaker. Okay. But before we go to our speaker, do I have any clarifying questions from the council? And I see Councilmember Knox White's hand knocks White's hand at. So calling you first, please. Thank you, sir. I just have one single question, which is I'm Park and Webster Street. The city has already spent about 1000000 to 1000000 and a half dollars each for transit signal priority. And I'm curious how this plan which proposes to implement that, implement that at about the same cost, I think. How is that how is that addressing those two corridors? Are we are we just talking about transit signal priorities, often the kind of the outer areas of the city where we don't have very many traffic lights. David, did you want to address the transit? Signal. Question I can I can take care of that. Yeah. So the city currently does have a transitional priority on Webster Street, and I believe that was implemented as part of an AC transit project to improve the line 51 corridor that runs through Alameda. And as part of this plan, we've identified other corridors within Alameda, uh, where there's a concentration of AC transit lines that was shown in the map earlier. And what this plan intends, the intention is to fill those gaps. So along these other corridors, such as Park Street and Santa Clara and other streets where we have AC transit lines to also provide transit priority for those corners as well. But I believe Councilman Alex fight was if I heard the question correctly by saying that we've already spent around $1,000,000 on TSP on Park and Webster, have we not implemented any capital single priority on Park Street yet? We miss, Furman said. We have, and I think what David is mentioning is that we're proposing to expand the TSB on the on the island to provide the busses with priority to better enhance their service. So there are other lines that also go around around the island. And so we're talking about adding it on Santa Clara and Otis and out to Alameda Point just to improve that service. Councilmember Knox, I did that answer your question. It did, yes. So it's better. But I guess I just want to clarify. So we're not actually proposing to do TSP on Park Street because we already have a smart corridor in existence there. Okay. Thank you. I see. Nodding head for Ms. from it. So that's affirmative. Okay. Thank you. And counsel for her is Spencer. You had your hand up? Yes. Thank you, Mayor. In the staff report early on, it speaks to that 230,000 construction cost invest in a private companies fiber network. Do we know a private company that is would that be determined in the future? That was a quote we recently received from Comcast. Thank you. And Councilmember de SAG. Yes. On the part of the Internet service provider, are we basically saying that once we have the infrastructure, we're going to look for a partner who is going to be the Internet service provider so that partner could then potentially compete against other ISPs. Is that what we're getting at? Like, for example, are are we going to be competing against Comcast? The Sonics are are AT&T is of the world. How does that going to work? Is it going to require like subscribers and all that kind of stuff? So I'll start. And then maybe David, you can finish. But the city does not want to be the ISP provider, but we do want to look into opportunities to partner with ISP providers on the city's fiber network to offer free Wi-Fi to our residents. David, do you have some other examples how other cities. Have done this? Yeah. Yeah. And to clarify there, it is not the intention of the plan for the city to be an Internet service provider and to compete with other ISPs. I think the intent here is in terms of partnering. What a lot of city, other cities have done is as as the city of Alameda builds out its communications infrastructure . There are opportunities to share that resource with other partners. Private companies being one of them in terms of lease agreements or share use agreements. So that incentivizes other private companies to expand their network in Alameda. Elsewhere. Spencer, did that answer your question. And answer my question. Oh, I'm so sorry. It was Kalahari Desert, but then I saw cows over her. Spencer's hand go up and council were not quite so back to you. Councilmember Deicide did that? Yeah, I think I think that more or less answers my question, that we're not we ourselves are not getting into the Internet business, meaning, for example, there will not be a tony de saag at free Alameda wi fi dot. Gov or whatever. So so we're not doing that, but we will have someone else. We will provide the infrastructure and we will have someone else do that. And, and, and I guess but but it's going to be free though. They're going to that someone else is going to be providing a service for free to to a consumer. And I guess at some point I just like to understand a little bit better now, not tonight. You know how that works business wise, because at the end of the day, there's still costs involved. So, you know, it's great that our our goal is to be to provide free Internet to those. So don't get me wrong, that's great. But I just want to make sure that I understand, you know, how the whoever is selected as the ISP, how they're going to carry that cost and provide free service. So. But later. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Hirsch, Spencer, then Councilmember Knox. Thank you, Mayor. So I want to get back to the £230,000 for Comcast. So is it the city's position that Comcast cannot pay for their own infrastructure that is on the city to do that? So the city approached Comcast to see what it would cost to bring fiber out to the gym out at Alameda Point. And they gave us a quote in order to dig the trench, lay the fiber down because there is no existing fiber location out in at that point. In Alameda point, it would cost the city $230,000 for those construction costs. Okay. That's all for you, then, Councilwoman Knox. Thank you. So I just. I just. I'm sorry. I should have asked this the first time around, but my understanding is that, as the firm mentioned. The main the main strategy is to build out a network. And then a lot of these other things like the transfer traffic, sorry, transits, the TSP crane is not working well, but this evening etc. would be used off of that. But that that's the first step and we could actually come back and talk about which are the which of these steps we want to implement later at a different time. Right. So tonight we're not making that decision, basically. I guess the question I have is, is what you're looking for is kind of agreement to move forward with this vision and strategy, which is to start moving forward with a backbone infrastructure. And then those other projects would come in separately after we had that, that the the broadband backbone ring that had been proposed. Exactly. The broadband background backbone is the key to having the other top ten priorities and recommendations move forward. Thank you. Thank you. So I have a question on page. Well, starting, I guess, on page two, three of the staff report is that the the plan with the so the top ten draft recommendations with the timeframe and some are short term, medium term, long term. And so my question has to do with on number four, the enhancing Internet availability in public places to decrease the digital divide deployed. That's part of deploying public wireless networks and also internet emergency operations center and city facilities. Well, specifically empower i.t. Management of cyber security citywide. And both of those are in the mid-term 3 to 8 years to deploy. So for equity purposes, I'm wondering if although I heard what you just said, his talk about we've got to get the infrastructure out there. But I would love to see the enhanced internet availability to decrease the digital divide moved up. And then as far as cybersecurity, I think that should be at the top of just about any list because we are all aware of cities and agencies and utilities that have been hit by ransomware attacks and ended up spending lots of their funds to get data back or to get systems unlocked. So can someone just give me an idea of how it might be possible to accelerate that or not at all? David, do you want to handle the cybersecurity part? I will let you know that because we are still planning out what the priorities are. We have been meeting with our with existing telecommunication carriers. We met with a fellow cellular vendor the other day and also fiber. Well, we met with Verizon and Comcast and they are aware of our smart city initiatives. And in order to get more equitable Internet to the equity priority communities, Verizon is sending an engineer out to those weak areas with cell service to see if they can boost up their cellular signals. And that could be a really good stopgap for an immediate need. And as far as with Comcast, they've offered to come in and work with the city to maybe in the equity priority community locations to increase that. They have a program called lift zones that can increase their gig speed free for the first three years. So those are opportunities we're taking advantage of right now. But we do need to work in the cybersecurity features in a newly built out fiber corps that. David, do you want to talk a little bit about that with the newer technologies available? And Mr. Hearn, before you start, I should just disclose that I think it was yesterday, Vice Mayor Vela and I joined our I.T. director, Ms.. Haug, and Comcast's government relations representative for our area, Chen Maxey, for a discussion of some of the equity issues. So so, Mr. Yoon, what can you tell us. If I understand your question correctly, Mayor? I think it was in terms of moving the timeline for the public Wi-Fi. This is really in the time frame. Public Wi-Fi. But I think what Carolyn addressed, that it was more. Is there any way we can accelerate the cybersecurity provisions? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, Caroline mentioned that, and I fully agree with her that as the city builds out this network, I think as the first starting point, we have to have cybersecurity built in as part of that network as we build it out. And, you know, as we talked about, you know, we envisioned this to be done in phases. So we would identify, you know, a first phase to build out. And as we build out that kind of that core, we would definitely have cybersecurity, you know, implemented as part of that because I think it would not be wise otherwise . Thank you. And by the way, apologies. I slipped and referred to Ms.. Hug by her first name, which we do not do in council meetings, but sorry. So thank you for that information. Councilor, her response, which is I see your hand go up. No. Okay. Any further clarifying questions, council? Or should we go to our public comment? I'm not seeing any more hands. Madam Kirk, let's have our public speakers, please. Jake Garfinkle. Good evening. Speaker Garfinkle. Good evening. There is a lot of a lot of material presented in relationship to the internet services. We talked about why we talked about wireless. I think we talked about putting in fiber. You know, I lived in Harbor Bay Island, 3000 homes here, had fiber here initially. And then the city of Alameda came along and pulled all that fiber. And then I think they went out of business or the Internet service I think went out of business. So I am I'm a little bit reluctant to go through that again. Also, I have some considerations about the ability to provide adequate cyber security. You know, the federal government couldn't protect that their their employees website. I don't remember what it's called. It puts a big burden on the city to be responsible for cybersecurity. Also, we're looking at having an increased staff to maintain the services, which means more budget. And even worse than that, it means more pension costs. So I would rather see the city spend the money on fixing the roads and doing things like that and let the commercial area take care of the providing the Internet services. $250,000 is fairly trivial if you're talking about this whole picture, the 250,000, I think you said was four. Comcast to put in the service. So anyway, I think that this should be very carefully evaluated and we shouldn't be in too much of a rush to be a player in the Internet arena. Thank you. Thank you, Speaker Garfinkel and our next speaker, please. We don't have any more speakers. That was. All right. With that, I will close public comment on item six. A. And just remind everyone that what we are doing there is to review, comment and provide direction on this preliminary needs, assessment and recommendations for development of a smart city master plan. Who have what we heard from Vice Mayor Vella, did you want to add anything? Just think staff for their work on this. I think that, you know, there's a lot of moving pieces and parts to this. I think that this allows for a number of different options for the city, taking into account the different priorities that the council has expressed, really addressing the equity issues, the cybersecurity. I think that the phasing makes sense. This is all part of our gig ones policy as well. We do have a lot of you know, I'll need a point in in some of our areas where there is there is going to be a lot of work coming up soon. So I think it's really important that we we take the steps of putting these policies in place so that they're there when the time comes. It's already happening. But, you know, I think that we've had a lot of robust discussion around this item for a few years now. I think this is the first item that I met with Miss Hagen when I first came on board the council over four years ago. So I do want to put it out there. This this conversation has been in the works for quite some time, and it's gone through several different renditions and directives from council. So I just really appreciate the work and the thoughtfulness. I also understand that that the costs and the quotes that we're getting, that 250,000 is for one portion of all of the work that we would need to have done. So while a quarter of $1,000,000 might seem trivial for for one, when, you know, in terms of a cost for a city of our size, when we start looking at all of the places that that that type of trenching and work would need to happen in order for us to have equitable access, it really does add up quite quickly. So that that's all for me. Thank you. Other speakers, I have a question for the city manager. So, Mr. Levitt, in the this report and Ms.. Haag alluded to it, there is a suggestion that $6 million of our defense could be allocated toward the total estimated cost, which is between 4.5 to $6.7 million. Now the ARPA funds come into tranches and we've received our first tranche, which I think is around 14 million. At some point, the Council will need to make some final decisions on expenditure of ARPA funds. When do you anticipate bringing that back to us? Think and Mr. Bolton can also reject. But I think it was in November. Was it the November meeting or was it the first or the second meeting in November? We're looking at December where we're going to be ready for the first meeting in December. That this is in city manager Jerry Bowden. A first meeting in December, you said okay. Correct. All right. Thank you. Other thoughts? Councilmember Hirsch Spencer. Thank you, Mayor. So I brought a referral back in July 2017 trying to get council support to have free public wi fi throughout our city to eliminate or reduce the digital divide. That was over four years ago. Instead, I think council gave some direction to do this smart city $6 million plan. My concern is still the same thing. How do we get internet? And you know, the school district's been successful at doing this. They actually did hotspots. And I'm you know, but not all of us have kids in school. So we have many people that have been left behind during this pandemic and are still being left behind. My priority is closing that digital divide as quickly as possible. So I want to know how quickly can you do it? How much money do you need? And honestly, I'm disappointed that it has. Here we are four years later, and we still can't do what the school district has done. And I did serve some of this. How aggressive and want to address that. And also I do believe in the staff report. There was an explanation of the limitations of hot spots and they they're good up to a point. Does someone want to just address that? I'll just. If I could. Mayor. Yes, please. Assistant City Manager. Sir, the ARPA funding discussion that we've been having with council does include $50,000 for a hotspot program that would be launched by the library. So that could be a really near term implementation of the hotspot program. And then as Director Haug mentioned in her presentation, the the fiber network really allows us to build our own local system that would support greater WiFi access for people across the community. So I think that we're we have some near-term options and then we have kind of a a longer term plan to really enhance our local capabilities and take away that unstable hotspot network issue that could arise in different parts of the community. Yeah, that that was actually what I was alluding to. I think Ms.. Hoggett came up yesterday when we were in the discussion with the Comcast representative that we can. Do you want to just amplify? Well, actually, it came up in our meeting that we had with Verizon because the hotspots are cellular based. And so there are locations in our city that don't have good cellular signal. In my apartment complex, I cannot use my cell phone. I have to use wi fi calling. But because of that conversation that we had with Verizon, they are going to be sending out an engineer in certain locations of the city to see where those weak cellular services are so that they could boost up their signal in there in in those locations. So that's a really good first step to augment what the library can do if those check out hotspots are, you know, provided in those locations. Thank you, counselor. Spencer Thank. You. So I was recently at the League of Cities conference and there they shared that people or companies are using for the self-service, the street lights, that they that there's a way to use them to support this. But and in regards to which show your service, I agree. It's across the city and different homes and whatnot. But I do. But I also think that there's a way, for instance, when you bring up Verizon or Comcast, whichever one that we can be for. My focus is cellular, I think is actually fine. Many of us use cellular in our homes. I use cellular. That's what I have. And I think honestly, that's much more I personally at this point when I look at this plan, it is way more than I think I am ready to support and others may support it. But at the end I continue to think that our city has fallen short on providing the Wi-Fi throughout our city to help everyone. I think that is your digital divide, and I know when you bring up Verizon, there is a way to call them to come out and try to help out. And that's I think that's a better use of our money. But I am very concerned that here it is four years since my referral and we still haven't. You know, I, I, you know, I want to thank the assistant city manager for his comment regarding the library hot spots. I think that that should be funded and that should be a priority. I think getting Verizon out there and any anyone anywhere to help connect our phones, cellular service, I think that's the priority. But for ARPA monies, I would like to know how much money do we need to get the wi fi now to everyone across the city where we have those gaps? That's my priority that I think is appropriate use of ARPA money. I don't think the entire Smart City plan is appropriate for ARPA and if there's other moneys, then we can look at that city moneys. I think that's a bigger conversation. But for me, the ARPA monies are supposed to be COVID related somehow to help people through the pandemic. So yes, I think the wi fi is very appropriate for that use. The bigger, you know, getting this busses and whatnot, all these other things that you all have come back with. I think that's way beyond really ARPA. And for me, we have people that need money for housing, right? We know that we have possibly, you know, helping immediate needs of people is really what I think ARPA money is supposed to go for. So I am interested in hearing from you all in regards to other pockets of funding for this, but I really want to focus on closing that internet divide sooner rather than later and trying to I mean, honestly, I think four years is embarrassing. I just think it's embarrassing that we still haven't dealt with that more. But I'm very happy to have it coming through the library. Thank you. Thank you. And I was just. Was there anything else you wanted to add? Councilmember De Soto? Councilor Knox. Wait, before I do some wrap up comments. Councilmember. I guess I haven't heard from him, so if you want to go first, I'll take you now or. The way I see it is that the availability of ARPA money from Washington, D.C. really makes this an opportunity that we must not miss. We have the we will have the funds to lay the infrastructure that closes the digital divide, improves our transit flow, as well as provides free internet through second party ISP providers. Whether this is, you know, COVID related or not, I don't know. But all I know is that is that we do seem to have the money to do things, to do these ten priorities that are enumerated here that we didn't have, we either didn't have before, or by virtue of all the other things that we have to prioritize. Just just couldn't crack the list of things. But but now the offer money is here. I think what it boils down to, though, is making sure that the the range of costs that we're estimating. It holds true the 4 to $6 million. Also, I think we do need to make sure that we we understand the business aspect, especially of a free Internet, because if we're going to say that in laying down this infrastructure, that we're going to provide free Internet to Alameda residents, we we need to make sure that we need to understand the business model and all of its potential pressure points where where that might fail. You know, we learned some hard lessons and from what happened with Alameda Municipal Power when we had our cable, internet telephone service. And one of the hard lessons that that I see that we learned here is that previously we were the the Internet provider, we were the system. So we had staff we had staff people who were, you know, doing staffing up, providing the Internet service provider. And then and they were staffed at a certain level which private sector competitors like Comcast could continuously underbid by providing continuous under in a lower prices. If you if you went with them and I think that really made it very difficult. But but we learned the lesson because we ourselves, as I'm hearing, are not going to be the Internet service provider. We are simply laying the foundation, the infrastructure that then we will find an Internet service provider. And they're going to they're going to carry the risk with regard to, you know, supposedly providing the free Internet service to our residents. But, you know, there's there's also a cost associated for that private sector provider. So I think we need to make sure to nail down the the business model of that. But but, you know, I think we can wait on that later. I think for now, I'm fine with priorities that put together largely because, like I said, this is a rare opportunity where our ARPA funds from Washington, D.C. are are being made available. And I think we should move forward. I think many times I hear residents saying, you know, we need to improve our Internet here and in Alameda as well as our cell phone service, obviously. And if this can help, particularly in regard to the ladder, all the better. So I'm supportive of of of staff's recommendation. And I like. Thank you. Councilmember Desai, Councilmember Knox White. Thank you very much. Yeah, I'm still a little bit of a jump on my comments. I think in general, I am I am supportive of the concept of moving forward and knowing that we have until 2026, I think, some more discussion. It's just clear from the public comment and the council comments that there's still a lack of real understanding of what what is being proposed. And I think for me, I think it's great to talk about wi fi. I'm not familiar with a lot of free citywide or district wide public wi fi programs that are working exceedingly well tends to be very spotty. It seems to have a lot of problems. I'd like to have more information before I was going to buy into a program. The concept of providing that because I love the concept, but I know that there are some issues. I also know that a lot of the Smart Cities grants that came out, programs that were funded through the DOT when this was the US Dot Smart City program was announced, really overpromised and under-delivered. And I'm just a little concerned about jumping because we have money available into a quick decision on that. I will mostly limit my comments to the transportation stuff. I think that is a place where we are way over promising that there are benefits to the transportation operations. Beyond the staffing side of things, I have no doubt that there aren't some maybe staff savings in not having to go visit a traffic light and what not. But the problem that we have a transportation is people getting on and off the island. When the bridges go up or when there's so much traffic people can't get through. We spent millions of dollars on two smart corridor projects on both of our major transit corridors. And to my knowledge, we have not saved any time without either of those programs. I know that there continues to be. Oh, but if we only do the next step in Oakland or whatnot, that those things will happen. But I'm a little concerned that we're now talking about, you know, putting transit signal priorities at intersections, some of which we are currently talking about removing traffic signals altogether to put in roundabouts that. And so I'm just a little worried that some of our transportation as our transportation priorities and our goals and the outcomes that we have set for the city are not necessarily being met in the transportation section of this of this. And I'd like to be able to have more opportunity to have that discussion a little bit further before I'm ready to say, Yeah, this is the plan to me. What I hear is we need to start with the idea of implementing some form of background loop. I'd like to know a little bit more about San Leandro has experience with that because I know that they were one of the first cities to do that. And I think that providing that information and how it is being used and what impacts it really is having, I think would be really helpful to me as a as somebody who was going to be asked to identify funds to Councilmember de SACS point in my mind there's a lot of cyber infrastructure funding that is coming through both the state and the federal side, as far as I understand. And I would much rather be using that funding to fund a smart city type of of a program that then our COVID relief funds, when we already have a list two or three times longer than the total cost of programs, we have one project that we if we all if we move forward with it could fund it could take up two thirds of its costs. That gets the homeless response and whatnot. So for me, I, you know, I'm not ready to say this is this is the strategy that because I'm not 100% clear on what the strategy is. And I would like some more information really about cities that have done this, because I think that to me, the the AMP experience, they can't experience with Internet while a very different type of Internet was also a very good example of why smart cities need to be careful getting high technology solutions early on because they change very quickly. And what we found out with AT&T was that, oh, wait, it turns out that VoIP, you have to add another 25 million, that things were changing so quickly we couldn't even get up to full build out of the original baseline system before we had to go back and start re redoing the, the existing system. And so I'd like to have have more conversations, I guess as a council about what were, what were, what we're doing with this, this overall proposal. Before I'm ready to say, you know, all ten of these ideas are the ideas. I definitely am a big believer that broadband is a future that this city needs to prepare for. And I think that the ring is probably one of those first steps that we really need to take. I just think it would help both the community and our council kind of identify how to move forward with that, but also how to think about that. The ten items that get built off of that later. And now we're going to have those conversations because we haven't really had those conversations as a council at this point in time. So those are my comments. But I do I do want to acknowledge a lot of stuff. Time has gone into this. It's a lot of really good, solid work. I appreciate it. Ms.. Haag I met with the school district two summers ago with the school district and common networks as we were trying to figure out the hotspot issue. It's a very complex issue. And my only concern, even when I hear that Comcast will, you know, allow us to help pay them to do something and they'll give us three years of low cost or upgraded speed Internet. That's the the problem is when we when we when we put all our eggs in the basket of the private sector, they always limit the benefits. And after three years, everybody's painful price. And we're right back where we started. So just wanting to think through some of those concerns and how we can make sure that we're building something that that continues into the future a little bit more softly rather than with a known expiration date. Thank you. Okay. And then part of what we're supposed to be doing is to provide direction. So I think I heard some direction from you. Councilmember Knox. Right. And do you think I wanted to ask you, do you think that the transportation related aspect of this should be referred back to the Transportation Commission with some items for them to look at? You know, I'm not sure we're at that. I mean, I'm going to acknowledge that this is an issue that is not related to smart cities. But I am finding that we are having a lot of transportation related conversations in which the conversations are not actually working on the goals that we've set for cities, but are working on operational issues that don't necessarily align with them. And I'm not sure how to have that conversation yet. So at this point in time, I would rather come back here for some guidance before it goes to the Transportation Commission, because I think that if it goes to Transportation Commission, the question they're going to be asking, the question they're going to answer may not be the question that council is looking to have prioritized. Okay. Thank you. Council vice mayor of L.A.. Madam Mayor, I think you know. Perhaps we could remove the portion of the direction relative to the transportation corridors, if that's what I'm hearing my colleagues suggest. I think that that's fine to have a broader conversation about what our goals are and what perhaps get some reports back about the efficacy of what we have done and kind of where things stand. Because I we hear about project by project and then time passes. But I think it would be helpful to have a more kind of broader update in terms of where we are for various transportation related plans. But that's not agenda tonight. So I don't want to necessarily get to that. But perhaps the direction is just to have staff come back relative and to incorporate this ask relative to a broader update and where it might fall. And with that, I'm fine with that. I do have a question because I think what's difficult is and I've heard this from my colleagues and at least what what I would like to see is I would like to see the city really exploring the different options available, whether those are private, publicly funded, perhaps joint efforts to really make sure that we have the infrastructure. We can't have the conversation about wi fi, and wi fi doesn't exist without infrastructure. And so it's not like you get Internet and it just comes out of thin air. Yes. There are cities that that can you can plug into different things, but they often have the underground infrastructure that allows that to occur. And I you know, I do think that there are costs associated with that. I think where the money comes from is a separate. There could be other grants. Yes. But I think if we don't have a policy in place, it's going to be very difficult for staff to go after funding or to really understand what the direction is from council. So I just I would like to hear more from my colleagues about kind of where they would like to see us go if they want to have the options about having the city really try to go out and partner in terms of the infrastructure and what that would look like. You know, I think that we really need to achieve something like that so that staff, whether it's the ARPA funds or not and I understand the ARPA funds have been spent six times over, but I just want to make sure that we we give some clear instruction to staff or at least we get to some consensus as a council. And I understand there's been various renditions of councils that have had this conversation. So I just like to understand where my colleagues are a little more relative to how we want to address the infrastructure side of things, or if we don't really want to leave it completely up to the private sector. Thank you. Cause her. Spencer, I think I saw your hand up. Thank you, Mayor. So I'd like to know. So I appreciate we have the library hot spots, and I don't know if staff thinks that we need more to support that or if that's sufficient. But I would like to break this down into parts. And and obviously, I don't want to tie up the hotspots or fi whatever we think we can most immediately do to support the cellphone use across the island. I think I think that's what it is. But to the, I guess, assistant city manager, is that all you need was the 50,000. Do you need more to meet that need? Thanks. Sure. Assistant City Manager. Go ahead. Thank you. Yeah, we have what we need through the ARPA discussions. We will be back in December. That's the plan to to get some authorization, formal authorization to spend that money and move forward. In the meantime, the the programs that the council has been discussing around housing and and the hotspots are being vetted and fleshed out. So we know exactly how much money we'll need related to specific housing projects to this technology project. So we'll have those numbers in the ARPA discussion. $50,000 seemed completely adequate for the time frame over. We're looking at that program and we'll have more information for you in December. Okay. Councilor Herr Spencer? Yes. Thank you. So, Assistant City Manager. Thank you. I really appreciate that answer. I'm looking forward to those discussions coming back in December. Then in regards to the rest of this, I think I agree with member Knox White of spending more time on this and coming up with spend. I guess I'm going to summarize, is spending more time on these different things, figuring out how we want to do it. But I'm not I don't think I'm ready to proceed with committing $6 million. And I definitely don't see ARPA as the appropriate use of as $6 million of it for this. Thank you. Okay. Kalahari Desert. Yes. Well, just quickly, the way that I envision tonight was that, you know, we have our city staff putting together a ten or so recommendations, which they have taken the time to also cast out. And they have brought these recommendations to us with regard to, you know, putting together the some of which would result in a smart city , which for some might improve transit, for others that might bridge the digital divide. And for even more, it might lead to a low cost free Internet. But but I think for me, the the the take away that I was envisioning was then for us as a council member, each of us to to raise the issues or questions that we have or then staff to come back. So, for example, I focused on the I needed to better understand the business model of how the ISP thing would work. Councilwoman Knox Light focused especially on the transit part so that that's kind of how envision this they provide us an envelope of recommendations. We then followed up with some questions for certain areas. Councilmember Herrera Spencer raised some questions regarding the digital divide and then for the staff to come back and that might result in some things falling off, that might result in so whatever. But at least, you know, they provided a starting point for us to have a conversation and to get our smart city going. And the fact that the that, you know, ARPA funds from Washington, D.C. are available great, you know, to cover that six or to $6 million but but yeah as as others have said, maybe it's not opera funds in the future and maybe there are other moneys from from from Washington, D.C., that can also, you know, help us establish this this smart city. But regardless, though, I think we have to start that conversation and staff has to hear from us what are our concerns and where where we want them to kind of focus is sharpen this smart city proposal. That's how I saw tonight going out. Thank you, councilor. Everyday. So again, I would say I I'm landing in your court. There are two. I want to first thank staff for all the time and effort and the consultants for putting this plan together. With regard to the use of ARPA funds, we can debate what the correct amount might be. No one project that we're talking about, including are addressing homelessness, and preventing homelessness is going to be completely funded by ARPA funds. Fortunately, the state of California has a healthy budget surplus and has allocated even more money to addressing homelessness. So we're going to be cobbling together federal funds, state funds, money from the county. But with regard to the appropriateness of ARPA for this particular plan. I know that Assistant City Manager Jerry Bowden, we've been in some of the same webinars together and he's probably been in even more on the use of expenditure of ARPA. Funds are strict criteria. Where I do see the relationship to addressing the impacts of COVID is that the way people work has changed dramatically. And I think most of the council was at the Chambers Economic Forecast presentation last Friday where the economists who spoke to us talked about how we're not going to bounce back next year or the year after. It's going to take a couple, few years for California to come back to people going, to offices, working, you know, the way they used to. They are working from home. They are continuing to. And so we need that kind of infrastructure to support that. And then the staff report also mentioned telemedicine. You know, that is the way that a lot of people were getting the advice they needed, consulting with their doctors, having appointments during COVID and before. But it's going to continue for a variety of reasons. It can be a really efficient way to to receive those services. I mean, even in the discussion we had at our last meeting about the provision of mental health services for some of our emergency response calls, some of that is going to take place via telemedicine. And so we definitely want to make sure that we have the infrastructure in place. The the questions that I have do have to do with the additional staffing that will be needed. That was noted in the in the report. And so I would want to know an estimate of how much and where and where those funds will come from. Because the one thing I think we all know about ARPA funds is they're intended to be for one time expenditures. They could be to set up a project for infrastructure or what have you, but they are not ongoing sources of revenue. So I'm sure that's been considered. I'd like to hear more about that. I concur with the the concerns council member Knox quite raised about wanting to know more about where these kinds of programs have been used successfully. I will also say that I think there's a lot of relationship of this plan to our climate action and resiliency plan, because to the extent that we can get traffic moving more smoothly, more efficiently, not having cars sitting idling at stop signals at stoplights, just waiting for the light to change when there's no cross traffic. But to have smart signals that actually helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions until that time when we're all driving EVs, which isn't going to happen overnight. So I think there's a lot of relationship to council priorities. Should we get more information? I think we should, but I think that we need to move forward with getting infrastructure in place. The, you know, the big ones while we're doing our development out at Alameda Point, for instance, to support the residents out there, the businesses expanding business community, the different uses being made at Alameda Point. I think that's important and I don't think we ever want to underestimate our need for cybersecurity. And I will hasten to add that cities are not alone in providing for cybersecurity. There is and I know this Hogwood tell us this is National Cybersecurity Month, but there's a very important federal agency, possibly the newest federal agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, that works closely with cities, with city governments, and very closely with the National League of Cities and U.S. Conference of Mayors. So I would ask directly ask that staff come back with answers to the questions that we have raised, but with an eye toward getting that infrastructure in place, that the dig first kinds of objective dig once objectives. I think those need to be addressed sooner rather than later. Okay. So anything anybody else want to add and I want to again thank all of our staff and the consultants for all the time and this very informative report, and we look forward to hearing back. All right. Thank you, everyone. With that, I am going to close. Item six. A. And we will then return to the regular agenda and we have a very fun positive item to start out with, which is not that the last one wasn't. It was great. But this is 7 a.m. clear. Could you introduce this item for us, please? Adoption of resolutions appointing Catherine Byler and reappointing Lisa Hall and Jennifer Rohloff as members of the Commission on Persons with Disabilities. Thank you so much. And so if I can get my iPad to cooperate, I can even go to that next item. Okay. So first, we do have a resolution. We could do them all three at once. Is that correct?