Recommendation to Adopt Plans and Specifications and Authorize a Call for Bids for Fire Station No. 3, No. P.W. 12-14-18. (Public Works 310)
Ultimately, we may decide to do things differently, and that would be a council decision with public input. Okay. All right, then. That. I appreciate that point. I think my sense that there is a notion of a free. Understood. Cos I mean that was my reading of Policy three when it referenced the pre-established limit. So a limit. Suggests a certain amount of cost is understood, but that's fine. I think where we're at, or at least getting it on record, that we're going to deal with the effects of inflation and to some extent the five year policy. Five check does that. But I just want to make sure that that that it is on record that this was an issue that was discussed so that people don't suddenly get a sticker shock. So just to summarize, let's say there is a. House. And the house as it could in in year one, it can hire a person, the master contractor, to dig up the line. And he's going to use the same equipment in that year. One is going to actually do that job for that house is going to cost 3000 to $4000. But for whatever reason, it's not done in year one, but it's done five years later. But five years later, that same contractor is not going to charge $4,000, I suspect, but will take in the fact that, hey, labor costs rise. The cost of me buying this new equipment rises, i.e. to take into account the inflation. But when you mathematically adjust for the the effects of inflation. The dollars of an item expressed in the first years should really be the same as the dollars expressed five years later is just effects of inflation. So I think we we are on we have you know, we're having a discussion here that kind of lays it out that this is an issue. And so appreciate. I have a question in regards. There was a speaker that spoke to how does the neighborhood opt out? Is that possible? Under the policy. It is it is covered under, I believe, the second or third sentence or sentence to in the policy that the pub instructed actually this sentence to be included. And it's a resolution designate. An underground utility district requires that all property owners within that designated district comply with the necessary actions. Mr. Tager, can you just direct us to what I knew? I read it somewhere, just direct as to what you're reading from. Sorry policy to second, second in. The in the staff report. No, no, no, no. In the underground. Program master. Policy. This is actually wording in the evidence itself. Okay. Is this exhibit one? Yes, it would. I believe it. Yes, this is exhibit one. Okay. And tell me again where. Excuse me. Exhibit one. In New. York. City. It is its enter policy, paragraph two. Is that correct? A resolution designating an underground utility district requires that all property owners. Except. One. There's the attorney know. Okay. So what is the procedure to opt out? Or is there none. Under under the ordinance under the ordinance in 1984 and under the ordinances before you today, there is no option to opt out once the Council designates a uut. Thank you. That's what I was that was the question earlier was can neighborhood opt out? And the answer is no. Correct. The answer has always been no. And under the ordinance that was written in the ordinance before you today. Okay. And then and in regards to the speaker of an undue hardship on a homeowner. So a homeowner, if they have this problem, everyone will be paying into this fund. Somehow this fund gets paid for. And then if they have an issue paying for it or do they apply for it or how how do they not have to pay for it if they have this issue? I'm not sure I understand the question. The program is intended to cover 100% of the cost for 100% of the people on the island. That's what the program is intended to do. They said no homeowner should have to pay anything under this. That's the intent. Unless they do something extraordinary beyond the standards of the program. Which would be what? Which would be wanting to have a service lateral run in some configuration that's above and beyond the standard path from the service entrance to their meter. Okay. So then should a homeowner contact you in advance to make sure that they're not doing anything or requesting anything that would incur additional costs? There's some procedure for. That in the policy, and there would be situations where if a homeowner has a request that's outside of what would be the standard configuration, it certainly could be agreed to by AMP if they believe it's reasonable under the program. Okay. And actually, I understand it's 11:00 and we would need a motion to continue the meeting. And this requires three votes to be have such a motion. They'll move back. All those in favor I oppose. And so the motion carries for two one and and I oppose because after 11 and we've already had a speaker on that this evening, that we need to come up with an agenda where we end in a timely manner, which I would suggest is, in fact, no later than 11. And I have a follow up question to Mr. Driggers. Answer response. So I understand that neither under the previous nor the current proposed ordinance can a neighborhood opt out. Why is that? The way the beautification policy was written was that by city council ordinance, there was a desire to. Put put facilities underground by by council ordinance. What Mr. Travis was referring to is that if the council determines that by ordinance that a neighborhood should go underground, if there is a mechanism for that neighborhood to overturn a council's direction . That's a legal matter that we that is above and beyond this program. And we need to rethink the whole program. Thank you. So I have a question. I'm sorry. Let me just and just briefly that this is a public health and safety issue, that we have a utility that is in the business of handling and transmitting power and providing utility service as determined is needed to be able to continue the maintenance and operation of its system. It's not something that is really appropriate for people to just decide they don't like the idea esthetically or what have you. This is that is the utility saying there is a public health and safety issue here and they are doing their job as a utility to operate and maintain a viable system for the entire community. Thank you. Thank you. So can can a district request exemption from being designated an underground district? Is that possible? I think I think it's the role that the reason for the district survey is to provide that feedback mechanism. The TAC did not believe that is in the position to tell the city council what areas do or do not want to participate in the ordinance. We believe that through the survey we can bring that recommendation or that information to the city council and then after public comment, you can make a determination as to whether an area does not is not underground. It so. Madumere. So just to be clear, so the point at which the process by which. The potential district. Would not be subject to undergrounding would be through this process and especially that survey. Once the survey is done and once, let's say in 2017 and a majority, whatever the number is, the majority of residents say they want you used . Then that and then it goes to council that says, okay, therefore we are going to identify that neighborhood as a union neighborhood. Then in 2023, if we follow the process, they can't make the they can't undo the decision. If they're going to make a decision, they have to make it. Earlier. The intent is is that once once the council under the ordinance. For lack of a better word, ratifies EU. Hmm. That falls under the ordinance to be underground. And the intent of only bringing 1 to 3. Mm. Is is to get away from the problem we had in the past of six, seven, eight, nine, ten that would stretch over 12 years and no one could remember the one that was approved ten years earlier. The intent is to keep them very current. So if neighborhood X is approved, neighborhood X is going to see a shovel turn within a year or two. Mm. And so we would do them one C Tuesdays at a time, depending upon their size. It may make sense to do three at a time because they're very small districts. It makes it make sense to only do one district because it'll take two years to do it. We want to bring them in sizable chunks of that. The public can keep tabs on what's going on. So those people who are concerned have an opportunity to have public input. Thank you. We have a motion in the second. Going to call the question. I'm sorry. Already. We have a motion. That we voted on already. Or we just voted on it. Yeah. And you just go to the meeting? Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I was talking to the city manager. What was I vote. We just voted to continue the meeting. Okay. I was curious why we are still talking about it all the time. My apologies. It's the mayor's right. It's late. So did we have a motion? Yes, we did. Yes. Okay. That's what I thought. So. Okay, so we have a motion in the second. All those in favor. I. I oppose that. No, no. I'm sorry you oppose this. So it passes 4 to 1. Did you want to explain? Yes. I'd like to be able to have a if it's a matter of beautification and or public safety, I'd like to be able to have a mechanism, at least where that can be reviewed to see if a district this has a long history, has there's a compelling reason for a district. Not be designated. Thank you. Mm. Is there a process. For explaining why we vote for. The matter? So you can explain my in one sentence, or you can explain why you're voting yes or no. But it's not proper to ask questions. Well. I think. If I may, the rule actually is that the members of the council should make their comments, which would indicate their vote prior to taking the vote, because that might be persuasive to some of your fellow council members as to what the debate is after the vote is taken. That should be the end of the item, actually. So I understand this. There are rules shared with us. That said, I think the opposite that you can explain yes or no after a vote is taken. I just looked at them, I think. I think the actual the city attorney is correct. I just looked at them now because I thought I was confused that we were talking about something after we voted on it. Yeah. But it was on that, that open. I'm sorry. I think it was on that that open house meeting and it does say once it's done, it's done and you make your your comments before before the vote is done. I mean, I can look it up if you want. And I would just add that to the extent that we are concerned about being here til all hours of the night and into the morning, if we would do our comments before we vote and then vote and then move on to the next item. And in if speakers could even help us out by adhering to the three minute rule, it would benefit everyone in the room and the poor people watching us too. Thank you. So I'm going to ask our clerk because I believe she shared something before that we connect that after a vote you can explain yes or no. Yes. I'd be happy to do that. Isn't it because that cute picture of oh, we're not looking at those are. Just items sexy. 60 is health recommendation to work contract in the amount of 567,000, including contingencies to IPPs group for the purchase installation operation of 822 single spaced smart parking meters and authorize the city manager to execute any necessary documents. Madam Mayor, members of the City Council. Good evening. I am Liam Garland with Public Works and I'm actually here to dispel a myth. And that myth is that only my brothers and sisters in Alameda and Municipal Power knows something about smart meters. Tonight we're talking about smart parking meters. I have here with me Liz Acord, one of our management analysts, and somebody who knows a lot about our parking program here, as well as the provider for these particular smart meters from a company called APS. And it's Mike Chiodo who might be able to be available for questions in case they do come up. So today we are recommending the purchase and installation of about 822 smart parking meters in the city of Alameda. This really got rolling back in June of 2014 when the city council authorized a three month pilot from October through December of these single spaced, credit card enabled smart parking meters. So the key oh, actually, before even before the ball got rolling here, we had lots of outreach in early 2014 to the public, to the West Alameda Business Association and to the Park Street Business Association, asking what their needs were. And the use of a credit card came up as a big need in the community, as well as we wanted to find out from folks their preference of a single space meter versus a kiosk. And there was a very clear result in that outreach. We did a survey of 800 plus Olympians, and the result was a strong preference for the single spaced meters and against the kiosks. So the single spaced meters, some of their features are of a large LED screen that's interactive and customizable. You can use both a credit card and also coins. And if you look on the bottom right there, there's a solar panel. So there's both solar power, plus a back backup battery. And if you look at the green light below the solar panel, that green light shows that there's a time that's been purchased. So this is important for Alameda police because traffic enforcement are going back. They can see that clear green light or it's red if there's no time that's been purchased. So this is a big benefit from the enforcement perspective just to be able to see, see clearly whether the meter is on or off. So when we installed the meters for three months, we did so on a block of Webster and then a block of parts to Park Street, and we kept tabs with our local business association stakeholders. We convened the departments, including Alameda Police, in order to get their input on the process as well. And now I can share some of the results of that tonight. I'll come out and or in a in a slider to I'll talk a little bit more about the public input. But a good place to start is literally with the transactions. So we had over 26,000 transactions just in these two blocks for the three month period with no reported failures. About 17% of those transactions were by credit card. But 36% of the revenue was through credit cards. And there there's really two reasons behind that. One is, with the more time you're purchasing, you probably don't have coins to cover all of that. So you're going to use a credit card. And the second reason is credit card users are probably a little more likely like myself. Full disclaimer to max out just to avoid a ticket to make sure that even if they're only doing a stop for 30 minutes, they're going to buy as much time as they can just to be super safe. When we did a public survey to find satisfaction with the smart meters, we received 104 survey responses. 72% of them of their responses showed clear satisfaction with the meters. But that actually understates the satisfaction with the meters. And here's why. The light blue in that pie chart, the other 28%. A good portion of that light blue were folks who were telling us that they weren't satisfied with the height of the meters. And we're going to talk about that challenge in just a moment. Not about the smart meters themselves. They were supportive of the smart meters. Just wanted to fix the height problem. The other reason that this slide understates the case for the meters is a fair amount of the light. Blue represents folks who were complaining about the kiosks and they were taking the opportunity of this survey to voice their displeasure about the kiosks. So again, that's all to say that it's probably around 85 to 90% satisfaction with with the smart, smart meters. So let's talk about height. One of the really fun parts about this project was to solicit this public input and get something that I frankly had not thought about, which is because of the nature of the screens they're angled. If you're five foot five or under, it's hard to see that screen. And so what we are going to do is in the current pilot areas, we are going to cut the meter poles to make sure that that LED screen is between 42 and 48 inches. When we learned about this problem, we immediately reached out to some of our partner cities who have installed similar meters and found out that this was the best practice. We're going to make sure that for our meetings in this height range that this actually works for them. So we're going to get users to use the meters that have been cut down to this hour in between this height. If that works, then we'll go to all of the 822 meters and make sure that when the meter head is installed, it's within this range. So that's our plan for addressing some of the feedback we received around height. Finally, we have a really competitive cost here, so it's about $435 per meter head and about $121 per meter per year. So it's about $10 a month per meter per year.