Recommendation to Approve Water Quality and Flood Protection Fee Report; Adoption of Resolution Declaring Intention to Initiate a Proceeding to Obtain Approval of the City’s 2019 Water Quality and Flood Protection Fee, a Property-Related Fee Conforming to Article XIII D, Section 6 of the State Constitution; Adoption of Resolution Ballot Procedures for the City’s 2019 Water Quality and Flood Protection Fee; and Call for a Public Hearing Tentatively Scheduled for October 1, 2019. (Public Works 351)
I that would be unanimous. This motion passes. All right. Congratulations again. And our apologies for the lateness of the hour. We had a lot of business to transact, and we are going to zoom into the next one. So, um, good morning. Mr.. Hi. Okay. If everyone could leave quietly, people from Essex be just clear, sexy. Please tiptoe out because we have to launch right into 60. Okay. So again, the CliffsNotes version. Mr. Garland, I know we have all read this. And by the way, before you even start very compliment you and whoever else put this staff report together, it and the both the staff report and the the the resolutions, it's just it is very informative and very well done. Kind of scary. But, you know Segways perfectly from the climate action resiliency plan we considered earlier you but you've really been the bookend and tonight's meeting have a tuning in the end. Yes. Yes. But feeling that are you okay? Thank you, Madam Mayor. Take it away. Oh, I will present a Cliff Notes version. I'm actually starting with the last slide here, which is the staff recommendation. Now we're recommending moving forward with two resolutions to initiate a Prop 13 process for option number one, the property related fee. And I'll talk a little bit about this and in the presentation, let's talk about what it means. If council does move in this direction, it means that on August 10th there'll be a notice to all property owners with a fee range of between 45 and $78 annually for an average sized single, single family residence. There's an alternative here where the city council could direct staff to mail a notice with a single specific rate. That is something for the council to consider. Then we'd have a. Round of public education in August and September. And then we'd have an October 1st hearing, which is really a two term, to determine whether there's a majority protest, meaning the notices that we send out on the 10th. Is there a majority protest based on those notices? If not, then it's the council's discretion at that point to initiate the proceedings, to go out to ballot, to set an actual rate, to go out the ballot on those ballots could be mailed as soon as October 10th and would be back by November 25th with results to council in December. So that that is a timeline that could flow from action tonight. Now, I'm going to back up a little bit and just talk about how we got here back in April. Council directed staff to come back with options to explore and also some survey results to match up with those options to help the council moving forward. And here we've laid out the two options. Number one being the property related fee in which property owners vote. Number two, the parcel tax in which registered voters vote. The big difference there being the simple majority for the property related fee and the supermajority for the parcel tax. Unless there's burning questions about this slide, I'll keep moving. Keep moving. I'm sorry, Councilor Rody. I said one real quick one. You mean hypothetically under the schedule? Can you compare the date? We would know the results versus the last date possible to put something on the ballot and say if it lost. Oh, I see. Is there enough time to do it? In other words, for the March 2020 or write orders for the March 2020 ballot? I think it would be December. It's December something. Right at the beginning of December. So I think. Yeah. True. And this is coming back in October, right? The ballot would be submitted in October. Right. The ballots. It would be mailed October 10th. Mm hmm. And then comes back, what, November 10th, 2015? Is that enough time? I mean, I'm confident will do well, but just in case, I think we should have a backup plan, that's all. That is definitely something coming out of tonight we can give more thought to in terms of how to have that back up plan, because that would also mean having staff, reports and resolutions ready to go earlier than that November 25th when ballots would be due. I have a question. Councilmember Avila. Could it be scheduled as a special meeting or does it have to be scheduled as a regular? Hmm. That's a question for a city attorney or the city clerk. I think I can skip the question and just say I think the deadline is the beginning of December to get it into the county. So I don't know that getting a special meeting versus a regular meeting is going to give us that much more time. I just I have to do the election calendar really quickly and I could try, but. Let me see. I'll try and calculate it. Really? Okay. I had confidence in the statistics, but whatever. Did you finish? Was that especially possible? Okay. Can somebody suck? My. Quick point of view is if it lost in November 25th, that lost. The people have spoken. There's no need to rush or have another. Yeah. Property owners have spoken so well. They're the people who vote. So. But I can't remember Villa. So I have a problem saying that the people have spoken. If it's the property owners. I think that there's a lot of people in Alameda who would say that they have a voice certainly for the type of election that we would be choosing. That would be the subset. But to say that the people have spoken and then dismiss them summarily from, you know, voters as voters. Well, you know, what I would go would probably put more stock in. Do you actually did the polling both from the the property owners, which only required a simple majority versus all the voters which required the two thirds? And it was definitely closer. I mean, they were still pretty decent results. But I, I mean, if we had to, we would the only thing I think it begs the question that if they turned it down, is that a sentiment that would be carried out? But we can explore those. I think we need to keep moving for to answer the questions that are before us tonight. I can. And. I can quickly add that that in order to get something on the March 3rd, 2020 ballot, it would have to be due to the Registrar of Voters by Friday, December 6th. Okay. So really, that first meeting in December is pretty much until. You can work some stuff backwards from that. And maybe walking through the survey results slide might help the discussion. So this first slide is about the property related fees. So again, this is the universe of voters is property owners. And here we've got a simple majority threshold and under the $36 rate, that's the lower rate we found 59.5% support. You've got to discount that by the margin of error, which is around 3%, still a healthy margin above 50%. At the higher rate, it drops to 56%. So again, with the margin of error, you still got some some room above that 50% threshold. So and no voter education to speak of to date just. That's right. Factor to consider. Yeah. And now we're turning to the parcel tax, which again has the supermajority requirement and they're at the lower rate. We're just at that threshold actually slightly above it. However, once you consider the margin of error, your error, you're actually below below that threshold. Then if you go to that higher rate, you are already under the threshold without the margin of error, and then you include the margin of error, you're further under the threshold. So I think it informs that discussion a little bit just in terms of if we were unsuccessful on the property fee, it might be a tough road to hoe on the on the supermajority requirement. There was a couple other pieces of information that came out of the surveys that were of interest to council, at least back in April. And that is around sorry. Back in April it wasn't so close to midnight. But. Okay, quickly. And do we want to do okay? No, no, I can I can skip this. I want to know this. Will you read this? I'm presuming. Yeah. Let's go to just context for a moment. The last slide and then that I will back up is just to give these stormwater fees. Some context is even at the max rate being considered on the lower left corner, you see that the max rate would be about for the new fee would be about $6.50 per month. That's on top of the current fee, which is approximately 4.67 $4.67 for a total of a little over $11 per month. And then you compare that to average monthly bills for garbage and recycling, sewer and water. And you see there's quite a bit of difference in terms of those those bills with the storm fees being much more modest than those other monthly bills. And so with that will land again on the recommend. Did I not. Give me one moment. Did everybody see the average monthly bills on the lower right hand corner of that slide? Uh huh. Are you sure about. The $150 or any. As as an average over the course of the year? Prevent launch. And you're running a highly efficient household. I. I won probably only that gas. I have a couple questions for you, Mr. Galan. Can you explain? This is in the staff report. There is the, uh, page five of the staff report you talked about. There's two different rate structures based on storm runoff. Well, it's modeled on estimating how much impervious surface is in each parcel. There's low development and parcels that drain into the bay. How do you how do you determine that? Yes. So I'll start us off and then I'm going to ask Jerry Bradshaw, who's an expert with CCI, consultant who helped develop the fee study. Overall, the way these fees are developed, as you look at the residential side, you're looking at per parcel. So you're looking at an average sized single family home, then lower and then higher than that. And you're looking at the permeability or as this prior slide shows, just give me a moment. If you look at that sponge, you're looking at some properties, act as a sponge and keep that stormwater infiltrated on that parcel. That means they're contributing less to the stormwater system and should be charged less. I understand that. How do you figure out which is which? I am going to ask Jerry to come up to talk about the statistics behind that. And I'm really looking for the thumbnail sketch. Okay. We take a statistical approach to this, so we break the parcels into different groups and residential. We have we looked at all sizes of parcels and did a sampling of those and actually went on aerials and measured rooftops, driveways and anything like that. So we did a statistical sampling to come up with that and then broke it into size. Groups from that helps. Thank you. Appreciate that. Okay, you're back, Mr. Garland. Or are you. Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Garland? I think I have one. In determining whether or not we were to set a specific fee or send out a letter with a range of fee. What's the tradeoff? Why? Why? Why would we do one or the other? What the range of fees affords the City Council is more discretion at that October 1st public hearing to set a fee within that range. If you set a fee now, you're bound by that fee at that October 1st public hearing. Right. So so I guess I. Can I make a comment? Well, and I you made a comment. I have a follow up question to that. Yeah, I guess to me, I think that the then the trade off is is there confusion caused by sending a letter that says 45 to 78 or an expectation of lower if we decide to go higher later, as opposed to determining where we'd like, where the sweet spot is that we think we would like to proceed with . And just going with that, right, is that it's late. I'm looking for. You. It seemed like. The right tradeoff. Well, I was the one that I was the one that recommended they give you the options. If you had a specific rate that you wanted to go forward of that you could put it. And that's what my my my experience has been on to a teens, but there is an opposite experience and that is to give the range. So so I don't know that there's advantage one way or the other. I think it depends on your on your view. I mean. What will we know in October that we don't know now? We'll have probably not survey data to back this up. We'll have a better sense from the community and a couple of community meetings about the level of tolerance for either that a low fee versus the high fee. So it won't be a formal survey results. I'll have an October 1st, but at least have anecdotal sense about what the community is sensing. Remember the big difference between the fees being one fee? Make sure we have continuity of our operations and maintenance. Another fee ensures that continuity and ensures at least a chunk of some important capital projects get done right. Planet. Oh, okay. So Council's we have a public speaker. Okay, so we'll get to our deliberation as soon as we've heard from our public speaker and our public speaker here. Ruth, Abby? Ruth. Abby. Oh, there's another one who was here for the 530 idea being everyone. Just to let you know that I think there's a constituency out there that really believes that this is sort of essential public services, that is absolutely fundamental, that we have a stormwater system that will be resilient, both in terms of our existing issues and future impacts of climate change. So I just hung around to make sure that you knew the city was out there and that we would very much support the idea of moving forward with asking the property owners to add this as a fee to their property related fees. Thank you for your comments and for your good work. Okay. We were starting to have council discussions, so we have options. Well, first of all, is there a sense of the council that this is something important that we want to move forward on? I will just hasten to add that the paragraph on page seven that says To meet the challenge of sea level rise, rising groundwater and more frequent and intense storms, the city's funding of its stormwater pumps, etc., etc., must be commensurate with its maintenance, operations and capital needs by increasing revenue to get closer to the stormwater systems, current and projected needs. This action is one of the most important near-term actions recommended in the city's draft Climate Action and Resiliency Plan. Your thoughts? Councilmember Odie Sure. I'll go first. Things were serious. Thanks, Leon, for this report. And I had some questions the first time you brought this, but they were all answered. And I appreciate the survey that that gave me a lot of information. I mean, my history of dealing with polls, although they're not like the election, they're pretty accurate. So it's comforting to know that, you know, even at the higher end, which I'd be more inclined to go at the higher end that we're still above above 50%. I'm perfectly comfortable moving forward with this and thanks, Ruth, for spending some time with me and talking more about it. I would like us to have a backup plan because there is a disparity between, you know, the 67% that would approve and, you know, the 53. So it makes me feel like we could win a parcel tax. I'd rather not do that unless we have to. But it'd be great to have a backup plan just in case. I mean, I'm crossing my fingers and will be. Well, that's all I'll say that that it passes because as you said the last time you were here, this fund is pretty much depleted. And we just did a climate emergency thing a few months ago and we just did the Climate Action Plan earlier today. So, again, we can't just put that on the shelf. We have to we have to actually act based on those decisions we made. And I think this is the first step we can take. While second, if you count veterans court in in implementing what you've asked us to implement. Thank you, Councilman. Really, who else? Councilmember Vice mayor and we. All second everything Councilmember Ody has said. And I think he makes a compelling argument for why we should ask for the if we if we feel comfortable. And I think that survey data doesn't show a significant drop from the low end to the high end of the of this, that if we're going to be serious about our climate, we are going to have to pay for these projects. Then you want. To make a. Motion. I will move approval moving forward with a recommendation for $78. Second. Okay. Any comment? I mean, any discussion? Yeah, we. Yes, discussion. Yeah. I guess somebody said. Real quickly when I looked at these survey respondents, it looked like there was like 250 response out of roughly almost 2900. So usually I think around you want 600 responses in order to get 90 or 95% certainty. So it's not just the margin of error, but you also want I get that you're 95% sure that that the probable finding falls within the mean and the margin error. But you need 600 usually I think is the number. But so your so your your number is probably not 90% or 95% is probably 80% or 85%. That might have been a little confusing in the staff report. The the surveys were mailed to nearly 12,000 people. And as this slide shows, we had 2200 responses received so many more than 200. I think what you're referring to is that we looked at just the universe of tenants who were registered voters, and in that we had a lower response rate and a higher margin of error. But for the survey results on these slides, those had margins of error of about 3%, which actually better than some of the polls the city has been involved in over the past few years. Okay. Well, if you're if you're surveying 2000, and that's a good number came in. And you mailed almost 12,000 surveys, correct? Yes. Okay. So just just by way of background, when when the census does their asks, they're surveying 400 households and that's based upon 400 households providing. So it's pretty amazing. But I am concerned about $78. I would prefer the smaller $45 and I get the permeable surface thing, but I'm always hung up with the fact that, you know, the apartments over there, what are they called now, summer home or whatever they're called. I mean, they only pay $289 for that one whole parcel. They only pay $289 towards the hospital tax and I pay $289 towards the hospital tax. And that's unfair because Summer House has 500 units or whatever. And so that's piece. So would you rather have them pay $36 a year? No, I would rather have them pay an amount that would be pro-rata equivalent to what I have to pay. That's that's not good for us because. Yeah. And there's a reason that it has to be this configuration. Okay. Anything further? Okay. We have a motion to move forward with. Councilman Ravello. So I just want to say, moving forward, this, at least from my perspective, because there was a statement made that the people have spoken and it still just rubs me the wrong way. But moving forward this and I'm in support of the higher fee and putting it forward to towards a vote using this this option. But that in no way means or should diminish the fact that everybody, regardless of whether or not they own property, are a voter that matters or a constituent for that matter. At least in my. I would agree with that. All right. We've had a motion seconded on favor I opposed. Okay. So that motion carries 4 to 1. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. We are going to speed do one last item and that is a6e. Public hearing to consider. Introduction of ordinance amending Alameda Municipal Code Section 30 dash to be zoning regulations to define animal shelter and Section 30 Dash 410 Zoning regulations to add animal shelter and supervise outdoor animal runs as uses requiring a use permit within the sea and commercial manufacturing zoning district council.