Well, not as long as I expected, but still three hours.
First up was a salute to the flag presented by the brand new Lakewood Village Color Guard, nicely done. Then we had recognition of returning Councilmember Otto Lee and outgoing interim Councilmember Dean Chu. Then it was on to business.
The consent calendar went through without any items pulled. That surprised me. The scope of the consent calendar convinced me that a couple of items would get pulled, but that didn’t happen. So much the better.
Item 2, the taxicab franchise, went through without comment.
Item 3 took some time. This was an appeal of a decision by staff and the planning commission to require changes to a fence on Devonshire. I went out beforehand, looked over the fence and neighborhood, and chatted with the applicant, and I’m really glad I did, because it gave me context I wouldn’t otherwise have had. In short, the guy had a neighbor who put up a really nice-looking fence, all with the city’s approval. So the guy decided to do the same. He designed it with future home expansions in mind, went to city staff and filed his papers – and then he built it. Without waiting. Staff (and the PC) came back with several options, but their basic complaints were that it was too close to the street and too tall.
Anyway, in the end, Council voted 5-2 to support Staff’s recommendation. I voted against it, even though I agreed with Staff’s recommendation in all but one way – the requirement that the fence be dropped 6″ in height. The guy’s fence is identical in height (at grade) to his neighbor’s fence, and at grade, it’s just to the top of my head. And I’m short. I felt that requiring the fence to be dropped down was an unnecessary reduction in his privacy and that he should get the same consideration that his neighbor did. But I did feel that the additional setback was necessary, and that upholding the rest of the Eichler guidelines and preserving the look and feel of the neighborhood was important. I just didn’t believe the additional 6″ made a difference. Nevertheless, I can’t argue with my colleagues’ decision to uphold the findings of staff and the PC – the guidelines exist for a reason, they describe a general vision for neighborhoods’ look and feel, and adhering to them is, in theory, adhering to the vision. And I was not happy with the applicant’s decision to build the fence prior to approval.
Item 4, a revision to the Municipal Code regarding Areas of Special Flood Hazard, went through almost without comment.
Item 5, coordinated zoning between neighboring cities, had a bit of discussion. There was general consensus that staff’s recommendation to deal with it at the administrative level was the right approach, so we were fine with staff’s recommendation. But there was also an interest in trying to develop individual agreements with neighborhood cities for council-level agreements, possibly even ceding some authority on matters within 1000′ of boundaries. Staff expressed concerns that it was pointless (one city has already told us “thanks but no thanks”) and possibly even prohibited by the Charter. But I supported it because talking is good, and in the worst case, nothing comes of it. And it passed, although not unanimously. I think it was 5-2, maybe 6-1. Sorry – long night.
Item 6, creation of a LUTE/CAP advisory committee, was mostly straightforward. I expressed some concerns that we’re going to have four or five committees or commissions weighing in on the LUTE and CAP, which seems like a lot. But that didn’t stop us from supporting staff’s recommendation, and we created a subcommittee of Mayor Hamilton, Councilmember Lee, and Councilmember Spitaleri to appoint people to the committee, up to 15 total.
Item 7, the Council Work Plan, was surprisingly contentious. A member of the public raised concerns that we would not be doing the medical marijuana dispensary study this year (it ended up ranked, but below the line of available staff items), which prompted an effort to revisit the results, look at staff’s available hours, and see about shifting staff priorities to allow the 6th and 7th items on that list (political signs and medical marijuana dispensaries) to be studied this year. After some heated debate, the effort was rejected 1-5 with an abstention, and the work plan was passed with some tweaks. I had two objections to the revisiting issue. One, better expressed by Councilmember Moylan, was that I didn’t like re-opening the floodgates to revisit all of our study issue decisions and tinker with the results to achieve a different outcome.
<soapbox>But my big objection, and it’s one I’ve thought a lot about over the past year, was that I thought the whole thing violated the basic principle of open government. To me, this came way out of left field, and there was no way that anyone reading that RTC could reasonably have expected that we would be discussing it, much less voting on it. “Open government” has two goals. One is providing stakeholders with a transparent process that gives them confidence that the process is best serving their interests (or evidence that it isn’t, as the case may be). The other is to afford stakeholders with every opportunity to participate in the process. And when we on Council make proposals that couldn’t reasonably be inferred from the RTC and that weren’t discussed before public comments are held, we’re failing to maintain open government. It doesn’t matter if we think nobody will care about the vote – it’s not our place to second-guess what members of the public will care about. So when I think a proposal is just too far removed from what was placed on the agenda, and particularly when it isn’t raised before public comments, I won’t support it. And I didn’t, in this case.</soapbox>
Anyway. On to item 8 – potential Sunnyvale participation in the Google high speed bandwidth initiative. I’ll be following up on this one with its own post, but there was extreme enthusiasm in being a candidate city for this initiative, and we’re moving forward with this, aggressively. We’re going to need your help, more on this to follow.
Item 9 was to appoint members to three commission vacancies. Pat Walz and Roger Ludlow were appointed to the Board of Building Code Appeals, and Younil Jeong was appointed to Housing and Human Services. I meant no slight on the fourth candidate with my vote – she was well qualified, but we had two candidates for one slot, and that’s what had to happen, I thought.
After that, we had IGR reports and other comments. I got a study issue put on the list for next year – exploring requirements for new housing construction to provide wiring for electric car chargers. This was suggested in email by a resident, and it’s a good idea to at least find out what would be involved.
That’s about it. Long meeting, but a good one. It’s good to have Otto back, too.