7/16/2013 Council Summary – “Sensible Gun Control”

Posted on by

Relatively short, all things considered.  This meeting wasn’t originally supposed to happen, but because of the long agendas that we’ve been having, this one was scheduled to spread the load.  Councilmember Whittum literally phoned this one in…

We got right to it this night, with no special orders and no announcements.  The minutes from the previous meeting and list of bills were pulled, and the remaining two items were approved on a 7-0 vote.

During public comments, a question was raised about the Urban Forestry Management Plan, which staff assured us is being worked on.  A colleague moved to put it on the Council agenda in a month, but that failed on a 2-5 vote.  I dissented because staff is on top of it, and I had confidence it wasn’t being lost, after some discussion with staff on the issue.  It’s definitely an important thing, though.

Item 2 involved a new Memorandum of Understanding between the city and the Public Safety Managers Association.  The tentative agreement was to preserve the status quo, to sync up the contract with the PSOA contract, which was explained by staff.  During public comments, a member of the public proposed eliminating the “cash in lieu” option for medical benefits.  The city is required to offer benefits to employees, but if an employee has benefits elsewhere, he or she can decline the benefit and get a small monthly cash payment instead.  The member of the public asserted that it should be eliminated as a benefit to save the city money.  But staff explained to this member that the cash payment is a fraction of the actual cost to keep the employee insured, and without the small cash incentive, employees would simply continue to accept the unneeded medical benefit, at a significantly higher cost to the city.  In short, the small cash alternative results in substantial savings to the city.  After some discussion, a motion was made to approve the MOU, which passed on a 6-1 vote (I agreed).

Item 3 was another wonky issue – ratification of an agreement involving the Santa Clara County Recycling and Waste Reduction Commission.  I’ll try to explain it in brief.  We have this county body that recommends best practices county-wide, and it is overseen by Santa Clara County.  Santa Clara County also has to run its own solid waste program, just like Sunnyvale does.  And SCC uses some of the same personnel to run both its own solid waste program and the RWRC.  That’s fine, except the RWRC is directly paid for by the individual cities.  So there have been concerns that the County’s functions and the RWRC’s functions, being done by the same people, may result in the cities paying the County for resources that the County is using in part for its own needs.  So we spent about a year coming up with an agreement to make sure that doesn’t happen.  But it requires all 15 cities to ratify it.  And after some comments from me, I moved to do so, and it passed on a 7-0 vote.

Item 4 involved acceptance of the 2013 Public Health Goal Report (on our water system), and with virtually no discussion and one speaker, I moved to accept it, which passed on a 7-0 vote.

Item 4 was the elephant in the room, the proposed “sensible gun measures” ballot measure.  This was just finalizing the language for the ballot measure that was previously approved. The measure has four provisions:

  • Require reporting of lost or stolen firearms within a proscribed period
  • Requirements on securing firearms when not in use
  • Prohibition of ownership of large magazines (greater than 10 rounds)
  • Require tracking of ammunition sales

There was a lot of debate about this one, although those favoring it slightly outnumbered the opponents, and then we voted 6-1 to approve the ballot measure with slight language changes.  I won’t repeat my thoughts and concerns on this, since I did that already.

Item 6 was a weird one, discussion on whether or not to request a general assembly vote for approval of Plan Bay Area.  And concerns over Plan Bay Area tend to focus on issues of local control versus preventing urban sprawl. After a surprising number of speakers on these points, a motion was made to request an ABAG General Assembly vote on the approval of Plan Bay Area, which passed on a 4-3 vote.  I dissented because of timing.  We really didn’t get a proper explanation of what the vote actually means, and whatever this was for was happening just in a day or two after the vote, and I felt like we were voting without knowing what we were voting on.

And that’s about it.

Email, RSS Follow
Share

7/9/2013 Council Summary

Posted on by

Yes, I’m well behind.  It’s a busy time, as you might guess (#Dweeb2013!).

We started the evening with a bit of an unusual event – a study session in Council chambers.  The discussion involved the city’s response to the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the proposed Apple Campus 2.  And since that’s my employer, I immediately recused myself and have no further comment on the topic…

We then went to the general meeting.  There were no announcements.  The minutes, bills, street sweeper contract, asphalt contract, and changes to council policy were pulled, and the two remaining items were passed on a 7-0 vote.  There were a couple of public comments, and then we got into it.

Item 2 involved the naming of the new park at Santa Real.  This is somewhat unusual, because we haven’t opened a new park in 20 years.  We’ve already named Seven Seas Park, but it was driven more by the theme of that neighborhood (all of the condo streets are named after bays), and there wasn’t any discussion.  This one had no obvious theme.  So we did a public poll to get both name suggestions and a sense of people’s inclinations.  We had an overview of this, and there were no public comments, so we got into it.  The voting method was the same as we use when appointing commissioners – councilmembers nominated names and we vote on them in the order nominated, with the one with the most votes winning.  I made the first nomination of Swegles Park.  A colleague then proposed Rancho Posolmi Park.  Another colleague then nominated Santa Real Park.  The vote on Swegles Park was 5-0-2 (I agreed).  The vote on Rancho Posolmi Park was 2-0-5.  The vote on Santa Real Park was 3-0-4.  And thus was Swegles Park selected.

Item 3 involved an appeal of a Planning Commission decision regarding the Prometheus project on Evelyn.  As background, Council heard this some time before, and we sent it back to the Planning Commission for further modifications.  The PC approved the proposed modifications, but a colleague had concerns and filed an appeal.  I believe the basic concern was as follows.  We originally voted to send it back for consideration with fewer dwelling units than the applicant proposed.  So the applicant redid the design, but in doing so, he reduced the number of units but left the building footprint exactly the same.  That seemed to subvert the directions we’d given regarding this project, which caused the appeal.  Frankly, I was happy to see it appealed, because I had the same concerns.

There was a fair amount of discussion about the proposed changes, as well as a concern raised by a resident across the way – the original proposed driveway shined headlights into units across the way.  But the modified project included relocating the driveway to avoid that.  The bulk of the concerns involve potential traffic impacts from the change, which concerned a couple of residents.  And then we got down to it.  Staff and the applicant had satisfied the concerns of the colleague who filed the appeal, so he moved to approve the project, and the motion passed on a 5-2 vote (I agreed).

Next up was an annual assessment on the downtown parking district, and with no questions or discussions, we approved it on a 6-0 vote with one recusal.

Item 4 involved a possible ballot issue regarding Personnel Board eligibility.  In short, we had a highly qualified applicant who had to be rejected because a clause in the City Charter prohibits public employees (working for *any* city) from serving on the Personnel Board.  So there was some talk about amending the City Charter to simply prohibit Sunnyvale employees from serving.  And we had some back and forth on this, but then the motion was made to take no further action, and it passed on a 4-3 vote (I agreed).  I agreed that the problem was a problem, but I disagreed that it was a problem worth $43k to fix (the cost of a ballot measure).  This problem has come up twice in maybe three decades, so I couldn’t justify the expense.

We then went back to the consent calendar (I’m still not quite sure why).  The minutes were approved on a 6-1 vote (I agreed).  The list of bills was approved on a 6-1 vote (I agreed).  After some questions, the street sweeper contract was approved on a 7-0 vote.  After some questions, the asphalt contract was approved on a 7-0 vote.

Next came a more involved discussion on the proposed council policy change.  This should have been pro forma, because it proposed changes to language to reflect a better understanding of limits set by the Political Reform Act involving the size of gifts to elected officials.  After some discussion, a proposal was made to approve the changes but eliminate council gifts and plaques, but it failed on a 2-5 vote (I dissented).  I was neutral on the gift aspects, but it seemed petty to eliminate plaques for councilmembers who have served 4 to 8 years.  I’m not keen on the whole gift idea, and I’ve already declined mine in the event I’m not re-elected, but I think that should be a choice left to the individual.  Anyway, I then moved to approve the proposed changes as submitted, and that passed on a 6-1 vote.

We then returned to item 6, the Community Event Grant Distributions, and with very little discussion, we approved the committee’s recommended distribution on a 7-0 vote.

That was it for the regular agenda, but there were a couple more items that came up.  In non-agenda comments, I sponsored a study issue to look at the issue of density bonuses.  This was driven by the Prometheus project, where the applicant “reduced density” by simply building larger units.  That struck me as… not exactly a lower density.  So I want to see if there is a better way for us to define density – number of bedrooms, for instance.

Then another colleague moved to put an item on the next agenda to discuss whether or not to request a general assembly vote on the One Bay Area Plan, and it passed on a 5-2 vote.  i dissented because the timing relative to the vote would mean that we’d make this decision without having any understanding of what it really meant.

And that was it.

Email, RSS Follow
Share

8/13/13 Council Preview – Plastic Bags and Recycled Water

Posted on by

Pretty straightforward meeting.  We start the evening with a study session to discuss the possible establishment of an affordable housing fee for new rental housing.  This will look at an alternative to a BMR program for rentals, since the courts have ruled that BMR programs cannot be applied to rental property, in something called the Palmer decision.  Mountain View recently adopted a similar fee, and we’re looking at what it would me to adopt one in Sunnyvale.

Continue reading →

Email, RSS Follow
Share

Sunnyvale City Manager Gary Luebbers Retiring

Posted on by

The City just issued a press release stating that City Manager Gary Luebbers has announced his retirement in October.

This is a difficult thing for me to comment on.  I’ve worked closely with Gary for four years now, and he’s not just an employee that I manage, he’s become a very good friend.  Gary is a special man.  For now, I’ll simply say that this is a huge loss for the city, and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to replace Gary.  We owe him a huge debt of gratitude for his efforts on behalf of all of us over the past five years.  He’s made Sunnyvale a better city, and his efforts and initiatives will continue to benefit Sunnyvale for years to come.

I’m torn between sadness at his departure and some real joy that he finally gets to enjoy retirement and spend time with his family after 48 years of public service both in the Air Force and as a city manager.  Just a little joy.  Not too much.

More on this later, maybe.

Email, RSS Follow
Share