Pinole City Council meeting, 8-20-24

Tuesday, 8-20- Regular City Council meeting, 5 PM, Hybrid. You can find the
agenda packet at https://pinoleca.portal.civicclerk.com/event/72/files/agenda/657 (this is a very large pdf- over 100 mb). There is also a corrected version of the broadband assessment at https://pinoleca.portal.civicclerk.com/event/72/files/agenda/659 .

There are 2 closed session items- conference with labor negotiators with regards to the interim city manager, and public employee performance evaluation with regards to the interim city manager. I would expect those to take at least an hour.

There is one proclamation, recognizing the city’s interns Phoebe Deza and Ileana Miranda. There are 2 presentations, the first on the city’s sales tax ballot measure, and the second on the City Council internship program.

Then there’s the consent calendar- There are the normal minutes and warrants, a letter of concern regarding a new proposed casino in Vallejo (pages 30-31), and a letter of support for the City of Pinole and Richmond Community Foundation’s Application to the Partnership for the Bay’s Future Policy Fund Grant (letter itself on page 51, description of the grant and the process in staff summary on pages 34-6).

There is 1 public hearing- an extension of the entitlements for the Pinole Vista Project (223 units at 1500 Fitzgerald, the K-mart site). This is due to financing difficulties (pages 155-6 for the applicant’s letter). If you would like to review the project, the packet for it is pages 64-154.

Under old business we have adopting an initial study-negative declaration for the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan and adopting the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan itself. The initial study-negative declaration goes over the potential California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) effects of the plan (pages 166-305). Changes made from public input on the draft plan are noted on page 158. There’s a lot to the plan itself (pages 306-500 for the plan proper, pages 501-540 for the inventory forecast and targets, pages 542-552 for the regulatory background, pages 553-620 for the evidence that supports the plan, and pages 621-761 for the CEQA documentation which is a duplicate of the initial-study negative declaration on pages 166-305 (save for the cover page on page 621). I’m unsure why it’s included twice. Following that, there’s CEQA greenhouse gas emissions thresholds and guidance on pages 763-816 (omitting the ending intentionally blank pages)).

The core of the document are tables 10-12, on pages 452-498, which show the actions, what department will be responsible for them, when they will be done, and potential grant funding sources for the action. Table 10 (pages 452-480) focuses on mitigation measures- actions the city can take alone or with partners to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Table 11 (pages 481-489) focuses on the adaptation actions- dealing with the effects of wildfire, extreme heat, sea level rise and the like. Table 12 (pages 490-498) focuses on actions the city can take itself.

Finally, under new business there are 2 items- the energy conservation, generation and storage assessment and the Municipal Broadband Feasibility Study.

The highlight of the energy assessment is the chart showing the various options and their cost vs cost savings (page 839). If all projects were adopted, the cost would be $592,300 and the savings would be $111,147 per year, for a time to payback of 5.3 years. However, $31,950 of that cost savings requires no expenditure on the city’s part at all, because it’s correcting PG&E’s overbilling the city for our streetlights (page 870).

The Municipal Broadband Feasibility Study conclusions can be found in the corrected assessment at pages 25 and 26, and mostly recommend incremental changes- partner with Richmond on their fiber, work with CCTA on the smart traffic lights fiber, add conduits to public works projects. They also mention Starlink, though I am unsure as to how long that will remain an effective broadband service as demand increases.

You can join the meeting by zoom direct link here, entering the webinar ID
893 3500 0272 into zoom directly, or calling +1 (669) 900-6833 or +1 (253)
215-8782 or +1 (346) 248-7799, then entering the meeting ID 893 3500 0272#.
Once in the meeting by phone, you can raise your hand by pressing *9, and
unmute by pressing *6 once called on. You can also attend the meeting in
person at Pinole City Hall, 2131 Pear St.