Palm Desert City Council - Study Session, April 24, 2025

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[00:04:54] Speaker: Good afternoon. It's 2:30 and we are scheduled to begin our study session at
[00:05:00] Speaker: 2:30. So, we're right on time. Who shall we turn it over to?
[00:05:06] Speaker: The first item is going to be the Palm Desert Vision Zero Strategy, and it's a big item.
[00:05:26] Chris Gary: Good afternoon, Mayor and members of the Council. Chris Gary with your Public Works Department. We're here today to summarize the Vision Zero Strategy and begin to receive Council's input now and in the near future as we prepare for final consideration of these items. I'll begin with an overview before turning it over to our team for a full presentation. In 2022, the US Department of Transportation launched a grant program called the Safe Streets and Roads for All. And this program set aside $5 billion over five years to prevent roadway deaths and serious injuries. There are two types of grants that are available for this program: there's both a planning grant and an implementation grant. The planning grants help agencies develop safety strategies like you'll see here today. And then the implementation grants, once completed, cities can apply for these implementation grants to carry out various construction activities as well as programmatic activities. So in July 2023, the city was awarded a planning grant to develop the Palm Desert Vision Zero Strategy, which was one of 475 awards nationally. And to carry out this work, beginning last year, the City Council selected the consulting firm Alta Planning and Design. And since then, what you're seeing here today represents efforts of both City Council staff, consultants, schools, community partners, and nearby residents who've all contributed to the development of this strategy. And overall, the development of both plans have included a total of 20 in-person or virtual targeted outreach opportunities along with three surveys, all resulting in engagement of hundreds of people, hundreds of stakeholders within these areas. I'd like to turn it over now to Senior Planning Associate Les Brown from Alta Planning and Design, who will walk us through the key elements of this strategy.
[00:07:41] Les Brown: Good afternoon, Mayor Harnick and council members. As Chris mentioned, my name is Les Brown. I'm a senior planner and project manager for the Palm Desert Vision Zero Strategy. Thank you for the opportunity to share updates today on the project, and thank you for your commitment to road safety in Palm Desert. We'll have some time at the end of the presentation for questions and look forward to your feedback. Next slide, please. The key elements of the project are shown here on screen. Overall, we refer to this as the Vision Zero Strategy, and Vision Zero is a road safety initiative aimed at eliminating all traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries through a combination of infrastructure improvements, policy changes, and education. The US DOT created the Safe Streets and Roads for All grant to advance Vision Zero in cities across the US. Palm Desert's Vision Zero Strategy includes the elements shown here on screen: a Safe Routes to School and Safe Routes for Older Adults plan. Those are two separate documents, I believe included in the staff report. An implementation strategy to support funding and implementation, a public safety campaign that you may have seen around Palm Desert and which Thomas will speak to later in the presentation, a data dashboard to share these findings with the public, and a resolution for Council to adopt these elements. I'm going to briefly touch on the two plans now. The Safe Routes plans—Safe Routes to School, if you're not familiar with it, is a strategy to improve pedestrian and bicycle travel conditions around schools to increase opportunities for students and their families to use active transportation for the school commute. So, we developed a plan for this effort, but Safe Routes is also often programmatic in nature, including things like what you see here on screen where my colleagues are out in San Bernardino promoting things like walking school buses and educating students and their parents on how to safely travel to school by bike or on foot. These recommendations typically fall into one of the two categories you see here on screen: engineering, and education and encouragement, which are a paired strategy, and enforcement complements.
[00:10:00] Speaker: These recommendations. Safe routes for older adults is an emerging strategy designed to enhance the safety and mobility of older adults in their communities by improving pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, making transportation options more accessible, educating older adults and the public about safe travel practices and options. And it aims to create environments where older adults can use active transportation to navigate through town, whether for daily errands, social activities, or healthcare visits. And for obvious reasons, this is important in Palm Desert where half of the population is aged 55 or up, which is nearly double the state and county average.
[00:10:45] Speaker: The safe routes to school plan and safe routes for older adults plans are central elements to the city's overall Vision Zero strategy, and each plan includes recommendations to improve road safety and biking and walking options. In the case of the schools, it's a half-mile radius around eight Desert Sands schools, including one in La Quinta and one in Indian Wells, both of which are on the city's borders. The safe routes for older adults recommendations are concentrated in three older adult priority areas, also a half-mile radius. And those are aligned with key senior destinations such as the Joslyn Center as well as the city's senior public housing. And you can see these areas on screen here, the schools on the left and the older adult priority areas on the right. And you can also see looking in the legend the presence of the city's older adult housing properties along with transit stops in that half-mile buffer area. Next slide.
[00:11:53] Speaker: And these recommendations we developed for these plans and for the strategy overall were driven by extensive community engagement. We did a total of 20 engagement events, including 18 led by the consultant team and two led by the city. We also established an advisory committee to guide the development of the plan and met with them throughout the plan's development. And this included representation from neighboring cities such as Indian Wells, La Quinta, CVAG, the Desert Recreation District, the Joslyn Center, the Riverside County Sheriff's Office, and others. We also conducted an existing conditions analysis where we looked at data including existing infrastructure, crash frequency and locations. We looked at infrastructure presence and really a whole slew of data sets to establish baseline conditions and infrastructure gaps throughout the city. We also conducted walk audits out in the field with members of the school and older adults community at each project area, including the eight schools and three older adult priority areas. Those were paired with traffic counts at approximately 30 locations. These insights we gathered from the existing conditions analysis and from the walk audits, paired with the community engagement activities I mentioned previously, directly inform the development of recommendations in each plan.
[00:13:41] Speaker: And turning now to recommendations, I'm going to focus just briefly on some of our infrastructure recommendations, but I also want to acknowledge that the plans included programmatic recommendations, looking at things like bicycle and pedestrian education, crossing guard promotions, crossing guard sighting and training, park and walk programs as well as walking school bus programs, things like bike lending libraries, car-free streets events, and older adult transportation resource fairs. Next slide.
[00:14:16] Speaker: You can see some of the types of facility recommendations, the infrastructure facilities here on screen. Things like bike lanes, buffered bike lanes that provide an additional horizontal separation between bicyclists and traffic, ADA compliant curb ramps, curb extensions to shorten crossing distance and improve sight distance, high visibility crosswalks to call attention to pedestrians in crosswalks, and things like leading pedestrian intervals which control the timing of the crossing signal and help give pedestrians a head start ahead of traffic. Now, I'll look at one example.
[00:15:00] Speaker: Recommendation from our Safe Routes to School plan. This is a residential neighborhood just north of Lincoln Elementary and Palm Desert Charter Middle School. And we focused here because Portola Avenue was identified by the community as feeling uncomfortable and stressful due to high speeds in the area. The recommendations we made for this site included new sidewalks due to gaps in the sidewalk networks around these schools, curb extensions with posts to shorten crossing distance for students who live in the neighborhood and who walk north to school and which help slow traffic approaching Portola Avenue, and ADA curb ramps to improve accessibility and comfort, particularly for those using mobility devices.
[00:15:45] Speaker: And moving now to an example Safe Routes for Older Adults plan recommendation. This is the intersection of Fred Waring and San Pasqual. Fred Waring is, as you know, is a large and busy thoroughfare with lots of high-speed traffic and significant crossing distance.
[00:16:04] Speaker: To address the issues that the community expressed concern about in this area, as well as those we observed in our walk audits, we recommended a leading pedestrian interval to give pedestrians a head start at crossings. And this is especially important for those with reduced mobility who may be moving slower through these areas. We also recommended pedestrian-oriented street lighting to illuminate the pathway and increase visibility at night. And we recommended upgrading existing standard bike lanes on Fred Waring Drive to class 2B buffered bike lanes, which would also help reduce the lane width, which has the additional benefit of slowing traffic. Finally, we proposed high-visibility crosswalks in the area. These were—they were installed after we made this recommendation, but they enhance pedestrian visibility.
[00:17:00] Speaker: Moving on to the data dashboard. This is where a lot of this information will be compiled and shared with the public, as well as the plans once they are final. This is where we will have citywide safety data, such as maps of crashes by severity and key safety infographics highlighting the nature of safety issues in Palm Desert. It will include the facility toolbox, similar to what I showed earlier, and it will show a map of all of our infrastructure strategies and recommendations.
[00:17:33] Speaker: The combination of these elements aimed to present a comprehensive picture of safety conditions in Palm Desert, along with strategies to improve active transportation opportunities and safety outcomes citywide. And this particular image here shows what's referred to as a high injury network. This was developed during the existing conditions analysis, and a high injury network is meant to illustrate that often a small number of improvable roadways can address the majority of injury and fatality-causing crashes in a city. This approach moves beyond a typical crash history and allows for a better understanding of the types of roadways in the city where users are most at risk. As you can see here from the infographic at the bottom, 43% of the serious injury and fatality collisions in the city of Palm Desert are represented by just 2% of the road network in Palm Desert. So, it really provides an area of emphasis for the city and will also support the city's Safe Streets and Roads for All grant submission for implementation. Next slide.
[00:18:41] Speaker: And moving on to the implementation strategy. As mentioned earlier, this is meant to prioritize projects, produce cost estimates, and really just set the city up to be ready to submit grants to implement these projects. So, we combined the new recommendations from these two plans along with existing recommendations from a review of the city's various capital improvement programs and plans, such as the local road safety plan, and developed a prioritization framework and cost estimates that resulted in a ranked and consolidated list of projects based on cost and feasibility. And we paired these with preliminary concept maps, which are shown in the two planning documents, and altogether these are meant to support grant readiness. Next slide.
[00:19:35] Speaker: And just to give a sense of scale here, the two plans that we produced through this project effort included 222 recommendations in total, with a total estimated value of approximately 39 million. We prioritized those down to approximately 70 projects, and we're targeting grant...
[00:20:00] Presenter: programs like the SS4A implementation grant opportunity that I mentioned earlier. Um, and that that grant program is currently open for submissions. So that if if awarded, those um implementation grants will fund improvements ranging from 2.5 million all the way up to 25 million with a 20% local match. And I've also highlighted some of the other grant opportunities here on screen at the state, regional, and county level from SCAG, uh, CALR, and Riverside County Transportation Commission. And I'm going to turn it over to public affairs manager Thomas Su to touch on our public safety campaign that our subconsultant Idea Peddler led.
[00:20:48] Thomas Su: Good afternoon. So, we uh part of the grant application that we got for this included not only the infrastructure recommendations and programmatic recommendations that you've seen, but also an education component. And so, we worked um we worked with Idea Peddler to put together a campaign uh that's expandable, but that that worked within the confines of this grant to help educate the community. Our goal was to find a a light-hearted, kind of fun, whimsical way to approach this topic so that people would consider their behavior when they're out on the road. And that includes both pedestrians and drivers because everybody's everybody's behavior out on the road has consequences and can lead to saving lives. So, we put together uh what we call a very VIP campaign, very important pedestrian. And so, we uh staged an activation on El Paso and filmed it to create a PSA. Um, we ran uh radio ads with copy about this. We've activated this in uh digital ads. It's running on broadcast TV. It's running on streaming services, and uh we even have nine buses for the Sunline uh fleet. We'll be we'll have uh ads for this as well. So, we've been doing lots of different trying to hit people from lots of different directions, and we've had really great uh success so far with reaching them. We've had more than 500 radio spots have run. We have uh run some digital out-of-home ads on a network of screens that are in cafes and small stores around Palm Desert. We've had uh more than 32,000 views on that. On streaming video, we've had uh more than 21,000 views with a 98% completion rate, which is great because they're easy to to forward through, and so uh people are watching this. And then on—
[00:22:34] Councilmember: Can I ask that because that was a really impressive number that they went all the way through. How many have seen it all the way through?
[00:22:39] Thomas Su: Uh, 21,000 views. Yeah. So, which is which is great. It's part of part of why we went the whimsical route because we didn't want people to feel preached to. We wanted to uh just trigger a thought for them when they pulled up to a a crosswalk to just rethink it a little bit. And on social media on our Meta channels, we've reached more than 300,000 people. And of those, we've had 26,000 engagements, which is a really great number. Uh, so that's people liking, sharing, commenting on the post. So, it's just been a great response overall. And we even created uh these little pins, VIP pins that people can wear that identify them as very important pedestrian. And I I've got one for each of you afterwards. And so, let's watch the video that resulted from this.
[00:23:25] Video: It's a space that demands all the attention in the world. The flashing lights, the smiling faces. A space we should respect, yet so often take for granted. One that demands a second look every time. Whether you're in a car or on foot, give every crosswalk the VIP treatment. Be seen. Be safe.
[00:23:57] Thomas Su: So the 'be seen, be safe' message. It's a space... And this campaign is designed to be expandable. So as we get more grants, we'll be able to uh continue to work with it, build it out, and reach more people with the messaging. And now turn it back over to Les.
[00:24:11] Councilmember: Oh, yes, absolutely. It's all grant funded, these? Oops, that was too loud. It's all grant funded. I I have heard the ads, and uh so that they are resonating, but hopefully it'll equate to people actually adhering to what we're trying to subliminally, you know. Yeah, that's what we'll see.
[00:24:35] Thomas Su: To answer your question, this was all funded by the grant. This all came from within the grant money. And um that was the exact problem that we were trying to tackle when we designed this is how do you how do you change behavior like this? It's so ingrained when people—and and we were talking about this earlier. People out here don't always anticipate that there's going to be pedestrians because it doesn't always feel like there are a lot of pedestrians. So, how do we get people to pay attention?
[00:25:00] Thomas (Alta Representative): How do we get the pedestrians not to be on their phone when they're crossing? Everyone needs to pay attention and be part of the solution. So, that's what we're aiming for. And our police are also a very good deterrent.
[00:25:13] Council Member: Question. Um, is there anything in print somewhere along El Paso? Because it's great that it's centered there, love the red carpet, but we have had discussions here before that not everybody goes all the way to the crosswalks to really incentivize and motivate them to just go a little bit extra.
[00:25:31] Thomas (Alta Representative): Uh, there's nothing specifically to encourage people to use crosswalks versus jaywalking, um, which you're right is a problem, especially because jaywalking is legal. Um, but we're hoping to encourage people through this to use the crosswalks and then pay attention when they're doing it. And on El Paso specifically, we're putting this messaging on top of the courtesy carts as well, just to kind of reinforce the message every place that we can. We're trying to get in front of people when they're driving, when they're walking, and then when they're at home watching TV. So hopefully we're reaching the community.
[00:26:06] Thomas (Alta Representative): All right, I'll turn it back over to us.
[00:26:11] Council Member: Thank you, Thomas. I have one quick question for you, sir. No, actually, or the gentleman from Alta. Sorry. Sure. Thank you, Thomas. Um, it's actually very informative. I had a question last night from a resident who thought she had a complaint that the messaging didn't hit the right demographic. It showed little kids and showed just old people, but I thought the whimsy was attention-getting and that was the point. So, thank you. I guess I'll pass the message on. But, um, you mentioned earlier about the projects, potentially 222 projects in the pipeline whittled down to 70 that we're going to sort of pursue of the traffic calming, the crosswalks, the sidewalks, etc. What criteria did you use to get down to those 70?
[00:26:56] Thomas (Alta Representative): Yeah, happy to review that. Give me just a moment here. So we looked at a variety of criteria, things like pedestrian and bicycle collision location. We looked at those from 2013 to 2022. For the schools, we looked at student population eligible for the federal free and reduced-price meals program, the percentage of population with a disability. We looked at high injury network proximity. That's that data set I showed earlier where areas where crashes are most concentrated. We looked at residential density, the density of destinations. Um, we looked at households without access to an automobile, which is often a proxy for walking behavior. We looked at the area population density of children and older adults for these two plans respectively. Um, and then we factored for things like local support from the advisory committee, the school and district staff, and stakeholders just to emphasize those projects that really rose to the top in our engagement.
[00:28:02] Council Member: There is some element of likelihood of winning the grant versus what is the most dangerous areas or most prone for accident areas. I mean, likelihood of winning a grant is a consideration. Is that right?
[00:28:15] Thomas (Alta Representative): Yes. And so what we're hoping to support the city with the grant application. So the grant application period for that Safe Streets and Roads for All implementation grant is currently open. It closes June 26th, and what they're looking to see is evidence-based countermeasures or engineering interventions targeted in areas with safety needs. So that's why the things like the high injury network are important. Um, and it's also looking at a variety of other criteria, such as there's a data set that this updated grant criteria uses called areas of persistent poverty. So it's looking at the overlap of these different things and the evidence-based benefits of applying these various engineering countermeasures to the areas where the safety needs have been identified. So through the grant application, we'll make a case, and hopefully that case will be strong enough to win the city a good chunk of implementation dollars.
[00:29:27] Staff: How would you prefer to do that? Would you like to take those questions now or would you like to wait till the end?
[00:29:33] Council Member: Um, it might be best to wait till the end just in case the next couple...
[00:29:37] Staff: No problem. Thank you.
[00:29:39] Thomas (Alta Representative): Thank you. Um, can we go to the next step slide, Chris?
[00:29:46] Thomas (Alta Representative): Thank you. Um, this is really my final slide here and then I'll turn it back to Chris, and he will lead the Q&A session and I'm happy to answer any questions that come up with our allotted time. So the next steps to finalize this project include collecting final...
[00:30:01] Les: Feedback on these two planning documents by May 5th. We, the consultant team, will finalize the plans by May 12th. We hope to have the county's approval and adoption of the strategy overall by means of a resolution on the May 22nd meeting, and then we will submit the Safe Streets and Roads for All implementation grant application by June 26th. And I'll just note that some of these activities that we'll be putting forward for the council's adoption at the May 22nd meeting are a condition of implementation grant eligibility. With that, I thank you for your time, and I will turn it back to Chris, and I'm happy to answer any questions specific to the consultant team. Thank you very much.
[00:30:54] Chris: Great. Thank you, Les. And that concludes the presentation portion of this item. And as mentioned, our goal is to solicit comments and return back for council consideration as early as May 22nd. And with that, there are a few council meetings in between before the implementation grant is due on June 26th, and part of that grant is your planning documents do need to be approved in order to submit that grant by that date. So we're available for any questions the council may have. Thank you.
[00:31:24] Mayor Harnik: Thank you so much. Can we—do you have questions? Oh, go ahead.
[00:31:28] Council Member: On one of the slides, it talked about Fred Waring and San Pasqual Drive and putting in a bike lane and taking up—so going from three lanes to two lanes. Was that the slide? It went by so quickly. I wasn't sure how you were adding safety to that dangerous high-injury network area on Fred Waring.
[00:31:52] Les: Yes, thank you for that question. I'm happy to clarify there. So, this would be slide 14 in the presentation. So we can go back to that. A couple, couple more. There you go. Yes, that one. So what we are proposing to do here is not add a new bike lane. We're adding that diagonal buffered strip there. So that adds about 3 to 5 feet of additional horizontal separation between users of the bicycle lane, be it a bicycle or a golf cart, and moving traffic. So, it just provides additional comfort, taking up the amount of room that the three lanes of cars currently have. We're reducing the lane width. And you can see the...
[00:32:40] Council Member: My opinion, and it's just anecdotal, Fred Waring already seems narrow and cars are going so fast. I think the lane should be wider, and I wish they were still two lanes, but I know we need it for traffic flow. But in my opinion, it's already dangerous with the current width.
[00:33:01] Mayor Harnik: So if I can suggest, so first you said the buffers, and when you talk about the buffers, that you are then creating a Class II bike lane, that's simply paint on the—correct? Okay. So there are psychological components to narrowing the lane widths, and you narrow it a little, it automatically slows people down, and we've seen that, and so that's a good thing. Now, there was also a law that was passed statewide that when we see a bicyclist, we must give them 3 feet of buffer. So, this then gives us a guideline of what that 3 feet is. Is that kind of the intent here? And then it slows us down as well.
[00:33:42] Les: Yeah. I mean, hopefully people are complying with that law regardless, but this just provides that psychological component and formalizes it. And I think as you stated, Mayor Harnik, it seems a little counterintuitive, but narrowing the lane—there's been extensive study of this—actually slows traffic because you feel slightly less comfortable as a driver. You have less room to move horizontally. So, psychologically, it slows traffic down through that effect.
[00:34:17] Council Member: I am just voicing a concern. I still believe it's an issue, but sure. Thank you.
[00:34:25] Mayor Harnik: Any other questions? And let's see if I...
[00:34:33] Council Member: I had one other comment with George Washington Charter School. And the plans look great, the crosswalks and everything. I did have a constituent call me. He's the grandfather that takes the grandkids to school at George Washington Charter. And he told me that he had reached out to staff at Palm Desert. And I believe the issue is still a work in progress because the parents were using the...
[00:35:01] Councilmember Nandi: ...church parking lot next to George Washington Charter School for parking. And so the church asked staff if they would help pitch in to redo the parking lot. It was in major need and the city, you know, really could not because of separation of church and state. So the church has blocked off that parking lot, so the parents can't use it anymore. And so this grandparent—and he was speaking for other people—that it's dangerous because there's not ample sidewalk or parking for drop off. So, Chris, are you aware of what's going—you know what I'm talking about?
[00:35:44] Chris (Staff): Councilmember Nandi, from an outside, I've heard about that situation where the parking lot—there was limitations to it, but this plan does include quite a substantial amount of sidewalk within that area to hopefully mitigate what that issue may be and for cars to park.
[00:36:01] Councilmember Nandi: That was part of it. There's not a place for the cars to park, and they were parking in the church parking lot that's next to the school, but it was never resolved. So, I talked to the church deacon and she told me that because they couldn't afford the cost to have to repave the parking lot again and then let the school parents use it unless the city was prepared to pitch in. I think it was like $14,000.
[00:36:33] Staff: If I may, Chris, Councilmember Nandi, I have reached out to the principal of the school and so we are in communication of potential issues to allow parking on the site. So it is ongoing, but I'm in communication with the principal.
[00:36:44] Councilmember Nandi: Okay, great. Thank you. That's it. And I'm sure a discussion will resolve a lot of those issues.
[00:36:51] Councilmember: Is there any other questions or comments? A question on the implementation or the priorities—that list will come to us upon final approval in May. That will, I believe—I don't know if you want to speak to that, Chris.
[00:37:05] Chris (Staff): Sure.
[00:37:10] Chris (Staff): As this is all going as a work in progress right here, our initial thought was go to the ATP subcommittee to fully develop out this grant application, which is generally going to be based upon that high injury network that was shown before. We're going to modify the high injury network to give us a little bit more expansion on that because, as you recall, it's about 2% represents 43%, but if we modify that to 3% or 4%, it gives us a little bit more flexibility in order to have a more substantial corridor. If it was Council's discretion for us to bring back what that grant application would look like prior to submission, we absolutely can do that.
[00:37:47] Councilmember: I was just curious if we would see the list of 70 ranked projects.
[00:37:53] Chris (Staff): Absolutely. We were going to link that because when you start to look, it's a little overwhelming, especially with the spreadsheets that are associated with it and the thousands of different ideas. But it's going to be linked to our data dashboard. But yes, we can get that information to you as well. We'll bring that back.
[00:38:12] Councilmember: My question is, and I leave this to staff, is at some point we'll have some projects that probably won't cost a lot of money for striping relative and based on your discretion and need. You know, some of those projects we might be able to do with Measure G funds that are just low-cost, high-return. I don't know if I'm going to be the one to be able to determine that, but the list mentions that it would be a combination of feasibility and cost. So, some of those low-cost, high-feasibility ones might be something that at least I would entertain to even use some Measure G funds potentially, depending on how the budget's looking for the year.
[00:38:54] Chris (Staff): Are you saying other than the 70? Maybe even the 70 if we're not getting grant funds fast enough.
[00:39:01] Councilmember: Well, let's keep working for that grant.
[00:39:05] Councilmember: Go ahead. I saw in the supplemental—and by the way, that report is huge and very exhaustive, so thank you, Chris, appreciate it, man—in the supplemental packet, it mentioned that the city does contribute $60,000 a year to the crossing guard program. And I just want to make sure, is that ordinarily—does the burden of those costs fall on the school district, or is it typical? Like, in other words, do you know whether the other nine cities also have a similar program where they contribute? In other words, is that to just maintain the basic level of service that DSUSD ensures, or does that get us above and beyond?
[00:39:40] Chris (Staff): You know, I do not know the particulars of that. I know we contribute about 60,000. We've done that in prior years, this year, and I think it's budgeted for next fiscal year as well. I could do some research into finding out what that contribution looks like as far as other jurisdictions as well and what our percentage is of that.
[00:39:57] Councilmember: Well, it seems...
[00:40:00] Council Member: ...money well spent, but I just wanted to make sure we're getting more bang for the buck. Second question, I noticed um grants available ranged from what, about $2 million to $25 million. That's the range of grants we're, and the city burden would be about 20% of that, grants fund the other 80. And this is maybe a question for Veronica, but Veronica looks a little different today. Um, so do we already have kind of have that figured out, that that money is available to spend if the grant comes forward, that we have the half million to $5 million set aside for that?
[00:40:34] Staff: Council Member Trouy, so, um, we, I think we put in the proposed budget some funds for matching funds. And although it's up to $25 million, I think the median grant's about $12 million, and then due to our size as a jurisdiction, we're probably looking for about a $6 to $8 million project. And that, those, again, those matching funds are considered, will be presented for budget considerations to the council in the future. And I, I do want to emphasize that the active transportation grants, the safe routes to school grants, the vision zero grants, the go human grants are ongoing, and, and they are numerous. So this report, which is outstanding, positions us to be eligible for those. So even though we've done this with the, let's see, is it SS4A grants, this will put us in a position that we'll be able to apply for a lot of other grants. Any other questions or thoughts?
[00:41:42] Council Member: Yes, question. Um, you have here on page 155 of your report, car-free streets near schools. I think that kind of addresses the idea of shared parking space. Um, and I completely understand if there's overflow and the school is, is using that in its private property, you know, that should be something that we should be looking at nudging the school district because it is a, a collaborative issue. Last year, um, there was a meeting that Mayor Hornick and I had with the superintendent, with our, um, city manager, and I'm trying to think of who else, board of, one of their trustees, another district official, with Randy. Um, and we looked at, would it be possible to use the aquatic center because of the proximity to Lincoln Elementary, which touches the wall with Palm Desert Charter and is right across the wash from, uh, the high school. Is there the possibility to direct people there and have some sort of incentives? Right? Here's your, your ticket or your punch card for doing it five days this week, and, you know, opportunity drawing for whichever it may be. I think that would incentivize, um, kids to push the parents. Would that be something that we could look at? Um, and a brief chat if there would be liability. Could the city purchase a way to increase our ability to offer that while reducing our liability if we make city, um, resources available?
[00:43:17] Staff: Council Member Kenttonia, uh, in regard to the first point, absolutely. I think in our, in our programmatic section, we talk about things like walking school buses and ways to encourage students to meet at particular locations, and, uh, that would be a great location. And for example, Carter Elementary, you have Hoseley Park, which is not too far from there, could, that could provide that same kind of, uh, encouragement to alleviate traffic and, and promote, uh, pedestrian safety. Um, in regards to your second part, I'll have to look into that as far as what the city, uh, the liability in relation to the city's contribution and to those type of programmatic aspects, um, in regards to working with the school district.
[00:43:56] Council Member: Well, that, that makes sense. So, independent of, of the school district, if we're already using it at the soccer park to benefit one of the schools, I think that should be a, a quick, um, a safer option if it's there. And I think one of the things that, oh, Basam was at the meeting and he said that it is within that half-mile, um, established DOT safe zone. Um, so, I, I think that's a fairly easy one if we already have a practice of doing it. If this would be less traffic along Portola where we know that there's people that, they don't have kids there, they're running late, they don't care, and they're going to try to make that yellow light. Parents have reported there's inconsistency with the, with the crossing guards. We are humans. We don't always, you know, go to work if we're not feeling well. Um, so I think that that would really be a good opportunity given the concentration knowing that, um, they are Title I schools. The charter school may not be, um, but I know Lincoln for sure is a Title I school that has, it meets the 60/40% free and reduced lunch, um...
[00:45:00] Speaker: threshold. So I, I would love to see that be an option that we explore. I think it that probably would, we'd all benefit with a discussion with the school district on this. So we can look into that as we go forward. Thank you.
[00:45:18] Speaker: Okay. Is there anything else on this? Any questions or thoughts? Oh, we get our pens. Thank you.
[00:45:34] Speaker: And I think one of the most important things we did here is we all play a role in it. So, it's the pedestrian, it's the bicyclist, it's the person behind the wheel in a car. We all play a role. So, if we can work together on this and pay attention, we're going to get the best result possible. Thank you for that. Okay. So, I think we're ready to move on to the next item on our study report and study session, and that is Mr. Rodriguez.
[00:46:15] Pedro Rodriguez: Good afternoon, Mayor Harnick, members of the city council. Pedro Rodriguez, code compliance supervisor. The item before you today is to present and facilitate a discussion regarding inconsistencies in the municipal code as it relates to property maintenance activities and construction activities as far as the start times. Recently, the code compliance division has received complaints about these inconsistencies, and the item before you is to seek direction from city council to see if it warrants the change in amending the code to have a more uniform approach to the maintenance start times for construction, property maintenance, and so forth. So I will start with this presentation.
[00:47:02] Pedro Rodriguez: So the first slide here, it's outlining the municipal code with the separate separate activities that dictate the times. For example, there's about a two-hour difference for construction activities, golf course start activities, and property maintenance for private homeowners and residents in the community. Part of the challenges we're facing is that the city has exempted city contractors working on city properties to start about two hours earlier, which they're allowed to start as early as 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning. When we are out there doing enforcement or education, we're faced with that challenge of, 'Why is that crew out there allowed to do the same activity we're doing and we're not?' So that's faced an enforcement challenge for us. And in looking at some of the other cities around us, the activities that they have are pretty much consistent across the board. So some of the complaints we've received here have not been for the noise itself. It's been more of, 'I know that they can't start till 9:00 and it's 8:55. Can you come out here and tell them to stop?' So those are the complaints that we're receiving. So in early January and February, I assigned the team to go out two or three days a week to make contact with some of these landscapers in areas of the city and educate on what our start times were. And the pushback we were getting is the inconsistencies in your code. 'We thought since we work in other cities and we're allowed to start earlier, we thought Palm Desert was the same,' which it's not. Some of the homeowners have called us in retaliation to this later start time saying that it's not fair, it's inhumane because of the heat during certain times of the year. The later start times pose a hazard for some of the companies that want to comply with some of the illness and heat prevention laws in the state of California, and we're not allowing them to do that. So there's a lot of components here with some of the inconsistencies in our ordinance. And this timeline here is outlining what our ordinances used to look like back in 1985. Our start times were consistent across the board, 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. for all activities: construction, property maintenance, and so forth. In 1997, we kind of split away from those activities and separated property maintenance to later start times, reducing the start times on the weekends. And in 2008, we amended it again to include a separation by seasons for winter and summer. And in 2017, an item was brought before council to exempt construction activities from the property maintenance, where now they're allowed to start as early as 5:30 in the morning on summer hours. And that's some of the challenges that we get is when we're out there trying to...
[00:50:00] Pedro: ...enforce or educate some of these homeowners that are telling us that their activities take 20, 30 minutes for their landscapers to work. When you have a guy pounding hammers and cutting saws most of the day, that's more offensive than a lawnmower or a weed eater starting, you know, early at that time warning for a smaller duration of time once a week.
[00:50:25] Pedro: And here's just a snapshot of our surrounding valley cities. These hours are consistent. All their activities fall within those hours: construction, city contractors that they also have exempted or allowed to follow these orders, as well as property maintenance for commercial and residential properties.
[00:50:47] Pedro: So some of the pros and cons of how our ordinance is set up and how we would like to see it is standardizing the start times resolves the inconsistencies, will be in line with other valley cities. It'll provide relief for some of those outdoor workers for earlier start times during hotter weather. And some of the cons: some residents may not like the change in the time. They may want to continue with the same hours that we have. And then the municipal code remains inconsistent on start times for the similar activities.
[00:51:20] Pedro: So discussion: should we change the PDMC? So this item is before you to seek direction on how you would like us to proceed.
[00:51:29] Mayor: Okay. And thank you so much. Would you turn it back? I think two slides back. I think that'll be helpful for our discussion. That one. I think that's helpful for us. Does anybody have any questions or comments? Well, feedback.
[00:51:47] Councilmember: Yeah, I believe our time should be consistent across the board. That's my short answer.
[00:51:58] Councilmember: If I may, I remember having one of those angry residents that say, "How come this noise is horrible?" I think it was a big project and they were doing a lot of concrete demolition, which is not going to be quick and it's not going to be quiet. And they said we'd gotten fined for, again, the different times. So I would support consistency because that places you with the additional burden, and if it's first thing in the morning and people are very angry, that's something that you should not have to bear the brunt of people's direct frustration because it's unclear from what we're doing. And how, again, the other side of the coin with the state heat regulations or adaptations for working conditions—part of what employers are supposed to do is provide tents and provide water and some sort of shelter, right? We're not putting anybody at an undue disadvantage if a lot of these companies are already doing that, or is it mostly for them saying, "My one person would be impacted"? Where is the customer, or who are the people that are putting forward that concern?
[00:53:11] Pedro: The companies that have their employees working out in the field are saying that, you know, it's hot out there. The temperatures could reach over 100 degrees by 8:00 in the morning in midsummer. So they want to get out there a little earlier to avoid that heat exhaustion that comes with working out in the heat.
[00:53:31] Councilmember: Okay. So that was the concern. So if they are companies, they know the law. They should already be following it, and they want us to adjust to them because of the way that they want to comply with state law. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or comments down here, please?
[00:53:47] Councilmember: Pedro, is there a single day that you and your team don't facilitate retaliatory complaints amongst residents?
[00:53:55] Pedro: No, we're 24/7.
[00:53:59] Councilmember: It appears to me that there's a couple things here. So, the retaliatory nature of enforcing this has brought about what, in my opinion, looks to be an issue in terms of our governance, is enforceability. Yes, it's a burden on your team to enforce this, not in addition to just the complaints, but just backing up, it just sounds like that's—and you just said yes, so that kind of... So, in your opinion, the other models of, say, like Cathedral City and Palm Springs, they have the most consistent of any of the cities in terms of just times. They don't even regulate days of the week. Would that be, in your opinion, the most easily to enforce option?
[00:54:49] Pedro: I would say if we align it with our construction activities, that would be the one we already have on the books. That would be the easiest for us to enforce because it's already there and it's consistent with—
[00:55:00] Councilmember: ...property maintenance in other cities, and consistent with our own contractors. Okay? And so these cities, these regulate both construction and property maintenance. And I'll say that I am one of those angry homeowners. I remember it was before 6:00 a.m. And for me, it's not so much the lawn mower, the weed eater, the construction, it's the blowers. And it was 5:40 a.m. and there was a blower at Ironwood Park, and I was incensed. So that's when I learned that the city was exempt because I went to, you know, see. And so, so that was an education for me. If we provide direction, will that change the city's exemption?
[00:55:45] Staff: I don't believe it will. Randy, I'll let you chime in on that.
[00:55:49] Randy: No, it won't unless we explicitly say it will.
[00:55:56] Staff: May I add?
[00:55:57] Councilmember Pedro Rodriguez: I won't—I won't open that can. Well, that's what I meant when I said I want it consistent across the board to include the city. I don't believe the city should have special treatment over the public.
[00:56:09] Councilmember: Well, then, then I would—I would favor that. Okay. Well, thank you, Pedro.
[00:56:18] Councilmember: Would it be—how much resistance do you think you would get in your experience enforcing these rules if we were to pick a day, like Sunday, where the general public could rely that there would be no construction and no, at least, commercial property maintenance? I mean, it'd just be nice to have a quiet day in the city. I mean, I guess individual homeowners can do what they want, but how much of a burden would that put on gardeners or the service industry in general?
[00:56:46] Staff: I don't know about the service industry because I don't know if a lot of them work, you know, seven days a week. But if homeowners want to do it, obviously that's exempt. For us to do enforcement on Sundays, we do have staff here on Sundays, and that would just be the target. If someone hears a lawnmower, then they will make the call, and we'll go out and deal with that. But at least it's one day, if we were to exempt one day.
[00:57:10] Councilmember: I'm just leaning towards the idea that it's just nice to have one predictably quiet day. So, and currently our construction hours do say no work on Sunday. Property maintenance is allowed. I'm assuming that includes commercial property. Okay, cool.
[00:57:26] Councilmember: So, this is one of those things. We know we're not going to make everybody happy. It's just the way it is. And, you know, I'm maybe one of those people who at six o'clock in the morning, if I hear a blower, the thought that goes in my mind is, 'I hope that's the worst problem I have today.' So I don't look at it as huge issues, but I think consistency is critically important just because it makes it easier for you and it makes it easier for everybody else who are trying to comply with the guidelines. And I'm looking at La Quinta's, and theirs seem very reasonable. And going to 6:00 a.m. during the summer, we all know what it's like. Each of us, if you're on council, you've heard complaints. I've heard it. You know, 'I can't believe they're picking up my trash at 6:00 in the morning.' Really? Because you want to take it to the dump, right? I mean, it's just not an easy issue. But it is so hot, and these are human beings, and we have to be respectful and compassionate with what they're trying to do. I look at La Quinta's hours. I think those look reasonable: 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., October to April during high season. Does that seem like something that the majority of people—we know, and again, we're not going to make everybody happy, you know that better than most people. And then flipping it to 6:00 a.m., May to September, so that they have the opportunity to get out there a little earlier. Do those seem to be reasonable times to you?
[00:59:13] Staff: They are reasonable times to me. The only thing I see is that it would be inconsistent with our exempt city contractors, where they're allowed to start all year round at the same time.
[00:59:21] Councilmember: And what time is that again?
[00:59:23] Staff: As early as 6:00 a.m. during summer. And that's up to them if they want to start during winter at 6:00 a.m. We, again, our team from Public Works has asked them to be good stewards if they're, you know, in sensitive areas to start a little later or do a different type of work, but they're allowed to start as early as 6:00 a.m.
[00:59:42] Councilmember: Okay.
[00:59:48] Councilmember: So, does 6:00 a.m. to 5:30, October to April 30th—because the consistency is important. We can't have different rules for different people. That's where the problem then is stirred up. I would...
[01:00:02] Councilmember 1: Support the 6:00 a.m. October 1st to April 30th. Again, like you just said, consistency is very important and I don't support having one set of standards for the city versus the public.
[01:00:17] Councilmember 2: If I may, I agree because it's not going to be... I'm hearing it, I'm hearing it again. Why can't I? If I'm hearing it, if no one is doing it at that time of year, it won't be less of a 'is it October, is it February, what month is it, and what's the policy?' It's just not happening within that time. And I think that allows for a natural kind of enforcement or sets the parameters because they're not hearing it. And I agree those early mornings make a very big difference. My dad has worked in the fields, he's been a private landscaper. My mom, they get up sometimes at 5:00 in the morning to start doing the windows for some of these homes. It is a big impact. It is a big impact. That does make a difference. And I think that Lita does have a good policy to do it by season, and I think that that's very reasonable. And I think that we need to keep it consistent. We can write that into our contracts. If you want to do business here, it's already happening in other cities in the valley. It may be in other areas. I don't think... and if that's a dealbreaker for that contractor, well, we have more options ahead.
[01:01:34] Mayor: I have a quick question because I like the idea of just year-round, same time, no questions. It's not like today's April, it's May 1st and now we've got to switch it up. Maybe the ease of having one time works. Why during the summer months, during the hot months? What is the thinking behind going later in the day?
[01:02:03] Staff Member 1: I'm not sure when that was changed. I don't recall the changes back when they split from the original starting at 7:00 a.m. and they changed it up and did the seasons. I don't recall.
[01:02:17] Mayor: How easy would it be if we just went year-round, 6:00 to 6:00, for everybody? That would work.
[01:02:27] Councilmember 1: Perhaps the thinking was... although I don't think it does cool off at 6:30 or even 7:00, it's still probably just as hot. Maybe that's the thinking, that it's cooling off again. But I'm all for supporting what you just said, Mayor, the 6:00 to 6:00.
[01:02:46] Councilmember 2: I think it may have something to do with the fact that that's when we have more sunlight available and it may be additional productivity that you can get in. And you're right, it doesn't start to cool off until 9:00, 10:00 p.m. in the middle of that, but I think it may have to do with the availability to work additional hours. But I think if what we're trying to do is make it easy and make it consistent, I think that, you know, even if we make it year-round, residential, commercial, and city contractors, it should be one time year-round. And no Sundays is mentioned, right? One day where you get a quiet day.
[01:03:24] Mayor: Well, I think for consistency ease, compliance ease, a 6:00 to 6:00... I don't have an issue with Sundays because there's a lot of people who maybe would like Saturdays instead for whether religious reasons or otherwise. I would think 6:00 to 6:00 makes it very easy for everybody. It's easy to remember, and it might make it easier for your job, and it's easier for those people trying to comply. If there's some things we're missing, I'm sure as you go through this process, you can bring them back to us and we can hear about them.
[01:04:02] Staff Member 2: Mayor, City Council, if I may just make one comment. I'm okay, I agree with the 6:00 to 6:00. However, I would still like to make some exemptions for city services, especially with removing liners, cleaning, and things of those type items in parks, ELA, whatnot. We do work seven days a week to clean the liners, remove the trash, and whatnot. So I would just ask that we make that an exception so we could still perform those types of services in parks and strictly commercial areas.
[01:04:39] Mayor: Would that cover it? And I know you have to go into far greater detail, but we're just right at the top here. So I know it's going to be far greater detail as we go forward. So those make sense, what you're saying.
[01:04:53] Staff Member 2: Yeah, and I could work with Pedro and his team to come up with the exact language that would cover it. But yes, essentially it'd be parks and...
[01:05:00] Councilmember: commercial, um, city-maintained areas. Would that possibly be differentiated for things that it may be based on noise? If we say the activity that you're going to be doing is really noisy, you have to adhere. If what you're going to be doing, if you're going to be—and again, I'm trying to just think of the type of things where we wouldn't impede somebody's ability to work, because you're right. I wasn't thinking about... it sounded like a good idea to have some time where people got free time, but everybody deserves the opportunity to work the day that they have available. Um, I think that the big consideration is, part of it is having something uniform, but some of it that has happened with people wanting to know when they can start, and noise being what generates the biggest complaint. Is there anything that can be done, or any type of contracts that we can say it will only apply to this? Because then we still get to the same point that residents are going to be hearing and not know, 'That's not my neighbor next door. I'm not going to hear that it's the park two blocks away,' depending on where you are in the natural acoustics of the desert.
[01:06:16] Staff: Yeah, we could incorporate some language limiting power equipment and things of that nature. But one other item to consider on the golf courses: I know they start early because they want to get people on the course earlier. So that's another item that we may want to maybe look at before we make a blanket, you know, time, if we want to consider giving them an exemption as well.
[01:06:39] Staff: And hearing you, Council, part of this does require additional studies. So, our intention today was to get your initial feedback showing that there's an inconsistency issue. So, our intention is to receive your feedback, hear you, and then bring this back for additional study.
[01:06:56] Councilmember: Well, you certainly have some ideas. I'll just jump in, and it sounds like I'll be a lone man here, but I lean more towards liking something like a Rancho Mirage 7:00 to 6:00, no weekends. But, you know, I'll settle with Sunday off. But just in general, that's in terms of my preference as you guys reconcile.
[01:07:16] Councilmember: Why Sunday? Why Sunday?
[01:07:17] Councilmember: Actually, I prefer no weekends at all. That'd be ideal, Monday through Friday. And I think a good point was made: when people can work, we have to allow them to work. We can't interfere with commerce, or we should not. But I think there are sound limitations that we could go forward with. But I think you have a lot of information from us and perhaps some guidelines.
[01:07:42] Staff: Okay, we will bring this—
[01:07:45] Councilmember: One more comment since we're looking for feedback on the hours. Um, going 12 months a year, 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.—there's no other city starting at 6:00. I think I get the feeling if we allowed everybody to start work at 6:00 a.m., we would get a lot of negative feedback from residents through the winter months. They'd ask why. You're not trying to beat the heat; you're just making it noisy and unpleasant for them trying to sleep in or whatever. I kind of agree with Joe that picking a day off would be Sunday. Sunday just seems like the most likely day where the greatest percentage of the population doesn't work, or stores are closed, or it is just, generally speaking, a day where people lay low. So that's why, if we were going to pick a day off, that would be the one I would choose. And I don't mind lifting La Quinta's—plagiarizing off of La Quinta, doing seasonal, you know, different hours seasonally. It's easier to explain to the residents the why we're going to 6:00 during the hot months.
[01:08:38] Councilmember: Okay, so now you just took us backwards.
[01:08:40] Councilmember: Yeah, I don't... Yes, I like 6:00 a.m. at least, or even 5:30 a.m. Let's try consistency. I don't support a Sunday because I think we're looking at things wrong.
[01:08:54] Councilmember: Uh, let's—
[01:08:56] Councilmember: And being someone who is out and about, as we all are, Sundays is not a big day. Most people do choose to take it off when they have to work. Let's not keep them from working. I think that, as we mentioned, at 6:00 a.m. it's still dark for a lot of people. They're still sleeping at that time, looking at our own circadian rhythms of when people are going to want to hear that noise. So that's one thought I had in terms of why the seasonal, you know, may impact our diurnal and nocturnal preferences. But to Mayor Pro Tem, are you busier on the weekends in your business? Don't you get more people that may want to take time on the weekend? You know what I'm going to ask? A question in terms of what our commerce... as a business owner, you have that perspective.
[01:09:48] Mayor: Okay, let's... I'm going to ask if we can... We have lots of information. We provided abundant information. Let's get going. We have more to do on a study session, and we also have closed session, and we have our—
[01:10:01] Speaker: Regular business. So, let's get to you wrap it up. Um, I think you have more information than you wanted, but you've got a lot. So, thank you very much. And it'll come back and we'll take a look at this again. Thank you. Okay. So, let's move on to our next study session item, and that is Vanessa Maker. Is Ms. Maker here? Martine Alvarez will be at bat on this one.
[01:10:29] Martine Alvarez: Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the City Council. Um, we wanted to present to you um just uh for information, background, um and input on the courtesy cart program on El Paseo. So, we want to start off with just giving you a little bit of a background and history of how this originated. This also, you know, obviously has originated as an economic development driver to facilitate uh transportation to uh and within um the shopping district on El Paseo. So, um back in the day, it was the Shopper Hopper. There was a minibus that was originated to transport uh visitors uh from hotels to El Paseo. Um, it really did not sort of pan out just based on ridership um and based on people's uh ability to to uh to coordinate to get down to the shopping centers. So, in 2004, the El Paseo courtesy cart program began, um and it started with several basically golf carts that would be uh able to be hailed um on the street um and then they were promoted to basically transport folks within the shopping districts between um call it Highway 74, which is Monterey, down to Portola on the east end. Um, in 2022, the City Council uh decommissioned the existing golf carts um that were owned and operated by the city. Um, and then basically the next slide we we'll shoot over into in 2022, the city contracted with Circuit Transportation or Transit. Um, and basically kept the same amount of service on El Paseo, which is three carts, two standard and one ADA-compliant cart. Uh, the carts generally run uh from October through May. Um, and basically seven days a week, 11:00 to 6:00 p.m. Um, and we do utilize them for special events, including Fashion Week and Food and Wine, um and other other events that come up throughout the year. Um, the carts are basically just scheduled uh routinely to come through the street. Um, you can hail them um by by just by visual or or by just basically um make sure you're aware of where to pick up. Um, there are there are no set destinations or pickup spots currently, but they do make their way uh to Hotel El Paseo uh as a routine uh stop as well. Um, these carts are funded through the general fund. Um, and the reason why we're here today is just to get some feedback from you as to um some options if you want to to pursue expanding the program, modifying the program um as the contract ends this this season basically. Um, and so um, next slide. We talked about the route um, that's basically the the area that it encompasses with the three carts. And next slide. Um, ridership. Um, the last several years we've averaged between 7,000 to 10,000 riders throughout the year. Obviously, you can see throughout the uh the seasons, it varies depending on our our basically our seasonality for for the uh for the area. Next slide. Um, here is some contract costs that we've experienced over the last se- several years. Um, and currently we're expending about $224,000 um with the private company um to operate the courtesy carts on El Paseo. Next slide. Um, the El Paseo Parking and Business Improvement District has been very satisfied, of course, uh utilizing this service to promote, enhance, and attract businesses or or visitors to the area. Um, they have showed interest um in potentially expanding the operating hours to maybe particularly include weekends and evenings, given the fact that we have several restaurants now that are really um outgoing and and uh producing um in the in the uh in the area. Um, they did recommend potentially adding fixed stops um that could be, you know, utilized using a signage, um of course advertising with the actual uh businesses themselves and then through our social media and other other channels as well. Um, and basically tonight we just wanted to get some feedback as to um, do you want us to, as we're going through an RFP process this...
[01:15:01] Staff: Summer, do you want us to maintain the current program as it exists today, which is approximately $230,000? Do you want us to look at considering extra hours on the weekends and evenings? Do you want us to look at expanding the fleet? I know there's been talks about do we want to go to other areas outside of the El Paseo district, and we can have that discussion and get some feedback from the City Council. And if we do have that discussion, we could look into what those costs could look like moving forward as well. So, there's been discussions about do we want to expand it to the Living Desert? Do we want to expand it to the mall? Do we want to expand it to San Pablo? That's really up for discussion this afternoon, and we want to just get your feedback.
[01:15:52] Mayor: Okay. Thank you. Comments and questions?
[01:15:58] Council Member: Well, I'll comment. Extending the hours, it would increase the cost about $6,000, which perhaps that would, in my opinion, be agreeable. But I'm not sure about expanding service off of El Paseo because of the cost-benefit. If you're going to the mall and they're going to go shopping and we get sales tax revenue from it, that would be great. So that could be a possibility. But let's say, are you thinking if they go to the Living Desert, would the Living Desert then pitch in and share some of the cost? So those are some of my points, but I do support extending the hours, but I'm not sure about expanding the service away from El Paseo.
[01:16:43] Council Member: I wanted to add something. This is not a question or a comment to what you have said, but I do want to provide... sitting on the El Paseo Parking and Business Improvement District as the council liaison, that group supports it very strongly and has really been the driving force behind raising its profile and creating a more efficient service to the people who are there. That's my only comment.
[01:17:11] Mayor: So, do you have any thoughts or comments, questions?
[01:17:16] Council Member: Yeah. And looking through it, I think that where it would be nice to explore the Living Desert, I think it would be very unfeasible because we would have to do something like create an app or find a way for someone to reserve it because it would be a long time for them to come back. And as you mentioned, would there be any sort of financial impact in terms of generating any sales tax that would help offset that? So I think that having it offsite wouldn't be a successful opportunity. I think that as we look at the change in hours, because we are seeing more activity that's open later, I think that maybe expanding it even one hour, perhaps that would entice other businesses to stay open later if they see that there are people that aren't going to want to walk all the way back.
[01:18:10] Council Member: This comment is not in favor pro or con with the Living Desert, but I do want to say that there is an app, so they would have to probably expand upon.
[01:18:18] Council Member: Yeah. And this again, this is not specifically for the Living Desert. It's because it was something that was listed. My next comment was going to be where else would it be? It's not like... yes, San Pablo would be part of it. What are the opportunities to generate revenue as the mall builds up? Would that be an opportunity? How far do we want to let it go? I think we would need to expand our consideration and scope that maybe would require more than a golf cart size if we're looking to go further. But for right now, I think that we're okay with where we are. Unless the business district or the El Paseo Business Improvement District would be willing to share the cost to extend it, then I think that would be a different consideration if they wanted to chip in to make it grow.
[01:19:11] Mayor: Mr. Trouy, any comments or questions?
[01:19:16] Mr. Trouy: All right. Thank you.
[01:19:18] Mr. Trouy: Portola Monterey is what, about a one-mile stretch right now? Okay. So, and within that one mile, you have dozens if not maybe over a hundred businesses. So, the density of potential stops, activity, foot traffic to me makes sense there. It's effective. It's cost-effective. To expand it out to the Living Desert, you're adding another one-mile stretch with zero stops in between. So, I'm not in favor of expanding to the Living Desert. I would be in favor of expanding the hours for sure, though. In fact, 6 p.m. seems kind of an awkward time to stop considering that's when restaurants start to get busy and there's probably more foot traffic on the street where people maybe even had a little too much to drink and want to get themselves back to Hotel Paseo. I don't know. But, I would be in favor of extending the hours, but definitely not the Living Desert.
[01:20:00] Staff Member: ...the destinations.
[01:20:02] Council Member: Thank you, Mr. Petto. This slide says that the BID supported operating hours, and the staff report says they expressed support contingent on extra carts being added. So, does the expanding fleet include extending operating hours?
[01:20:24] Mr. Petto: The expansion of the hours wouldn't be—would not be affected with the current fleet that we have. If we had to go outside of the district, we would have to expand the fleet, for instance, to go to help us to the Living Desert.
[01:20:35] Council Member: So the expanding fleet cart option has a bigger price tag than extending operating hours. My question is, what would be the cost if we combined both of those options: longer hours and more vehicles?
[01:20:55] Mr. Petto: We would have to look into that specifically and see what that looks like. You're asking basically if we can expand the hours and add another cart with that. Yeah, we can look into that.
[01:21:06] Council Member: At a minimum, for staff direction, I definitely support extending hours. It sounds like everyone supports that. That's an easy one to extend the hours. I don't know if we're ready to take it to San Pablo or over to the shops, but I think it's something we really need to look at because I do believe what we're seeing happen on San Pablo is going to make it such a great place to visit—the coffee shops and the food. It's really developing. So, I'd like us to keep our eyes open to that. But it sounds like everyone up here agrees that the hours should be extended. Is there a way to get a proforma to see how much potential revenue we could get by having the carts go to San Pablo or the mall, or is that not feasible?
[01:22:07] Mayor: Sounds like a reach at this point, especially since the mall is not—or the Shops at Palm Desert have not really developed yet. So, I think that's out in the future, but we can look at it and see if it seems reasonable. But certainly, the extending—I like what Council Member or Mayor Pro Tem Trouy said, you know, 6:00, that's when people want to dine, want to move around. And I've been with so many people who, for mobility reasons, need to use the cart. And some just want it for the ease. And as much as, you know, I'm over there, I see so many people using it and appreciating and enjoying that service. I think it is well worth the investment. Any other thoughts or questions? No? Okay.
[01:23:04] Mayor: Then we will be back. Can we take just—can we be right back at board? Does that work for everyone?
[01:23:14] Staff Member: Madame Mayor, you have a closed session.
[01:23:17] Mayor: Yeah. Okay. So, I think we need a little break because I need a little break—a comfort break, as we call them. So, if we can take a break and we'll come back for closed session. So, if we can even make it a little quicker, maybe seven minutes. Can we do it? 5:55.