HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 1996-04-17Mayor Jack Drago
Council:
Joseph A. Fernekes
Eugene R. Mullin
lohn R. Penna
Robert Yee
MINUTES
City Council
City Council Conference Room
City Hall
April 17, 1996
SPECIAL MEETING
CITY COUNCIL
OF THE
CITY OF SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO
APRIL 17, 1996
V6L, .5'0
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, pursuant to Section 54956 of the Government Code of the State of California, that
the City Council of the City of South San Francisco will hold a Special Meeting on Wednesday, the 17th day of April
1996, at 7:00 p.m. in the City Council Conference Room, City Hall, 400 Grand Avenue, South San Francisco,
California.
Purpose of the meeting is a study session to discuss:
Report on strategy for retail recruitment and revitalization plan for the Downtown.
2. Waste Water Treatment Plant Expansion, both in capital and operations.
Dated: April 12, 1996
City Clerk
City of South San Francisco
AGENDA
CALL TO ORDER: (Cassette No. 1)
ROLL CALL:
Report on strategy for retail recruitment and revital-
ization plan for the Downtown. 50~
ACTION TAKEN
7:03 p.m., Mayor Pro Tem Fernekes presiding.
Council Present: Fernekes, Mullin and Yee.
Council Absent: Penna and Drago.
Deputy City Clerk Bill stated Mayor Drago was on
vacation and Councilman Penna would be arriving
late.
City Manager Wilson gave a brief overview: with
the greater downtown there have been a number of
efforts staff has been taking and the two principle
patterns for the downtown have been the clean-up
4/17/96
Page 1
AGENDA ACTION TAKEN
._.1.. Report on strategy for the Downtown - Continued.
'.ouncilman Penna Arrived at the Meeting at 7:07 p.m.
ECESS:
RECALL TO ORDER:
2. Waste Water Treatment Plant Expansion, both in
capital and operations.
program and examination of parking; received a
communication from Economic Development Sys-
tem setting forth a program they have implemented
in other cities; it is a two-part contract amount, the
first part is data gathering and strategy and after
seeing what comes out of that come back seeking
authorization for the second phase for the imple-
mentation is more expensive; and Mr. Beyer will
give a background on this and describe its value.
Coordinator of Economic & Community Develop-
ment Beyer related: staff has done~ work downtown
and focussed on parking and the loan and grant
program for facade improvements and retrofitting of
the URM buildings; they felt it was necessary to
take another step to get some new retail down to add
to the mixture that is there now; the question is how
to entice new retailers to not only look at the area,
but to fill up some of the vacant space and see about
the broader need; the types of uses are limited and
the community could benefit from a broader mix of
retail types; the economic return on the land in the
downtown is very low for most businesses are gen-
erating between $25.00-$50.00 a sq. ft.
Mayor Pro Tem Fernekes recessed the meeting at
7:07 p.m.
Mayor Pro Tem Fernekes recalled the meeting to
order at 7:11 p.m., all Council was present.
City Manager Wilson stated the full scope of im-
provements are in the range of $30 million over the
next 1-5 years and there will be many actions
brought before Council in the next 6-9 months.
Council has been exposed to two or three of them
with the fine bubble defusers and the chlorination
systems. He stated the Director of Public Works
will give a rough order of magnitude numbers for
Bartle & Wells are still working on numbers that
will be passed through the Subcommittee first.
Director of Public Works Gibbs related: at the be-
ginning of the analysis of the Plant the City hired
Corollo Engineers to evaluate the Plant as it is right
now; to consider which type of design alternatives,
improvements that were needed to provide a cost
analysis to retain a consultant for the financing end
of the project, and also to review the plan opera-
tion; Mr. Mike Britton, Corollo Engineers, is the
Project Manager for the Project and is responsible
4/17/96
Page 2
AGENDA
.,,?. Wastewater Treatment Plant - Continued.
4/17/96
Page 3
ACTION TAKEN
for the numbers in the back of the handout that was
given to Council tonight; the front part of the hand-
out is how the loadings from our analyses breakout
percentage-wide amongst the people that share the
plan - San Bruno, Colma and Daly City; the purpose
is tO show where the plant needs to be in the year
2015, and based upon the analysis we are going to
need 11.4 MGD by the year 2015 and that is with
the buildout of East of 101 and includes Colma and
San Bruno's requirements; 8.3 is the maximum
MGD as of January of 1996; from 1993 to the
present we have had some eight major violations
which has caused the IWQCP, Regular Water Quali-
ty Control Board, to put the Plant on their watch
list, in fact are looking to us to get back to them by
the end of this year in October before the rainy
season comes so they can assess what we have done
already to alleviate our problems before they jump
all over us again and maybe issue a cease and desist
order; SSF is the only Plant on the watch list, but
Half Moon Bay had a problem and took care of it;
chemical additions to the vacuators increased the 8.3
to 8.7 and quickened the process, but this is an
expensive way to run a Plant by adding chemicals
and costs us $150,000 a year at this time, but this
cost will go away as we build more capacity into the
Plant; Council just passed the updates to aeration of
Basin 1/7 which is a fine bubble defuser system and
will bring the Plant to 9 MGD by September; most
of the 2.4 required belongs to SSF, etc.
City Manager Wilson stated the Council will see
some of the capacity and costs are going to have
different ratios depending on what they are trying to
accomplish, such as future growth.
Director of Public Services Gibbs stated the 9 MGD
is sufficient to get us to the year 2000 and the City
has spent close to a million dollars to get the 9
MGD. He stated they looked at the year 2008 and
determined they had to get to 10.5 MGD and the
Phase I cost is $22.2 million.
Discussion followed: if the bulk of the growth is
going to be in home development and East of 101
development between now and the year 2000,
where do we pick up the additional needs between
2000 and 2015; East of 101 will not be fully devel-
oped until the year 2015 which is consistent with the
approved plan; Phase I construction costs about $4.2
million for wet weather improvements for the plant
AGENDA ACTION TAKEN
T Wastewater Treatment Plant - Continued.
4/17/96
Page 4
only for wet weather capabilities; when we have a
storm and there is flooding water comes into the
Plant it bypasses the primary, goes to the secondary
is diluted with eh fresh water and then goes into the
creek; there is a limit on how much the Plant can
pump through the outfall; the discharge permit says
that is not allowable, but that has been going on for
a long time; there is a need to provide more pump-
ing capacity; there are several users to the outfall -
the Airport, Millbrae, Burlingame in that outfall and
will have to pay their fair share on the benefit; staff
is in the process of compromising with the Regional
Board on the discharge permit requirements, because
it is not cost effective to provide cold treatment and
then get all of the flow into the outfall and a new
outfall would be $20 million; the improvements to
the Plant come to $9.7 million, which is for the
pumps and there is a listing of improvements and
expansion; built half of the expansion costs in each
Phase; Water Quality likes cities to have an on-
going plan and you are always prepared to expand if
you need to and there has been modest growth in the
East of 101 area; before the Council goes into Phase
II they will have to reevaluate to see if that is still
what you want, because there may be a Phase III;
what would happen if there is another Genentech
coming into town; until after the year 2000 they
would not have capacity; Genentech is generating a
million gallons now; it is possible to do Phase I and
II at the same time and have them on-line for the
year 2000; 90% of the cost will come from industry;
there is a Council policy to expand on our industri-
al/commercial properties and staff must tell Council
what is it going to take in infrastructure to meet the
different types of expansion; the real question being
asked, is the Council willing to look at what staff
recommends on the blue line or should it be in-
creased to 11.4 MGDs now - not tomorrow; the
original plan was to have 11.4 MGDs by the year
2000 and staff looked at it and said maybe we don't
need to spend $30 million, let's look at what the
estimated gross is going to be and see when we need
this money; Councilman Penna feels the bio-science
industry is going to require a lot of infra-
structure, including sewers and the City should have
a better handle of what the bio-science expan-
sion needs are; the study had a forecast of the
square footage needs and staff will share that infor-
mation with Councilman Penna; Genentech is typi-
cally in the wet lab as opposed to the one who just
made the press on imaging which is more like a
'~ Wastewater Treatment Plant - Continued.
4/17/96
Page 5
machine shop; staff's fear was that this became very
economically driven also for there are fundamentally
two ways to fund money - borrow it or pay as you
go; one theory is to pay it off and lay it off on
development fees, on new people who come in and
need capacity must pay their fair share, but if you
borrow money the purchasers have a fixed program
saying they are going to get paid every six months
and there is a principle and interest payment; if you
went out and borrowed $22 million or $32 million,
the debt service is a whole lot, so the City Manager
felt you don't want to spend that capital to create
debt which somebody has to pay for until you have
a need, because certain improvements come in big
chunks; staff would like to recommend that the
design gets started because it should be done and
ready; spiking points so staff doesn't have to wait
until the year 2000; if the Project was all done at
once it would take two years to be at 11.4; the Plant
is laid out to be easily expanded; the second phase
will affect Tillo who is saving the City $300,000 a
year in costs; mulching is becoming a very popular
way of disposing of backyard green waste, and the
more glut is put on the market and the more glut on
the market the more pressure it is going to put on
the Tillo product; the City has to pursue an alterna-
tive to Tillo and determine how long the life of that
product is going to be viable; the other extreme is a
very expensive hauling to the dump, so there needs
to be a third option; etc.
Further discussion ensued: Mr. Mike Britton ex-
plained how the sewers come into the plant; the
need to replace primary clarifiers and add a fourth
one which would take the Plant beyond the 11.4;
Shell had a pipe blow up at one time and there are
contaminates in the area that are being burned at
the Airport; Mayor Pro Tern Fernekes remembers
Shell paying rent to the City when he worked for
Finance; probably a pipeline lease agreement;
probably there was a blowout of a value and the
pipeline leaked contaminating the property with jet
fuel; recommendations from Corollo Engineers;
some areas are shale, while others are solid mud and
will drive up the costs by $5 million if that
land is used; the dewatering process; they will be in-
creasing the pumping capacity; Battle & Wells is
doing a financing analysis; staff will come back to
Council with a recommendation for hookup costs
and the possibility of issuing bonds for this;
there are heavy minerals in the soil and in some
A~ENDA
._2. Wastewater Treatment Plant - Continued
4/17/96
Page 6
ACTION TAKEN
cities these are mined; there are three ratios - 1) for
the cost associated with the wet weather and who is
contributing wetness to this process and how much it
is going to take to correct it, 2) the improvements
are taking what we currently have predicated on
what our current shares are and 3) on the expansion,
who is buying capacity for the future and SSF is
going to have the lions share of that cost; City
Manager' Wilson is going to be coming back to
Council suggesting an interim development fee to be
imposed for connections and there will be discus-
sions on the threshold of scaring people away; etc.
Director of Public Works Gibbs spoke of his orga-
nizational chart for the Treatment Plant; the Plant
right now is a very disenfranchised organization, in
his opinion, there is a very real need for an Assis-
tant Superintendent because there is no real supervi-
sion of the supervisors in all of the categories
shown; Dave is a very, very competent gentleman,
but he takes on too much and the day to day
operations of the Plant are left mostly to his line
supervisors and that causes real problems; in the
next two or three years, according to what he has
been told, Dave will be retiring, so the Assistant
Superintendent in that case will move up to Plant
Superintendent; he is suggesting that the Assis-
tant Superintendent be a sanitary engineer with the
necessary management skills to run a plant with a
$6-7 million budget and get rid of the Operations
Superintendent for he is just an operator who has
stepped up to that position; his recommendation
is to cancel or eliminate the Stop Program Manager
in Storm Water Management and put a Source Con-
trol Inspector/Coordinator in at the Treatment Plant;
this person will be in charge of the source inspec-
tors and in charge of the Stop Program also because
the two are together; as it is now the functions
overlap and San Mateo County will go out and do
these inspections free and that will cut down on the
City's necessary staff; tied into the Source Control
Inspector is the Development Review Coordinator -
this person works under engineering and would tie
in with the Treatment Plant inspections in the plan
review aspect of the job; the rest is how the plant is
running at this time - there is a need for another
chemist; now we have a Senior Technician, Richard
Harmon, and he is suggesting eliminating that posi-
tion and making Richard a Development Review
Coordinator for Engineering which is the proper
name for what he does at this time; etc.
AGENDA ACTION TAKEN
__2,. Wastewater Treatment Plant - Continued.
RECESS:
RECALL TO ORDER:
1. Report on strategy for retail recruitment and
revitalization plan for the Downtown.
4/17/96
Page 7
Discussion followed: Councilman Mullin wants to
see prior organizational charts when one is going to
be changed; staff will show primary duties coming
and going for they will have to be recommending
some compensation for the positions; next step is a
joint meeting with San Bruno; the capacity is related
to dollars and cents and Councilman Yee wants a so-
called cut off point in MGD and say what relates to
expansion of up to 11.4, then the question in San
Bruno is what is their percentage; he feels it should
be on actual capacity used and earmark the MGD,
rather than a first come, first serve and pay accord-
ingly on the expansion; Daly City contracted with
Westborough to treat their sewage.
Mayor Pro Tern Fernekes declared a recess at 8:20
p.m.
Mayor Pro Tern Fernekes recalled the meeting to
order at 8:23 p.m., all Council was present.
Councilman Penna announced he had a conflict of
interest on the item, would not participate and
stepped down from the podium and did not return to
the meeting.
Coordinator of Economic & Community Develop-
ment Beyer related: the plans are to develop a data
base on the downtown area and provide data for
recruitment of business and that data can be used
and is a benefit to get the kind of retailers in we
want. The next phase is the retail recruitment where
the consultant will go out and talk to retailers and
start nurturing the process to get them into SSF. He
stated these would be in concert with the downtown
merchants, homeowners, tenants, Chamber of Com-
merce, the City and any brokers and property own-
ers to cover that area.
Councilman Yee stated SSF is not going to get those
major tenants, even like Starbuck's, they are not
coming to Grand Avenue. He questioned, do we
really have those kinds of open spaces in the down-
town and are we really going to be successful in
getting firms that are on this list. We have to do
whatever the market dictates, we have a lot of Mexi-
can restaurants - it's that kind of atmosphere and he
is not sure that if you spend thousands of dollars --
there is no guaranty things are going to change and
they get paid regardless - just like attorneys.
AGENDA ACTION TAKEN
__L Report on strategy - Continued.
4/17/96
Page 8
Coordinator of Economic & Community Develop-
ment Beyer stated the consultant is being paid to
provide a service to bring a retailer to an owner or
broker to make the deal so that is part of the ser-
vice. Right now there are 14 vacancies downtown
and we are going to get two more taquerias and
another Chinese restaurant. There is a neighbor-
hood service that those types of facilities serve in
terms of Old Town and the immediate area, but if
you look at the broader area there are three or four
or five mile radius of the downtown where down-
town is not serving a population of maybe 300,000
people in that radius and if it is going to provide
additional services it needs to provide a broader
mix. Staff realizes we are not going to create an-
other Burlingame or Pasadena, but to look at what is
here now and in some cases it might mean we only
start the process of upgrading the kind of retail we
have now; and when the leaser is up then you start
this by bringing these people together.
Councilman Yee stated he knows the downtown and
there have been a lot of changes and if we are going
to spend this money for people out of town -- he
wonders if the City is going to get anything out of
it.
City Manager Wilson stated he sees a transition and
it is not for the best, more and more we are getting
yet another Chinese or Mexican restaurant, and yet
another little food market - a continuum of what we
have got. So, the thought was, and it is a bit of risk
taking, whatever we are doing now doesn't seem to
be helping as far as attracting a new client and there
are concerns on what we are going to bring in here.
Staff has this theory that So. City is always going to
be So. City and will not look like the south, at best
it may look like something from S.F. If we can
create that clean environment for the market place,
by providing parking, maybe we can attract an
anchor business or even a funky little store that has
its own business to turn the corner. If you follow
what these people did - they are on a short track of
time and if successful their contract is renewed.
He stated, we are trying to do something, we are
trying a quick start and create a surcharge and if we
can get one or two new types moving maybe that is
what we need. We are bringing in ArtRise, a differ-
ent concept, putting in big bucks to get physical
property - there is going to be some money lost even
__1.. Report on strategy - Continued.
4/17/96
Page 9
in upgrading the buildings, so it is a risk taking, but
we hope for the amount of time we may get a profit.
Director of Economic & Community Devdopment
Van Dyun related: he had met with the Chamber of
Commerce on efforts by Genentech days and the
dollars given employees to spend downtown for
there is not much to motivate them to come down-
town other than restaurants; he did not envision
people coming from businesses East of 101 and
going to the downtown; things that would make a
difference in the downtown are a decent bookstore,
a good coffee shop, maybe a couple of different
varieties of restaurants and they would like to see an
expansion of titles and tapes at the Libraries; we can
avoid the competition starting across the freeway by
having the bookstore and coffee shop and other uses
coming into the downtown; the Chamber is not
concerned if the new ventures are not successful,
because then they will know why they are not sue-
cessful and make solid judgments from there.
Councilman Yee stated no one would oppose any
good business coming into the downtown. It is easy
for the Chamber to say, sure do the study, but they
are not paying $40,000 for it. So, his question is
are we going to get anything back after we spend the
$40,000. The other problem is that we don't own
these properties and we are at the mercy of the
landlord, whoever that is, so you may get a
Starbuck's in that can't go with the conditions of the
landlord - which is another factor that we have no
control over.
Director of Economic & Community Development
VanDyne related: the consultant crunches the num-
bers, they put together comparison dollars as to
what the tenant is paying in that particular building
now, what the lease terms are, what the return is on
the investment the property owner is getting now;
pretty much does a performa on the history of the
site; if we bring in this user and we can show you
that we can bring a five year lease in under these
terms with this kind of revenue - does this look like
a deal you could live with; it's not going to take
much in the way of a more aggressive user, one
level up user, to make a big difference in what the
margins are that some of our property owners are
drawing down on leases; we have been asked if
there interest from Bronstein's to sell records and
tapes, because there is a market for those and they
AGENDA ACTION TAKEN
1. Report on strategy - Continued
draw clientele from all over the Bay Area; they said
no, they know what their business is, but that tells
the consultant that a companion use to Bronstein's
could open a music and tape outlet - it might work
even if it is a mom and pop operation if there is a
demand; these are Redevelopment Agency funds that
are intended to be reinvested in encouraging devel-
opment in the downtown.
Discussion followed: Councilman Mullin was at
Starbuck's and Noah's Saturday night on Clement
Street and that is like Grand Avenue, and he be-
lieves there is a market for those two businesses in
SSF; he is also distressed by the slide, all Council
is, and does not believe it is getting better; he has
never heard of putting a Starbuck's and a Target
together.
M/S Yee/Mullin - To adjourn the meeting.
Carried by unanimous voice vote.
ADJOURNMENT:
Time of adjournment was 8:45 p.m.
ESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, APPROVED.
Barbara A. Battaya, City~ ~, Jack Drago, Mayor7 '
City of South San Francisco // // City of South San Francisco
Time of adjournment was 8:47 p.m. Ihe en l L the City Council to/}
dispose of an item. Oral communications, arguments and comments are recorded on tape. jThe tape and documents
related to the items are on file in the Office of the City Clerk and are available for inspectiOn, review and copying.
4/17/96
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