Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 1997-04-30 Mayor Joseph A. Feruekes Council: James L. Datzman Eugene R. Mullin · qohn R. Penna Robert Yee MINUTES City Council 338 Municipal Services Building Community Room April 30, 1997 AGENDA ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETINO CALL TO ORDER: (Cassette No. 1) ROLL CALL: 1. EMS and a second ambulance. ACTIQN TAKEN ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING 5:35 p.m. Mayor Fernekes presiding. Council Present: Council Absent: Datzman, Mullin, Yee and Fernekes. Penna. City Manager Wilson related: we are aware that the entire County is seeking to upgrade emergency medical service in the County; this will save money through deployment of ambulances and the money saved is pumped back into the agencies; the Fire Chief and the Mayor have been involved and are the north County representatives on the Committee; Fitch & Assoc., who designed the EMS Model Analysis, will be coming to meet with us and de- scribe the value of the program. Fire Chief Stark showed slides with a map overlay of areas covered by the Fire Department in four minutes. He related: the private provider ambu- lance saves money if we provide the service, but our City is unique and does not expect change other than to upgrade our service; the County runs ambulances and in each ambulance they have two paramedics with response requirements under the agreement and there are pockets of the County that are not well served, and others quite well; if the County said they wanted a more uniform response time, we don't want the dead pockets that take a different deploy- ment of ambulances and they can save money in the sense of only having one paramedic; he thinks they can still have a different deployment of ambulances and still meet the requirements for the obligation in care of the patient is with the first to respond, and we will be the party that assures that emergency care service; he wanted to stress that this is for the balance of the County, we will be a party, but we will charge our costs, but not the County's; he des- 4/30/97 Page 1 EMS and a second ambulance. 4/30/97 Page 2 _ACIIQN TAKEN 339 cribed the multi-use plan in the City done in 1993 after looking at the work demand and our present capability, as a result we focused our resources into medical emergency services and there have been upgrades; we introduced perarrival of medical instructions to callers, defibulators on all of the fire cars, and increased paramedics by 15% without added staffing, added two ALS into the system, contracted out the bill and increased our revenue by 30%; we just recently placed the second ambulance in service; areas covered and response time from the MSB is four minutes for one ambulance; CPR and the onset of brain damage that makes the response time so critical; that paramedics were placed down- town at Baden to increase the four minute response time; Cypress has a heavy 12% ease load; paramed- ics were placed at Station 64 to get their res- ponse time down to four minutes; clock time starts when the call comes in; from the time of the call we can cover all of the City in six minutes, however, the goal is four minutes from moment of dispatch; there were two ALS engines and one ambulance; they added a second ambulance two months ago; we delayed the ALS because we relied on Baystar and paid a high bill; second ambulance reduces Baystar by 75%, for Baystar covers us, but is slower; Baystar's average price is $900, while our paramed- ics charge $565 + disposable costs; looking for opportunities for the future for paramedic scope of practice to preventative medicine in blood tests and inoculations; we can improve the level of County service, for our fire engines get to the scene quicker with our paramedics, who can stabilize patients until the ambulance arrives and the Fire Dept. would be reimbursed for our costs; Baystar only has two paramedics. Discussion followed: our service levels have always been higher than elsewhere, and the benefit of our having two ambulances results in lower costs to the patients; the second ambulance is to expand our service and if we can blend both programs, then we will get the patient within 3 - 3 1/2 minutes; we are a 201, for we started the paramedic program and we are grandfathered in and the only city able to transport in the County, while the Supreme Court seems to be siding with the County that cities cannot transport; there are court challenges to continue grandfathering in 201 rights are awaiting Supreme Court decisions; San Jose can provide the services cheaper, but went private; some cities like Atherton AGENDA 1. EMS and a second ambulance. ECESS: RECALL TO ORDER: 4/30/97 Page 3 _ACI!Q_N - 340' are hard for Baystar to service in the County's time frame; the RFP for County ambulance will be re- leased in June and the JPA is in draft form and will come in June; establishment of Board; the JPA is non-binding unless we sign off; the Mayor, City Manager and the Fire Chief have not met with Fitch; there are zones in Brisbane that could contract with us and we can get the value in cash or upgrad- ing, maybe all of our engines to ALS; there are 18 paramedics for our City, but they are used for ambulances, so the other people will need more; with the County plan every engine would have a paramedic; ALS means a paramedic is on the fire engine; an ambulance call costs $500, but an engine with ALS is free; although we have two ambulances they can respond to a fire initially; we have 2,000 medical responses a year and transport 1,200 a month with a 1/3 to Kaiser, Seton and others; the trauma centers are at S.F. General and Stanford, so if we transport ambulances out to trauma centers they are out of commission longer; there are three engines in each area for coverage in the north area and have a standard mutual aid agreement and this would have the same boundaries and coverage; etc. Mayor Fernekes called a recess at 6:35 p.m. Mayor Fernekes recalled the meeting to order at 7:03 p.m. Planning Commissioners Present: Baldocchi, Barnett, Masuda, Padreddii, Sim, Teglia and Romero. Planning Commissioners Absent: None Director of Economic & Community Development Van Duyn introduced new Chief Planner Jim Harnish. Chief Planner Harnish stated he has been a consul- tant for the City working on the general plan and previously worked with Mr. Van Duyn in the past, and was delighted to again work with him, as well as live and work here. He related: the purpose of the meeting is to introduce the general plan project and allow the Planning Commission to give their thoughts on the issues to be addressed to the Council; this is a great opportunity to take a step back and look where you A~ENDA A joint meeting with the Planning Commission on the General Plan - Continued. ~'0~ c] ACT!QN TAKEN ,.. 341 are going in the next several years; in his experience the process will take eight months to determine what is important to you and the community; it can be difficult at times, but this is a cohesive community and he looked forward to the work. Mr. Rajeev Bhatia, owner of Dyett & Bhatia, stated the purpose of the meeting is actually for his firm to listen to what the two bodies have to say and gave everyone a handout with an agenda and overall schedule. He related: State law allows us to have optional dements as long as the General Plan in- eludes all mandatory items; it does not have a safety element; the Council will step back and decide where you want to be in twenty years and decide the overall strengths of the City and steps to be taken; the General Plan will be important and State law requires a series of requirements on zoning, capital improvements and acquisitions that are all required to be consistent with the General Plan; the General Plan will be comprehensive with the entire City; after the meeting he will meet with the Councilmembers to listen to each of their issues that are important in their minds; then there will be a couple of meetings with individual Planning Com- missioners to get into more detail; based on the recollections and the issues assembled the first major report will be made; after that analysis we will be prepared to be more focused on land alternatives and will come back with that based on the evaluations from the two bodies and the public for a preferred land use and provide the basis to prepare the draft EIR; after the hearing we will be getting to the General Plan and the on-going schedule is in the handout; it is a two and a half year plan; they have only started mapping and then they can tabulate actual land uses to show how much land is vacant, and how much is commercial to provide a good basis and his firm will be documenting reports exist- ing in the City; this will be overlaid in the comput- ers to summarize the conditions and will look ahead to the issues and planning impacts. Discussion followed: what have been the trends in the geological service; is information assembled in auto cad information systems; information is in the computer and is not changed by hand; information can be put on the web; the firm has a web site that can be accessed, do error tabulations and buffer analysis within a thousand feet of 101; why is the consultant meeting with individual Council before 4/30/97 Page 4 AQENDA ACI!QN TAK~ 2. A joint meeting with the Planning Commission on the General Plan - Continued. 342 developing the document or are you looking for us to provide additional information; the consultant is not looking to the Council for actual information, for they will provide that themselves, it will be wide topics, so the purpose of these meetings is to find out from each of you if there is an overriding con- cern in the City that is felt to be a priority; so the consultant will have a check list that will be the basis for our conversations; the intent for the con- versations is to help focus the plan; there is a huge amount of information, which after being gathered, will be focused on, so give the consultants your concerns on what is important, not just for this but, the subsequent alternatives and ideas; the consultant will come back to Council on issues, but will not be formulating any policies; when Council- man Mullin gives his students a test, he first lets them know the scope of what is going to be cow ered; Councilman Yee asked where the slide or picture is that shows the different elements of the General Plan, for they are mandatory; wouldn't it be logical tonight to take the list and go over it and get the comments from the Commission and Council, so we don't go all over the place and not know at the end where we are; the consultant will be evaluating the cost of the alternatives, and they want to under- stand the fiscal impacts and will be meeting periodi- cally with various department heads and have news letters going out and postings to the web site; there will be a time for the public hearings for input from the public; they will be looking at history of land uses and the implications in terms of revenue gener- ation; the potential for expansion and its impact on the City and its business licenses; once he has an assessment he will be doing a real estate analysis of the marketing segments and potential for growth; he will look at all of the industrial development and it is dominated right now by freight forwarding on which they will be making an individual assessment; they will look at R&D and biotech businesses, for that is the greatest potential for growth for the City, and they will look at enhancements to attract those types of businesses, as well as hotels; the service sales are of tremendous value and he will look for more; they are looking to capturing each of the land uses over a 10-15 year horizon and once we have the alternatives he will capture the benefits of the land use to the City and compare the revenue; the last piece of the study will be helping put together the economic policies that will enhance opportunities for economic growth in the City; S.S.F. is one of 4/30/97 Page 5 AGENDA 2. A joint meeting with the Planning Commission on the General Plan - Continued. _ACI!QN TAKEN the most competitive in the regional area over the County to attract what we are looking for; etc. City Manager Wilson asked if Mr. Bhatia was going to be factoring in improvements of transportation we may want to consider or a strategy to identify the needs. Discussion followed: yes, he would be and he was glad it was a group effort; there may be more im- pacts from the Airport, more than the tourists and the freight forwarding; there is the whole issue of BART and the rail; the firm will be looking at the transportation alternatives and comparing the trip generation; Brisbane and San Bruno should also be looked at; there is a 25 page package covering the work program; this has opened a lot of interesting avenues and approaches which should be addressed, rather than ad hoeing as the Council goes along; is this for the whole City or only East of 101; it ap- plies to the whole City; etc. The following opinions were voiced: Councilman Penna wants higher density for the downtown, 40-50 units to the acre from Spruce to Airport, Railroad to Hillside and then diminishing as it goes to Orange to Chestnut using those buffers to try to accommodate the higher type skilled jobs that will be occurring here, so the people can live and work here; this would also spur redevelopment for the decaying areas of the downtown and rejuvenate the commer- cial areas; it makes sense to him, the phasing out of freight forwarding at least on the east of 101 area and possibly seeing some of it on the south west side between So. Spruce and Airport and 101 and he wants the incorporation of the Country Club area into S.S.F.; Vice Mayor Mullin wants the El Camino Corridor and the chance to accommodate BART; he thinks we need to get a broader look at those areas of the City; Mayor Fernekes concurs with that and looks at the industrial park with no fast freight forwarding; he thinks the City needs a mix of all types of business, but has some concerns about the large number that will come from the en- largement of the Airport and the freight coming in, but you have to look at the economic aspect of bringing in business that has a lot of impact, where the fast freight forwarding doesn't; he believes the only revenue generated is the business licenses compared to the other businesses that bring revenue without impact to the area; Councilman Yee stated, 4/30/97 Page 6 2. A joint meeting with the Planning Commission on the General Plan - Continued. 344 to a certain extent it makes sense, but if you in- crease the density to 40 in the downtown you are going to lose a certain amount of quality of life, and he does not believe that is the direction; we need to take a look at how the Airport expansion relates to us in terms of residential or commer- cial or industrial land use; we know the Airport is going to be the generator and the BART is going through; rather than just look at freight forward- ing, we have to look at the Airport - what are needs, what are the types of people that will use the Airport, how can we take advantage and balance our economic needs, and also to those commuting; we have to look at it, balance it rather than take the definitive line; clearly the opportunity is here and he thinks this particular exercise is good for us; Coun- cilman Datzman stated he likewise has concerns about the Airport expansion, what that means, and he does not know the use of air freight to translate to a benefit; he does not know, when you talk about the whole economic development, because some- times things happen to a community; he is con- cerned about the water front area and how that is development, because he thinks it is a real plus and unique, and when it is gone it is gone; he is very interested in recapturing what might move it in the right direction and watched a tape on what some other communities did with outdoor restaurants; he wants to look at a doming complex concept; Com- missioner Barnett agreed on the impacts of the Air- port expansion on the community which will bring in more passengers, but does not see the freight forwarders increasing revenue; he thinks the downtown renovation is huge and he would like to see it happen and see the stores full; he was im- pressed on the walk-through with the train station on Baden as an entrance to the City; he would like to see S.S.F. get a little more vibrant and thinks east of 101 is a discussion worthy of merit; we need to see it growing; he is impressed with the Genentech area and the whole campus idea, rather than a bunch of hard core businesses; Commissioner Sim has similar concerns as those voiced by Councilmembers; he is excited with the urban design element he saw in the outline; the El Camino Corridor and So. Airport he would like to see as a sensitive design and one piece to tie it to the rest of the community; a project that is commercial on the first floor, residential above, and parking behind, for you don't want to see parking; he thinks lthe Airport parking; he thinks the Airport expansion is ex- 4/30/97 Page 7 AGENDA AC!!QN TAKEN 2._... A joint meeting with the Planning Commission on the General Plan - Continued. citing, but wants more of the urbane design; Com- missioner Padreddii wants to look at Country Club Park area because the time will come when the County will want us to take it over; the other is the Hillside boundary where half of the kids go to schools in Brisbane and people think they are going to S.S.F. schools, and they are not, which he thinks should be looked at; if you want to promote business you have to be careful when you use the word shall, which has no compromise, whereas if you say may, then you give us leeway; Chairman Romero stated he feels the entire area of El Camino, between Mis- sion Road and Chestnut to Hickey, is going to be booming and it is important to have a plan; the area east of 101 traffic is going to be busy with freight traffic and we should have controls to allow those to come into the City and we have to be flexible to open up other areas; Commissioner Baldocchi stated in the field trip east of 101 there was a lot of ears parked everywhere and she would like to have park- ing enforced and transportation to the Caltrain Sta- tion and bringing them into the east of 101 area; she feels open space is being compromised and there is not much land for housing development; she wants to see standard streets and sidewalks in the devel- opments where people are walking in the community and it is a safe community; you are safe Mr. Execu- tive and you can raise your children and they will want to stay here; we have to work on the schools for new boundaries, for we are going to be devel- oping all of these houses; Commissioner Masuda stated his problem is east of 101 and air freight; Grand Avenue does not have a shoe store or a clothing store, and yet the air freight keeps coming in and the businesses are trying to claim this city was made from air freight business; Commissioner Teglia spoke of the economic focus on the east of 101 and the land uses and understood the comments on freight forwarding and its impact; Genentech has been a great corporate neighbor which is a great plus, but even that type of use doesn't generate a lot of revenue - they are low tax generators; part of the problem downtown is supply and demand and it is being filled; he thinks to stimulate a lot of redev- elopment in the old town we have to adopt ordinanc- es that will encourage people to renovate existent, non-conforming buildings rather than just sit, because they cannot do improvements; the high tech people are looking at a quality of life that a high density in the downtown will not attract, instead it will be a number of apartments, so the mix and the 4/30/97 Page 8 A~ENDA A~TION TAKEN 2. A joint meeting with the Planning Commission on the General Plan - Continued. 346 . parking impacts are important; on the east of 101, he thinks the waterfront is a jewel and the Shearwater is the gateway, is the largest piece and with the waterfront, there have been beautiful proposals in the past; he would hate to see us settle below our expectations and that is important; he is really curious at what the Airport projections are, and he understands they are discussing freight which he thinks they are trying to divert to Oakland and there will be more international passengers; etc. Further discussion followed: Vice Mayor Mullin felt the focus is phasing out of freight forwarders; Councilman Penna stated if a higher density took place in the downtown, this should become a kind of transportation to take people to the opposite end of town to keep people here; his concern is that BART will have a major impact in the community because of the commuters down the peninsula using the fa- cility and the impact of traffic on the street for we need shuttles from the east side to go to the indus- trial park and the station; if we lose Caltrain we are going to have more impact from the people coming up from the peninsula; he always gets complaints on Samtrans and buses and its disjointed; his daughter takes a bus from San Mateo to S.S.F. every day and that is a direct route; ridership is a focus of where they come from and how long is the service and the size of the bus; transportation is going to be an important ingredient; Councilman Yee stated there are a number of items in transportation, for there was a public hearing notice that Caltrain is going to go to the Transbay Terminal; the only thing holding it up is not finding the money; tie it to the Giants ball park; we could focus on our own City on transportation, for we started looking at it on the east of 101 and how it could be done; there are a couple of elements that are important, for it seems to him that when a developer comes into the City we need to make a point that they have to partici- pate in the transportation element; how can they be finely or morally obligated to be part of the system; we have TSM and we need to make it work; TSM is to get people out of their cars and vanpool or use different means of getting out of the car; we have to make an effort to get the people to participate; we have a San Mateo County Transpor- tation Plan that projects highway traffic and we need alternative routes, like getting to the Airport without using 101; we have to look at the bigger picture and how we can move people in the City 4/30/97 Page 9 AGENDA ACT!QN TAKEN 2. A joint meeting with the Planning Commission on the General Plan - Continued. 347 without waiting for other people to force us to do it; Redwood City has a task force trying to figure out a way; Commissioner Padreddii stated the problem he sees with transportation is Oyster Point, for all the traffic comes down and comes to the inter- section and then crosses over the freeway to go south and you also have all the cars from the Cow Palace that go left to the overpass to go south; every one from the downtown has to come down Airport and then go south; now with the Shearwater this is a serious problem and they should never have closed the on ramp at Linden, for people say Caltrans says it is illegal; Councilman Yee stated this is not a typical interchange, and staff went through a lot of alternatives, but the hook ramp is really the one north of Brisbane and there will be a flyover for the Shearwater; the Linden on-ramp is substandard in Caltrans eyes; Commissioner Masuda stated, if you watch the tandem bus going west on Grand Avenue there are only four people on it, so if it is not profit- able it should be taken out by Samtrans because it is long and wide; Commissioner Teglia works in the industrial area and people without cars complain about the lack of busing and others use their cars for convenience; there was a survey of transportation needs distributed out there and people didn't fill it out; perhaps a shuttle service is the answer and maybe we should encourage the businesses to make the connection; Genentech has a shuttle that goes to the train station and the BART station, and if there is that great a demand maybe we could have free tickets for rides home; Councilman Datzman stated people are upset in Country Club from the traffic going through and gridlock; he is excited about something being done in the downtown, and the third issue is water transportation; the consul- tant talked about the light rail being extended to United Airlines area and there is a study where it is to be Route A or B, what we can do is have light rail extended to some point along Airport and have a plan; who would pay for a road behind the Sewage Treatment Plant, a road coming out on Littlefield and going right into Genentech; coming in behind the street borders on Haskins property; the City would pay for it after a lot of statistics; that would go into the BCDC, you would be in the water; the Fingers property is out there; Mayor Fernekes just read in the paper about a developer looking at Sign Hill; he has concerns about going into open space; we have purchased land from the high schools and we should protect open space; ultimately that will 4/30/97 Page 10 A~ENDA AC_TIQN TAKEN -, 34? 2._.. A joint meeting with the Planning Commission on the General Plan - Continued. come before Council and the open space will be discussed, then we could have a plan that shows all the trails for bikes and walking from Point A to B and there will be a so-called trail over BART, and we need a plan to develop, including the plan that we tried to get for the abandoned railroad between Genentech; all of these plans should be on the plan that we can accept and say this is how we see the park trail, including the bay front; Commissioner Baldocchi believes we need to preserve open space and is happy to see people riding bikes out at Shearwater and would like to see that preserved, but develop part of it; 100' of Shearwater is preserved and controlled by BCDC; there should be a strip of grass or a trail behind the Kaiser property along the canal; whether Council should get input from the Parks & Recreation Commission on how they see the trails; look at ferry service on the waterfront areas; Councilman Yee stated former Councilman Nicolopulos pushed for waterfront ferry service, but it is supply and demand; there is a channel there that can be dredged and boats placed there; conservation is what gives the natural beauty and the City could be planting trees on the southern side of Sign Hill; Councilman Yee feels the noise element should encompass the aircraft noise, right now the aircraft noise is within the 65 CNEL; perhaps the City can use left over funds to insulate homes in that area; Commissioner Masuda stated their field trip took them to Camaritas, which is not included in the footprint, and you could not hear anything for the airplane noise; aircraft noise at specified intervals is different than having it every four minutes; there should be a strategy to deal with single event noise; Commissioner Teglia feels it is a regional focus because a lot of that has to do with the flight paths and the Roundtable which could affect us with other cities having flight patterns changed; that is not allowed; Commissioner Padreddii stated the Airport has certain regulations on coming up the gap, only 11% should come up the gap; he feels the key problem is extending the runway, so they could go over the cities higher, but they don't throttle back down; there are standards a pilot must follow on noise abatement, but it is left to the pilots discretion; Woodside and Atherton are complaining about planes flying over at 4:00 a.m.; the consultant is not doing a comprehensive revision of the housing element; Councilman Datzman is concerned about preserving quality of life issues where you wake up one morning and find there is no longer a grocery 4/30/97 Page 11 AGENDA ACTION TA ~I~ 2. A joint meeting with the Planning Commission on the General Plan - Continued. ADJOURNMENT: Closed Session, pursuant to GC 54956.9, conference with legal Counsel on existing litigation - S.S.F. vs. Harding Lawson Assoc., et al. ECALL TO ORDER: ADJOURNMENT: store in your neighborhood or there is no school or there is no longer a school; the Council has to peti- tion the School District, through the Liaison Com- mittee, to have the boundaries changed to include Terrabay; they are closing the Westborough and the Chestnut grocery stores; old town has no grocery store; Safeway wants grand super markets with bakeries, a florist and a drugstore and that much land is not available; City Manager Wilson stated, this is a critical issue, for now we have open space, yet there are fundamental needs perhaps greater than open space; etc. M/S Padreddii/Barnett - To adjourn the Planning Commission meeting. Carried by unanimous voice vote. Time of the Planning Commission meeting adjourn- ment was 9:00 p.m. Council entered a Closed Session at 9:01 p.m. Mayor Fernekes recalled the meeting to order at 9:29 p.m., all Council was present, no action was taken and direction was given. M/S Mullin/Yee - To adjourn the meeting. Carried by unanimous voice vote. Time of adjournment was 9:30 p.m. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Barbara A. Battaya, City Clerk City of South San Francisco APPROVED. Jos rnekes, Mayo~ Cit~f ~;u~r~eakn~ Francisco ._..~e entries of this Council meeting show the action taken by the City Council to dispose of an item. Oral communiea- ~ns, arguments and comments are recorded on tape. The tape and documents related to the items are on file in the f-rice of the City Clerk and are available for inspection, review and copying 4/30/97 Page 12