Drivers advised to take other routes between 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.

The Piedmont Public Works Department will be conducting sewer work on Moraga Avenue between Highland Avenue and the eastern city limit on Wednesday, October 8th from 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. There will be one way traffic control, which will cause delays in the area. Please use alternate routes.

Contact the Public Works Department at (510) 420-3050 with questions.

At 5:30 p.m. on Monday, October 6, 2014, the City Council will interview in a public meeting applicants for the now permanent Budget Advisory and Financial Planning Committee.  The meeting will be held in the City Hall Conference Room directly opposite the City Hall Council Chambers.

Per City practices, applicant names are not disseminated except when a Public Records Act request is made.  There will be no recording or broadcasts of the meeting.  To be informed, those interested in the appointments to this important City Council advisory body will need to be present during the interview process.

Agenda.

– Piedmont will continue to meet EPA sewer requirements by borrowing from existing City funds and the California State Water Resources Control Board. – 

On Monday, October 6, 2014, the City Council has on their agenda a plan to resume work on Piedmont’s Sanitary Sewer System.

Controversy has surrounded the Sewer Fund in recent years. When incorrect information developed by the City and falsification of requirements of the EPA was revealed, the Sewer Tax was defeated  by voters in 2011.

Further information dismayed some residents when it was learned that Sewer Fund money is used to pay for purposes unrelated to the sewers, including street sweeping even during dry weather.  The City has justified the use of the Sewer Fund as vital to keeping the storm water drains clear.

In May of 2014, the City Council had proposed a ballot measure requiring voter approval of a Real Property Transfer Surcharge Tax for sewer replacement.  However, on June 24, 2014, Alameda County reported an “historic and unanticipated” increase in Piedmont’s Real Property Transfer Tax, making the surcharge unnecessary.  City Administrator Paul Benoit advised the Council to abandon the surcharge in favor of borrowing from the City’s funds.

In June 2014, the positive position of the General Fund with an unaudited ending fund balance of $4,498,390 amounting to reserves of 20.9% of expenditures allowed for an additional $819,000 to be transferred to each of the Facilities Maintenance Fund and Equipment Replacement Fund.

Significant improvement in Piedmont’s financial condition has been attributed to prudent use of City revenues, large increase in Real Property Transfer Tax proceeds, and employee contributions to their retirement benefits.

 The much belabored sewer renovation program will resume.  Internal and external loans will provide the additional funds by borrowing $600,000 from the Facilities Maintenance Fund ($2,111,246) and $200,000 from the Equipment Replacement Fund ($2,861,650) for a total of $800,000.  The City will continue the practice of utilizing loans from the State Water Resources Control Board to augment funding.

The City Council is being asked to approve loans from the City’s funds with the following conditions:

 – Simple interest rate based on the Local Agency Investment Fund (LAIF) rate, not to exceed 1.0%.

– Interest only payments during the replacement of the sewer system. Principal and interest payments would begin approximately FY 2027-28, when Phase VII loan payments begin. Under this schedule the loan is to be retired by FY 2034-35. Council can authorize the loan to be repaid sooner, assuming the Sewer Fund has sufficient funding.

  Read the full staff report.

Specific sewer mains will be replaced.

The second part of moving ahead with sewer work involves the design and implementation of the work.  Previously, the Council adopted a Risk Management Policy to assure that contracted work does not create conflicts of interest between designers, engineers, construction contractors, and project managers.  The contract on the Council agenda has been drafted with that intention. The sewer engineers (Coastland Engineers) appear to be sole sourced.

When the City renovates the sewer mains in an area, property owners are required to replace any faulty laterals (the pipes going from their property to the sewer main.)  The laterals cost thousands based on length and piping complexity.

To see if your property is in the Phase V project click here to view the map.

This Phase V project will encompass work in Sub-Basins W2, W3, G1, H1, H1A and previously identified high-priority pipes throughout the City for a total of approximately 33,000 lineal feet of sanitary sewer pipe replacement.

The agenda item is:  Consideration of the Preparation of 35% Design Documents for the Phase V Sanitary Sewer Project and Authorization to Apply for a State Fund Revolving Fund Loan for the Project  < Staff report

The Council meeting will be held in City Hall, recorded, broadcast and open to the public.  This item is on the 7:30 p.m. agenda.

On October 6 the City Council will consider transferring funds into the Sewer Fund to move forward with completing the mainline sewer rehabilitation. This is a significant first in Piedmont, to have funds transferred into the Sewer Fund rather than taken out. The Sewer Fund has essentially operated as a City slush fund.

In 2011, City Hall asked for an additional $11 Million dollars from taxpayers which would have added an additional 50% tax burden on top of an already expensive sewer tax. That 2011 tax failed, and earlier this year staff estimated only $1 Million was needed to complete the previously stated $11M compliance and construction work.

Piedmont has always maintained compliance with all EPA and Water Resources Quality Board legal requirements. A fair question is why $11 Million was needed 3 years ago, and is now down to $1M? Fortuitously, a real estate transfer tax windfall of an additional $1M, and other cost cuts, means no additional taxpayer money is needed to complete the mainline sewer system. Most of the Council also recognized when rescinding Mr. Wieler’s transfer tax plan earlier this year that taxpayers want more accountability of where their tax dollars will go, and an efficient use of their funds.

During the very troubled Piedmont Hill Underground Utility District debacle, with taxpayers paying in excess of two million dollars for private benefit, the Crest Road utility trench collapsed on Oct. 13 2009. The trench would not have existed but for the private benefit undergrounding project. Staff recommended on Nov. 16 2009 that $296,000 be taken from the Sewer Fund for repairs; the sewer fund is a publicly funded source. Council agreed. Staff stated a month after the collapse that installation of trench dams was the necessary repair. On Oct. 14 2009, the City Engineer directed that the trench be filled with low-pressure concrete; by Nov. 16 this was largely completed. The installation of the trench dams, standard construction practice on a steep slope and missing in the original construction, would have required that hundreds of cubic yards of the freshly poured cement be excavated. No trench dams were ever installed and the $296,000 was paid by general tax revenue and not taken from the private undergrounding district’s contingency funds.

Perhaps just a coincidence, but at the time the 2011 sewer tax failed the Blair Park project was pulled. The actual expenses for that project were never fully disclosed and I question how the sewer fund would have been further used had the additional tax passed. I speculate that the overflowing sewer fund may have been a source of funding for the new 25 home sewer line and 24 inch EBMUD transmission line relocation.

The current temporary transfer into the Sewer Fund makes sense; it is essentially a near zero interest loan. Hopefully, when the sewer rehabilitation is completed, the same spirit as now prevails in City Hall will remain and the sewer tax enacted in 2000 will be eliminated. Other prudent accounting practices have recently been undertaken with a closer look at the $900,000 automatically appropriated annually from the Sewer Fund and moved into the General Fund.

Moving ahead now with Phase V of the sewer rehabilitation is smart. Finally under Mayor Fujioka’s forward looking leadership and coupled with the transparent professionalism of City Administrator Benoit, we are taking financially prudent proactive measures.

Rich Schiller, Piedmont Resident

Editors’ Note: The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.

Following final City approval years ago, residents watched the PG&E building deteriorate while awaiting the new townhouse project.

Soon there will be a group of townhouses below the Oakland Avenue bridge. In preparation for construction of the Piedmont Station townhouse complex, the 5,688-square-foot concrete former PG&E substation is being demolished.  The triangular .4 acre site abuts the Oakland Avenue bridge over Linda Avenue.

The seven townhouses designed by Jarvis Architects consist of four units fronting on Linda Avenue, one at the corner of Linda Avenue and the Oakland Avenue bridge, and two facing the bridge.  Three of the units have views of the bridge support structure and roadbed.  The four-story (including basement level two-car garage) attached dwellings have four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms.  One gated and roofed driveway from Linda Avenue will provide access to the seven garages plus one guest parking space for the project. By providing two covered parking spaces for each unit, LSA indicates the parking requirement in the City Code has been satisfied.  (See also “Traffic Analysis: Piedmont Station Townhomes” prepared for the City of Piedmont by DKS Associates of Oakland.)

Jarvis Architects designed the units with cross ventilation in deference to green building goals in California.  However, the Piedmont Planning Commission required the addition of air conditioning in all the units.

Read earlier PCA article about the project and the 2010 CEQA study.

2013 Harvest Festival scarecrows

Piedmont’s Harvest Festival returns on the last Sunday of September. The festival was founded 16 years ago by enthusiastic gardeners Susan Hill and the late Bill Drum to showcase and encourage the produce from neighborhood gardens. The festival includes: food vendors, jazz, growing and cooking contests, scarecrows, Farmers’ Market, carnival, art show in the Tea House, disaster preparedness fair, fix-it clinic, as well as local foods and lemonade.

“Unlike earlier festivals, this event will run until 4 p.m. to accommodate the food/artist vendors, but many other festival activities will terminate at 3 p.m.”

For additional information go to  http://piedmontharvestfestival.org/

On Sept. 15, 2014 the Piedmont City Council voted to consider adopting secondhand smoke protections in outdoor public spaces and in common areas of multiunit housing. This was great news to me since I have had asthma for much of my adult life, caused by being exposed to heavy smoking during my childhood. I now take daily medication to control my asthma, but I remain highly allergic to tobacco smoke which literally takes my breath away. Rather than quietly accept my asthma diagnosis, I chose to put my efforts into volunteering for over 30 years for the American Lung Association and work towards supporting their fight for healthy air and lungs – from combatting air pollution and secondhand smoke to preventing children from ever starting to smoke.

By adopting these secondhand protections Piedmont will be joining the rest of the County as well as San Francisco and over 100 California cities which already have these protections.

The evidence is clear. Secondhand tobacco smoke kills 42,000 non-smoking Americans every year and sickens hundreds of thousands more, causing asthma attacks and worsening other conditions like diabetes, cancer, lung and cardiovascular diseases.

Most vulnerable are young children whose growing bodies absorb twice the toxins than adults do.

Children exposed to secondhand smoke are absent from school more frequently and are more likely to do poorly on tests than are children who are not exposed.

While smoking has been prohibited in most indoor workplaces since 1995, outdoor protections statewide have been limited to doorways of government buildings and around play structures in parks. It has been up to local cities to adopt additional protections like smoke-free parks, bus stops, dining, and doorways, to ensure that residents can safely enjoy public spaces.

Researchers have found that outdoor smoke, depending on proximity and weather conditions, can reach harmful levels to nearby non-smokers. All of the cities in Alameda County with the exception of Piedmont have adopted some outdoor smoke free air protections.

I was also pleased to see that our city leaders have agreed to consider including a smoke free buffer zone around our schools and electronic smoking device emissions in the smoke protections. While it is illegal to sell or furnish these devices to anyone under 18 in California, their use among children as young as 11 has tripled over the past three years, threatening to undermine 25 years of tobacco prevention education and policies which have cut the smoking rate in half in Alameda County.

Over 65 local California communities have added e-cigarette regulations into their existing secondhand smoke protections including Hayward, Dublin, San Leandro, Berkeley, Union City, El Cerrito, Walnut Creek, and Richmond.

I not only urge Piedmont residents to support the Council’s efforts to protect all residents from outdoor secondhand smoke, but to also urge the school community to explore how they can partner with the City in keeping tobacco and nicotine out of our shared air and out of our lungs.

Michael Gardner, Piedmont Resident and Member of the Piedmont Public Safety Committee

Editors’ Note:  The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.

Park Commission Meeting – Wednesday, October 1, 5:30 p.m. City Hall, 120 Vista Avenue.  The meeting will be live streamed on the City website and broadcast on Channel 27.  This public meeting will be recorded and minutes will be produced.

The Park Commission will receive an update on Measure WW funding based on Council action.  Linda-Kingston Triangle landscaping plans will be updated.  A drought update on EBMUD’s revised water restrictions will be provided.

The status of Hampton Field construction drawings will be considered.

At the September 15 City Council meeting, it was indicated by staff that work on plans for Blair Park has continued and there are some cost estimate revisions.  This item is not on the Park Commission’s October agenda.

In his latest account of the WW Park Bond saga, Councilman Jeff Wieler made several misstatements about the process. “Dozens of people” did not participate at the meetings (I attended two), a statement that could be corroborated had minutes been taken or the meetings videotaped.   The total cost for Blair Park is estimated at $900,000, but it is a phased project by design with the Phase 1 cost of $300,00 well under available WW funds of $507,325.  Applying the same logic to Hampton Field ($1.3M total) would make it ineligible.

As liaison to the Capital Improve Projects (CIP) Review Committee, Councilman Wieler could do everyone a service and explain why Blair Park was not considered as a phased project.   A lengthy CEQA process would not be required of Phase I for Blair Park, which is simply a rehabilitation of the natural area  – no change to existing use. A negative declaration is more likely and the CEQA analysis for Blair Field would more than address any impacts for the current park proposal.  The city has in its possession an analysis by LSA that
shows that a crosswalk to Blair Park is feasible and in any event, a crosswalk is not called for in Blair Park Phase I.  A principle FOMC [Friends of Moraga Canyon] argument was to maintain Blair Park as open space with better access – the threat of a lawsuit is a red herring.

The drainage problem at Hampton Field is largely going unaddressed – no drainage improvements to the play field will be made.  The “improved drainage” is actually a 4-foot plantar wall intended to screen a cell tower proposed for the slope above the courts.

“Negativity“ gets raised in lieu of informed discussion. Rather than resort to the ghost of Richard Nixon and Proverbs, Councilman Wieler should listen to Piedmonters.

The number one capital improvement project supported by residents in the 2007 General Plan Survey was improvements to the pool, a project considered not eligible for WW by the CIP Committee (It is eligible – look at the WW project list on the EBRPD website).  Moraga Canyon residents have been asking for decades that Blair Park be improved.  Citizen committees convened to study play field needs in town have consistently determined that access to Blair Park for parking or city operations is needed to expand Coaches Field.

The Recreation and Planning Commissions recommended that alternatives to the failed Blair Field proposal be considered for Blair Park.  Most of all, sports clubs have asked for increased field access, a concern Mr. Wieler claims to share. Yet with all that, WW is being used for routine court maintenance and park beautification instead of as leverage for new open space and recreation in Piedmont.  But as the Bible says:  “They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand.”  (Isaiah 44).  Ears too, it seems.

Garrett Keating, Former Councilmember

Editors’ Note: The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.

On Tuesday, September 23, 2014, around 8 p.m. in the City Council Chambers, 120 Vista Avenue, the Piedmont Unified School District School Board will review potential improvements for Piedmont High School’s Alan Harvey Theater.  The staff report states there will be:

“ Progress report on improvements supported by donor pledges
Staff will review the recommendations from the Steering Committee as to the priority projects in progress to maintain use of AHT.

 First of many opportunities for community input as to next steps
Community will have an opportunity (one of many) to provide feedback to the Board as to next steps. No Prop 39 bond measure may be brought for consideration in odd-numbered years. Therefore, 2016 is the first year a bond could be considered.”

Read the staff report pages 15 and 16.

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Some questions arose when voters recently* defeated the $13 to $15 million parcel tax measure for bonds to upgrade the Alan Harvey Theater:

1.  What is the total amount of existing Piedmont school bond obligations?

2.  Frequently, the School District mentions a State limitation on the amount school districts can borrow.  What is this limit for Piedmont and does it change annually as property values appreciate?

3.  Is the State limitation on Piedmont School District borrowing impacted by existing non-school (City, County, special districts) bond obligations?

4.  Why does an auditorium renovation cost $15 million when we were able to build an entire school (Havens) for $24 million?

5.  What will the total long and short term cost of borrowing $15 million dollars be?

6.  Some of the finest theaters in Europe use wooden seating for sound enhancement.  Since the current seating is in disrepair, has wooden seating been considered?  What other alternatives were considered?

7.  Were more modest alternatives thoroughly considered prior to the School Board decision to accept the proposed $13 – $15 million renovation plan?

8.   External community groups have expressed interest in use of the theater after it is renovated.  The School District will be faced with similar maintenance issues as with playfields and other school facilities.  Since the District, by State law, cannot charge users to maintain the facilities, what funding source will the District use to maintain the enhanced and larger theater plus new classrooms?

9.   Shouldn’t the seating capacity be increased rather than decreased?

10. Might there be an opportunity for the School District to obtain outside funding for the proposals?

11.  When designing the proposal, was thought given to increased community participation by architects, performers, and interested residents ?

12.  How could accessibility issues be addressed in a more cost-effective manner?

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The School Board meeting is open to the public.  It will be broadcast on Channel 27 and live streamed from the Piedmont website.  Recordings and minutes will be available following the meeting.

* In June 2014 Measure H was defeated with 1683 (52.40%) voting “No” and 1529 (47.60%) voting “Yes”.