January 14, 2025
At the first meeting with new mayor, Pete Dailey, the City Council approved a change for the Crossing Guard Program that ensures the safety of students in the Los Altos School District and MVLA High school District; and a small part of the Cupertino School District and Fremont Union High School District. The program is currently managed by third party All City Management Services (ACMS). The proposed change is to a city-based management system. The Human Resources department will manage the hiring. The Police Department will hire a Community Services Officer to manage the program. The city manager entered into an MOU with the relevant school districts to share costs for services provided.
Moving the crossing guard program to in-house results in cost savings to the city of approximately $140 thousand annually. Advantages for a city-based model are:
- Direct control to ensure crossing guards are well-trained and aligned with the City’s safety standards.
- Adjustment of staffing levels and deployment locations based on real-time needs. Employing local residents will foster community ties.
- Initial recruitment and ongoing salary and benefits oversight by the city HR department promotes operational efficiency.
Since the City Council’s decision to switch to a district election system for council elections, members have heard from the community about other options for council elections. First, consider becoming a charter city and so not having district elections. Second, use a Rank Choice Voting system to provide a chance for protected groups to be elected. Third, change how term limits for those elected are determined.
There are two types of cities in California: general law cities, like Los Altos, and charter cities. General law cities comply with the constitution and all state laws. A charter city complies with the constitution, but the charter may provide some exceptions for municipal affairs. One example is increasing real property transfer tax charges levied by state and local government when the property is sold to a new owner. To become a charter city there must be a vote of approval at an election and any amendments must have voter approval.
In recent times, the city has wanted to pursue certain initiatives that are only available to charter cities. For instance, residents have expressed a desire to examine other types of voting systems, such as Rank Choice Voting, currently not available to general law cities.
In addition, Los Altos currently has a limitation of two consecutive terms for council members approved in 1999 – Measure G. The existing provisions do not allow a cumulative maximum of two terms. Cumulative terms mean a member could serve a term, not be re-elected, but then serve another term if elected again. No decision was made on any of the options.
January 28, 2025
The City Council received the Flock pilot program report for usage of automated license plate readers (ALPR) by the Police Department. Flock is the vendor that offers the license plate readers. Los Altos Police Department has utilized the ALPR system technologies that assist in efforts to solve crime and locate at-risk missing persons beginning March 2024. Council agreed to the following to continue use of ALPR service:
- Continue the Police Department policy of annual external audits as well as quarterly internal audits. Although the ¾ of a year data (March to December) collected was a success, a full year of audits would be better.
- Allow the Police Department to change the policy about what can be searched for from ‘case/incident number and reason’ to ‘case/incident number or reason’. Use of ‘case/incident or reason’ search technique has been successful in other cities.
- Apply the California Values Act data-sharing agreement that all California Law Enforcement groups must use to agencies outside California that ask for data on stolen vehicles and other crimes.
Participation in the County of Santa Clara Weed Abatement Program was authorized on June 25, 2024. In August the county program identified 136 properties that needed to resolve their weed, brush, and/or rubbish problem. The county agency issued notices based on observations and photos taken by personnel as they drove around Los Altos neighborhoods in August 2024.
Half of the identified properties have completed clean-up. The City Council considered appeals from seven residents at this meeting. The appellants noted a number of reasons given for the program’s problems. Residents were not given advance notice of the program. The abatement notice did not sufficiently inform residents of what must be done to bring them into compliance. Native grasses were mis-identified as weeds. Some properties were in the middle of construction or change of ownership and needed an extension to complete the abatement. Other public comment suggested that continuing the abatement program would not work until the city figures out a better process with the county for sustaining it.
The city council received a report on the Parks, Arts, Recreation and Culture (PARC) Commission. The PARC Commission was formed in 2023 by combining two advisory commissions, the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Public Art Commission, thinking the two groups had overlapping priorities that might be better handled as one group. The PARC Commission created an annual work plan, approved in January 2024 by the City Council. The plan contains 8 impact areas that outline 13 objectives and a total of 22 deliverables. On noting that few of the objectives and deliverables had been achieved, the council asked for a report to discuss what to do to change the outcomes.
Three members of the public commented. One shared that the commission didn’t have its total membership for several months. They had not yet chosen a good process to overcome conflicts in their duties. They should have been able to work with the Council liaison to rework issues, rather than answer a report.
The council asked about the problems with approving the dog parks, with the refusal to allow MALA (a Muslim group) to have a program, and with difficulty working with the Los Altos History Museum. Council members said that the commission should have been more effective if they followed the approved work plan.
Of five options defined for PARC in the report, the council agreed to the option to meet on February 25 at the council meeting with PARC members. The outcome is to improve communications and initiate a plan for commissioners to work in line with achieving council directives.
Claire Noonan, Observer