October 12, 2021
The City Council adopted an ordinance amending the Los Altos Municipal Code by adding “Safe Storage of Firearms” in the City of Los Altos. See September 2021 for more on storage.
The City Council considered a City Council Member Censure Policy that applies only to the City of Los Altos Mayor, Vice Mayor, and City Councilmembers serving on the Los Altos City Council for improper conduct that could result in admonition or censure. Councilmembers Meadows and Weinberg agreed that it closes a loophole in the current written norms and procedures and is like policies in the cities of Los Gatos, Santa Clara, and Stockton.
The current policy of the Council is that all members shall abide by federal and state law, City ordinances, and City policies, including the Council Norms and Procedures. Violations of such law or policy can undermine the effectiveness of the Council as a whole and foster distrust from the public.
With this Accountability Policy the Council shall only admonish or censure a Councilmember if the Councilmember has violated a Law or Policy from the list above more than two times and the Councilmember has been publicly warned about such violations by other Councilmember/s and the Councilmember who received the warning continues to violate the Law or Policy a third time.
Public comments against the policy suggested that the added policy is politically motivated, punitive, and would cause further division in the city. According to statement by councilmember Lynette Lee Eng, the changes fail to acknowledge the cultural diversity in the community by council members. Vice-mayor Anita Enander spoke to the policy details and wondered whether it would provide real accountability. Public comment proponents stated that the change in policy would be directed to a clear violation to the law, norms, procedures, not because of differing opinion.
The Council adopted an Accountability Policy with a 3/2 vote.
For the final update on the twenty-two legislative bills of interest to the City Council, Governor Newsom signed three bills that City Council opposed: SB 8, SB 9, and SB 10 about housing. AB 361, signed by the governor, sets the end date of January 31, 2022, for City Council to hold meetings via Zoom/Facebook/You Tube under a declaration of ‘state of emergency.’ Assuming Covid-19 restrictions do not change, the Council will decide when to begin in-person meetings by that date.
October 26, 2021
As last step to complete the Los Altos Community Center Project the City Council authorized the Engineering Services Director to record a Notice of Completion as required by law.
Because methane gas is a super climate pollutant found at landfills, beginning with the AB 1826 regulations in 2016, Los Altos began its organic waste recycling program with Mission Trail Waste Management. In September 2016 Governor Brown signed SB 1381 as update on organic waste diversion which included Edible Food Recovery. The regulations for implementing the legislation were finalized in November 2020 by CalRecycle (California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery).
Because of SB 1381 Joint Ventures Silicon Valley developed county-wide regulations to streamline recycling projects for the cities. The City Council introduced a city ordinance amendment to address the regulations for businesses and residents, with minimum changes from the county recommendations, for solid, that is organic, waste collection, removal, disposal, processing, and recycling. The goal is 75% reduction in landfill disposal by 2025.
Second, the City Council introduced another ordinance amendment for Edible Food Recovery. Businesses must establish a system to recover and donate edibles to comply with a 20% reduction in landfill disposal by 2025. Los Altos businesses will make contracts with food recovery organizations to comply with the Edible Food Recovery program. City Council directed staff to place the ordinances on the Consent Calendar for adoption at the November 9, 2021, meeting.
Claire Noonan, Observer